Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Accessibility With Three Accessibility Activists

[AppleMiko]

see:

http://www.aapd.com/disability-equality-index/

Apple is nowhere on the list, which is unacceptable for a company of their 'stature' that prattles on about how socially conscious they claim to be.

Sure, a lot of companies are not on the list, but until Apple IS on the list, they have no credibility to publish this type of emotional advertising.

Essentially, they can sell to the disabled, but do not support them as an employer.

Apple's performance in the area of disability support does not match their message.

Your logic is completely backwards.

Apple is the company empowering, through the technologies on the devices that they build, many of the people who work for these other companies to do their job to best of their ability, and in spite of their disability.

These lists encourage the very practice that you accuse Apple of taking part in. Companies are audited and threatened that "if they don't score high marks, they'll be looked at negatively in the public", so they check off their boxes and score 100% for compliance. Meanwhile, Apple is actually the one spending $$$ to make tech accessible and building more awareness and advocacy to their cause than any comment you could think of posting to MR.

Point blank, Apple and anyone who is contributing to this space should be praised and recognized, not lambasted for their efforts, regardless of how big or small, because it gets the conversation going.

And lastly, these individuals posted the videos to their own youtube accounts.. Apple didn't publish it.

 

[kaneda]

I like it when Tim does these things.

"And so just like human rights are for everyone"

It's amazing, when reading the US Constitution that the Bill of Rights applies to people; I don't see the word, "citizen" in there anywhere in Amendments 1-10 and 27.

US Constitution is only applied to people in the US, because it is US Constitution and not earth constitution. Apple is not a country. They made products for consumers all over the world, but you noticed for Tim Cooks human rights talk only in the US, and not in China or India.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

US Constitution is only applied to people in the US, because it is US Constitution and not earth constitution. Apple is not a country. They made products for consumers all over the world.

Understood, however, the US Constitution is a key document in the evolution of Human Rights.

It simply states that the Government is there to protect those rights, and those rights are not given to you by it, only protected or taken away by them. (taken in context with the Declaration of Independence)

From http://www.humanrights.com/what-are-human-rights/brief-history/
Documents asserting individual rights, such as the Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), the US Constitution (1787), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and the US Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many of today’s human rights documents.

 

[ConfusedChris]

Too bad iOS is less accessible than ever

I suggest you download the iPad/iPhone manual for iOS 10.3. The accessibility section is pretty extensive.

As for me, I use AssistiveTouch. Partially for mobility reasons, but also because Home Buttons keep failing here! (iPad)

 

[canadianreader]

I like when my iPad and my iPhone read my books out loud love it love it love it two find swipe from the top and you're good to go.

 

[d0nK]

"Everyone should have equal access"

Proceeds to increase every products base price for the last 5 years.

I'm outta there on principle.
My 2011 15" mbp cost me £1550. To buy the equivalent 15" mbp in 2017 would cost me £2700.
Nope!
I'd love to access a new mbp but the 2017 price is simply ridiculous.
Even if I can afford it I'm not stupid.
I hope Tim goes soon and Apple can begin a new lease of life.
The excitement and joy has gone. These days I just feel ripped of with every single decision they make.

 

[-BigMac-]

Apple = Greed = No longer a customer, not the cost more the principle...

Q-6

I run a hackintosh. Win win for me. Running the gtx 980, dual booting with windows

 

[MH01]

Tim meant that anybody who is in the Apple ecosystem has access to all these accessibility technologies out of the box. And he's absolutely right about that.

So you don't see the irony that to get access to Tims ecosystem , you have to have more and more money these days.

Fundamentally even as someone with 20/20 vision , omission of a physical
ESC key is a poor experience , though don't worry I'm in the ecosystem and fixed the poor accessibility of the new MacBook Pro, I returned it, and got a 2015 model. Out of the box it's a superior unit . I can even access all my companies AV equipment out of the box without carrying assortment of dongles each day....
[doublepost=1495169746][/doublepost]

I'm outta there on principle.
My 2011 15" mbp cost me £1550. To buy the equivalent 15" mbp in 2017 would cost me £2700.
Nope!
I'd love to access a new mbp but the 2017 price is simply ridiculous.
Even if I can afford it I'm not stupid.
I hope Tim goes soon and Apple can begin a new lease of life.
The excitement and joy has gone. These days I just feel ripped of with every single decision they make.

Spot on. I still love the ecosystem though hate how tim is killing apple wih greed while he pretends he cares so much. So fake. I got a 2015 maxed out refurb for almost 1/2 the price of the 2017 MacBook Pro, disgusting that a top end MacBook Pro is now £4000, iPhone £1000+ with AppleCare ....all the prices a ripoff . The sooner he is gone and apple starts focusing on innovation and products again, instead of profits, apple can become great again, and not a stupid fashion company Tim / Angela are pushing for, she ruined Burberry , prices sky rocketed and quality never changed, Tim is doing the same at apple .

 

[developer13245]

I disagree. Companies aren't "selected" to be in the list. They register and complete a survey. The survey is a tool, a tool designed to help companies move towards "accessibility." Why would Apple use such a tool if they believe they are already beyond? If they did complete the survey and happen to score well, people would accuse them of a PR stunt. Only ~80 companies have even used the tool since its inception, so this isn't some type of alpha omega list that entitles someone to make or not make a statement about something.

Also, did you notice the very first areas covered by the survey are 1) company culture and 2) leadership? These interviews by Mr. Cook precisely serve both of those areas. Public statements/interviews like this do much to influence culture within the company, especially one of Apple's size. There is a big difference in company cultural influence when making a speech/statement to employees vs making one to the would. Of course, you said he shouldn't be making statements because Apple isn't on the list. Hmm.

If Apple was "beyond" AAPD standards they would be on the list. AND, Apple would be engaged with and supporting AAPD with the goal of moving the entire community forward. Companies engage AAPD to promote community based open standards for promoting disability employment. If Apple has some secret "gold" method to support disabled people in the workplace, then NOT engaging the community is a blatant lack of leadership.

Apple retails hires more people with disabilities than I've seen anyone else do in the tech space. I know many friends within my community who work as Geniuses, Specialists, Creatives, and even Managers(Leaders). These same people are blind, deaf, autistic, wheel-chair users, service/guide dog users, etc. I know at least 14 people with disabilities personally, and have met even more briefly. During my trip at corporate this past week, there wasn't anything different. Many people with disabilities are employed by Apple from contractors, to corporate employees. Just because they're not listed on a website doesn't mean you can speak for many of us and who employs us. Every person featured with a disability in Apple's ads are people with disabilities in the entertainment industry, a place often overshadowed by able-bodied actors taking roles from PWDs and playing disabled characters themselves. Hope that sheds some light on the facts.

I'm sure these employees are very capable, but Retail is the most publicly visible part of Apple.

Apple employs people with disabilities. Hell, they had a blind engineer on stage at WWDC a few years ago demoing the Accessibility features he helped build.

Again, high visibility. Marketing. What are the disability employment metrics for ALL of Apple's engineering departments?

[doublepost=1495174169][/doublepost]

Your logic is completely backwards.

Apple is the company empowering, through the technologies on the devices that they build, many of the people who work for these other companies to do their job to best of their ability, and in spite of their disability.

These lists encourage the very practice that you accuse Apple of taking part in. Companies are audited and threatened that "if they don't score high marks, they'll be looked at negatively in the public", so they check off their boxes and score 100% for compliance. Meanwhile, Apple is actually the one spending $$$ to make tech accessible and building more awareness and advocacy to their cause than any comment you could think of posting to MR.

Point blank, Apple and anyone who is contributing to this space should be praised and recognized, not lambasted for their efforts, regardless of how big or small, because it gets the conversation going.

And lastly, these individuals posted the videos to their own youtube accounts.. Apple didn't publish it.

Again, I never said Apple throws disabled persons off of buildings.

Also, the videos were shot on Apple's campus so APPLE owns them and all copyrights to them. The individuals were only able to post on their respective accounts them because Apple granted them the permission to do so. Apple only granted this permission after approving the final edits of each video. The interview scripts and questions were approved in advance and there were pages of legal agreements to sign before the individuals were allowed anywhere near Apple's campus with a camera.

Again, given Apple's self proclaimed position of global leadership in all things considered socially conscious, they should meet and surpass AAPDs standards, and also have demonstrable accomplishments of how they move AAPD and the entire community of disabled persons forward.

 

[MH01]

Facts
[doublepost=1495131831][/doublepost]I am a blind apple user. I have the new MacBook Pro with touch bar. And, I have an iPhone 7. No complaints
[doublepost=1495131945][/doublepost]
I am a blind apple user, and I have the new MacBook Pro with touch bar. I use voice over, and the touch bar works fine with it. So I have no idea what your talking about

I'm glad you are happy, I have excellent vision for my age, and the lack of physical ESC key and physical keys meant my experience was negative compared to 2015.

A lot revolves around mental memory , and those keys no longer there. Anyway I'm not visually impaired so I would do such a debate injustice. I'll take your word the experience is good

 

[diipii]

Who bought the coffees ?

 

[eanwhite]

Still no native support for the Dvorak keyboard layouts for on-screen iOS keyboards. Such a simple and cheap step to take for greater accessibility, the choice to ignore this makes no sense. Yes, voice over is fantastic--and a lot sexier than a boring keyboard layout--but people still use text entry even if they have only one or two fingers available.

 

[Cameront9]

In the Tapatalk client they don't. Hopefully it's not YouTube automatic captions, which are terrible and usually just make matters worse.

The Rikki Poynter one is not Automatic captions, it's real captions. Don't know about the others; I haven't watched. I suppose that's up to the content creators, not Apple.

I have found the automatic captions have gotten significantly better over the last few years, though.

 

[Swift]

I like it when Tim does these things.

"And so just like human rights are for everyone"

It's amazing, when reading the US Constitution that the Bill of Rights applies to people; I don't see the word, "citizen" in there anywhere in Amendments 1-10 and 27.

In decision after decision of the Supreme Court, the find that, aside from obvious exceptions-- voting is only for citizens-- "all U.S. persons," people who live here in any status-- have the rights according to them by the constitution, or by universal human rights.

Secret: since Apple's main study is human interface, working out the details of how to provide good, simple and intuitive interfaces for everyone, regardless of their vision, hearing or mobility, is a great way to gain insights that work for everyone.

 

[t.portis]

Facts
[doublepost=1495131831][/doublepost]I am a blind apple user. I have the new MacBook Pro with touch bar. And, I have an iPhone 7. No complaints
[doublepost=1495131945][/doublepost]
I am a blind apple user, and I have the new MacBook Pro with touch bar. I use voice over, and the touch bar works fine with it. So I have no idea what your talking about

That's because you're an actual person with a disability talking about owning and using the technology. You are not someone who thinks they understand blindness and technology because they listen to Stevie Wonder.

 

[ZapNZs]

Apple devices are incredibly accessible - they do a damned fine job at this. However, a huge portion of the people who can benefit most from this accessibility are living on a fixed income and may be unable to afford Apple products. For that matter, many of the nonprofits that serve these individuals are also on a fixed budget, and may face the same issue. Sadly, I don't think there is any easy to answer to that issue considering the best assistive technology/devices often do have prohibitively high price tags, often as an outcome of being so good.