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Apple unveils new accessibility features

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Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#251

Post by primaprashant »

terabytest wrote: post #78
postalcoder wrote: post #64

One thing Apple really needs to get right is speech to text transcription. They've nailed accessibility in so many ways and yet it feels like they're a decade behind on properly transcribing voices. At least half a decade. Input on the iPhone is so dreadful nowadays. Their palm rejection is definitely worse than before, so mistyping is more frequent. Their text-correction algorithm for typing is worse than before, an…

Wispr Flow is a masterclass in STT. Apple's solution feels like it's from the last century in comparison. Same applies with Apple's TTS when you have ElevenLabs and OpenAI running laps around it. All I need is for my iPhone to do those things natively at the same quality level (because in Apple's walled garden that's the only way to get them usable everywhere).

I’d say STT is pretty much a solved problem. Everyday there is a new product and can be one-shotted by any current top of the line LLMs. Take a look at this [1]. Apple is just stuck in the past.

https://github.com/primaprashant/awesome-voice-typing

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#252

Post by primaprashant »

titzer wrote: post #189
Invictus0 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try wisprflow and then tell us it's good

I just installed this and already despise its pricing model. I trust this product approximately zero.

Open-source STT apps are plenty and just as good. Pick one from this list:

https://github.com/primaprashant/awesome-voice-typing

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#253

Post by georgel »

RobMurray wrote: post #201
jjice wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple's uses so few system resources and runs fully on device on newer iPhone models (16+ I believe). It's so efficient. I really enjoy using Handy with Parakeet as the model, but the system resource usage is a monster compared to Apple's (although very good). Looks like Wispr Flow uses a cloud model [0]: > Cloud based speech processing infrastructure for 1B users It gets to be a messy comparison because my iPhon…

Apple's stt has been on-device for a long time now, long before iPhone 16. I haven't noticed any improvements since my first ever iphone 5S. I'm pretty sure wispr flow can use on-device models. I use Voiceink[0] which can use parakeet models on-device and can optionally use cloud models.It's like night and day comparing Apple's to Voiceink. The only advantage I find to Apple's stt is less friction. 3rd party apps jus…

It's been around and available as an API to devs since at least 2021 in iOS. The problem was even on the best iPhone at that time, I could never get it past ~0.8x speed and after 15-20 minutes the device would heat up so much the display dimmed.

For context, I was working on a podcast app with on-device transcription, had to park that idea for years before it got to today's performance.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#254

Post by asadotzler »

abhinav-t wrote: post #162

These are pretty helpful features for differently abled people. I think it would be really cool if Apple made AI glasses that could communicate with the iPhone thus eliminating the need to point your phone at everything (especially, if you are moving outdoors or in a crowd).

We use "disabled people" these days. Or, "people with disabilities." There's debate around person first or not, but I'll leave that to you all to read up one. Regardless of where you come down on DP vs PWD, "differently abled" is a thing of the past.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#255

Post by skydhash »

skydhash wrote: post #166
kps wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I used to use iOS with text one step above the default size, and text was often cut off. I have a problem with astigmatic halation that makes ‘dark mode’ difficult to read. Since iOS 26, multiple aspects of the system have been made dark only, contrary to the system setting. Writing text correctly should be the lowest of low-hanging fruit. I suspect this is more of a flashy ‘AI’ promotion rather than reflective…

I had to set macOS on high contrast to be able to differentiate ui elements at glance. But most electron-based apps do not get the hint or even provide a high contrast theme.

I checked teams and it has one, but it’s a dark theme which is a no go given my astigmatism.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#256

Post by asadotzler »

seeeeebt wrote: post #56

Surely a blind person relies a lot on audio input?

Audio input is far more commonly used by people with mobility difficulties. Imagine that your hands shake a lot or that you don't have limbs. That makes using a keyboard and mouse difficult or impossible and voice input can help. Blind users generally use keyboards for input, the typical ones you find on a PC but also sometimes the keys on their Braille display.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#257

Post by Barbing »

phatskat wrote: post #215
Tagbert wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the Touch Bar seemed to be abandoned as soon as it launched. It only ever launched on the Pro line. There were never any feature updates. They never made it flexible enough for people to customize it.

> They never made it flexible enough for people to customize it. I feel like it was fairly customizable - the Mac system settings let you do a lot of drag and drop of controls, and I recall iTerm having a similar interface for customizing the bar in its own settings. I do think it should’ve been given a lot more love, but that’s Apple for ya I guess

Touchbar users, check BetterTouchTool for tons of options

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#258

Post by lern_too_spel »

kube-system wrote: post #169
lern_too_spel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These features have existed on Android devices for years. What Apple does best is marketing. https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2024/09/talkback-u...

I think the above person was making a commentary about the things Apple chooses not to do. Apple strategy is often to be intentionally last to market, after the dust settles.

The dust settled on these accessibility features years ago. Why would Apple choose not to do these things? Live captions in particular is useful even for those who are not hard of hearing because it lets people watch uncaptioned videos in environments that are too noisy or that need to be quiet.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#259

Post by donkyrf »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #194
JeremyHerrman wrote: post #168

Apple loves to stealth test new tech in full public view by sneaking it into relatively mundane places, so debuting agentic AI via accessibility is very on brand. A few other examples: - The Touch Bar was much more than an OLED strip, it was Apple’s first move in the transition to Apple Silicon on macs. The Apple T1 chip in the 2016 Touch Bar MacBooks was the first solely Apple-designed processor to appear in a Mac a…

Man I miss the touch bar. Never got why people hated it so much

I still have a personal Touch Bar MBP, and I find it annoying.

My problem is that I lightly rest my hands on the keyboard (including the f keys), and this habit is harmless on most Macs, but inadvertently activates the Touch Bar functions.

I actually like the idea a lot, and would probably love it if it required a little more pressure to activate.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#260

Post by RobMurray »

embedding-shape wrote: post #124
jchw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was at Google, I'd periodically test our (internal-only) app with Chromevox with the display off. It's not that it sounded like it would be easy, but it really is a challenge, and I can only imagine the muscle memory built up over time of trying to work around accessibility bugs and strange behaviors. Unfortunately it seems impossible to get all that much funding for accessibility work :/ I wonder what ever ha…

> I wonder what ever happened to the Newton accessibility bus intended to supplement Wayland... Hm, never heard about it, but now I'm wondering too. I just finished implementing proper accessibility support for my native app toolkit for Linux, macOS and Windows, but only done it for X11 so far, I was just gonna get started with Wayland. What is the accessibility story on Wayland, couldn't people rely on the same prot…

It's still AT-SPI for wayland, the main difference is how screen readers grab keyboard input events.[0] I don't think there is a big difference from a toolkit point of view. I don't personally have experience with Wayland because most blind people recommend Mate as being the most accessible desktop still.

Thanks for considering a11y for your toolkit - it really makes a difference to those of us who are disabled. Are you implementing a11y separately for each platform? If you use accesskit[1] you only have to implement it once for all platforms. I recently vibe coded accessibility for the Swell toolkit[2] used by Reaper. I have a branch using accesskit and a branch implementing at-spi. Accesskit made things a lot easier and more performant.

Let me know if you would like a screen reader user to help with testing your toolkit.

[0] https://lwn.net/Articles/1025127/

[1] https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit

[2] https://github.com/RDMurray/WDL/tree/accesskit

and my fork of accesskit with some features and fixes for unix: https://github.com/RDMurray/accesskit/tree/swell-fixes

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