For non-FOSS products, it's even worse. There is no way to tell Amazon that, for the past several months, their library view for Kindle on iOS was inaccessible to VoiceOver, with the books having no accessibility label, and the only way one can tell what book they're about to open is through VoiceOver's tiny on-device image describer model. Of course, in iOS 27 (beta currently) this is improved, but it shouldn't have to be. The last few versions of Kindle has begun fixing this, but last time I tried, about a week ago, it could easily break even just by my scrolling the view a few times.

So I don't even bother anymore. If Google can stand having poor Braille support on Android, fine, I'll use an iPhone. If Apple can stand having awful Google Docs support, which I use at work, on MacOS, I'll use Windows or even Linux where it works fine. If an image isn't described, I will put it through AI. If a page doesn't work well with a screen reader, I'll send it through AI too. If I want to play a video game where 99% of them do not have spoken menus, but I can enjoy the actual gameplay, I'll ask AI which menu option I'm on.

I've come to feel that life is so miserable when I and only a few others fight and fight for accessibility. If it works, it only works for a moment. So I just lean on AI because it can "see" a lot better than I can. Besides, people have used AI to make accessibility mods for Final Fantasy 1 through 6, the pixel-remaster versions. So when terminally angry people come at me for my use of AI, I just don't care anymore. Let them go blind and see how it feels.

https://www.intheweights.com/p/devin-prater

Well, I have barely anything to show for months of this. I made Termux more accessible on Android, made an MUD client for Emacs, fixed up some Emacspeak stuff because it's been abandonned going on 3 years now, and Emacs packages wait for no one, and tried added Grade 2 Braille entry support to BRLTTY. That failed because depression sucks and who would even use this vibe coded junk anyway.

The more open nature of Android made it rather easier. How far behind in features TalkBack is compared to VoiceOver, besides AI image description, made it feel like trying to heal a broken arm with pain pills. So I'm trying to tell myself that I can't fix everything, and that it's not my fault if other people, and companies, choose to not consider accessibility. I mean I can't help Google if they choose to not be helped.

Ah well, Global Accessibility Awareness Day is this Thursday. Maybe Apple will finally announce LLM image descriptions, and hopefully my iPhone 16 will be good enough for them because I can't afford to upgrade in this economy.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497227

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

Spoken like a true AI.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47128409

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47123028

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

And because it's all controlled by me, I can tell it how to have the package speak, what it should ignore, and I'm not stuck with whatever some sighted person at some big company thinks a blind person wants. Everything should at most be open source, and at least be hackable.

All that to say, AI has helped me out a ton. Now I can be as productive as Emacs, and a Linux terminal, and maybe one day a Linux GUI with real Firefox and such, allows. And it would have *never* happened without AI.

So let's please do continue bringing on the AI. Make it smart and local, so I can have continuous AI descriptions right on my phone, with the ability to screen share or even agent-control my phone to get around inaccessible apps. Oh and fix AI app accessibility so the app sends output to screen readers when I type to it cause I hate talking to my phone and not every blind person wants to speak all the time. Ugh I hate that stereotype.