One year ago, Apple promised breakthrough features to help iPhone, iPad, Mac owners with disabilities. It failed them
- Reference: 1593071648
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/25/apple_voice_control/
- Source link:
Voice Control was supposed to help those with disabilities better use all the features of their macOS and iOS gear, and in the process regain some independence.
One year on from that unveiling – see the video below for Apple's recap of the technology – Cupertino's heralded control tools are sorely lacking in a number of key areas, we're told, preventing folks from carrying out some of the basic tasks that keyboard and mouse-equipped users take for granted.
[1]Youtube Video
Garbled Google, and un-ending calls
Colin Hughes, a [2]past Reg contributor and disability rights advocate, said, despite all the fanfare, Voice Control is [3]maddeningly frustrating to use on a day-to-day basis.
"When Voice Control was unveiled at WWDC last year, Apple made a big deal of it, and the mainstream media reported it uncritically – probably out of ignorance as most journalists won’t ever need to rely on it as their only source of communication," Hughes told The Register yesterday. "The truth is, if you ask most severely physically disabled users, who can’t take to the keyboard, they will say they find Voice Control disappointing, particularly the accuracy of its dictation."
Among the most frustrating aspects of the software is its inability to perform a simple Google search properly. Hughes said that, when using Voice Control, the dictated query text is often mangled, spaces are left out, and other basic errors are inserted, leaving you with irrelevant or imprecise search results. This, he said, has been the case since Voice Control debuted last year.
Brit comms regulator Ofcom: Disabled left behind by tech [4]READ MORE
The Register asked Apple for comment, and was referred to the iGiant's support line. Hughes said he has tried to explain the software's shortcomings to Apple support to no avail.
It doesn't end with search. Hughes has encountered [5]a host of other problems with Voice Control preventing basic operations.
For example, using Siri on iOS devices, users can place a call by saying "Hey Siri, call…", but there's no "Hey Siri, end call" command. This isn't too much of a problem if the other person on the line can hang up and end the call for you. However, this does mean that if you call a number and go to voicemail, you have to wait until the mailbox times out before the call ends – which is frustrating for both parties.
Speaking of phone calls, Hughes told us Siri's Voice Control lacks the ability to accept an incoming call via voice command. There is an auto-answer feature but, well, we'll talk more about that later.
The bigger picture
Voice Control's failings aren't down to just one or two bugs or poorly implemented features. Rather, it's part of a larger problem stemming from Apple not quite understanding how people with disabilities or limited mobility use their Macs and iOS gear.
Take, if you will, the auto-answer function on the iPhone we mentioned above. This feature lets you receive calls without touching the screen, critical for folks who lack mobility or the ability to use their hands. Unfortunately, there is no option to enable auto-answer with your voice, meaning folks have to rely on – you guessed it – the touchscreen to turn it on.
Or, there's the issue that has been the bane of many a Brit who tries to interact with voice-recognition tech: dialects and accents. As with so many voice-control services, Apple's is tuned primarily for an American voice. Hughes, like other Brits, often runs into issues where Siri doesn't recognize commands or clearly hear his input.
This is made far worse by one key missing feature: the ability to fine-tune recognition and train the system on specific words. While vocabulary can be added, some words and names cannot be properly learned, it seems. Hughes said this is a problem when, for example, he wants to type the name of a Polish friend that Siri can't recognize.
"These are 'below the radar' features that won't bother many people but will be incredibly important for physically disabled people, and they are things I have been campaigning for the past couple years," he said. "Having them can literally make or break my day, my life even."
All of these problems start to add up, Hughes told us, to a highly frustrating experience for people who last year were really looking forward to iOS and Mac products that would work well for everyone, regardless of how they control their hardware.
"I feel Apple has behaved in a lip-service, patronizing-kind-of-way with Voice Control. It is not worthy of the Apple name or brand, it really is a very poor application and they need to fix it and invest in it if it is to be usable," he said. "Until they do, they have no right to claim how accessibility-friendly they are as a company, which they do very often."
This is all made worse by the fact that Apple is the only real game in town on its own kit, since market leader Nuance bailed from the Mac platform [6]in 2018 .
Hope on the horizon?
To be fair to Apple, there were a few accessibility-related features [7]shown off at this year's WWDC. It's also hoped Apple engineers will iron out the above flaws, and related shortcomings, in the upcoming iOS 14 and macOS 11.0 Big Sur releases. What is needed to ultimately solve the problem, Hughes said, is a shift in the way software development is approached, and not only by Apple.
"When I complain about accessibility on Apple devices, Android users say 'why don’t you get Android?' And Apple users contradict that and say Apple has a great record on accessibility," Hughes said. "My own view is if every company started with inclusive design we would be in a better place." ®
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[1] https://youtu.be/aqoXFCCTfm4
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/23/apple_iphone_story/
[3] https://www.aestumanda.com/technology/2020/06/4-ways-apple-can-improve-voice-control/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/15/ofcom_disabled_left_behind_by_tech/
[5] https://www.aestumanda.com/technology/2020/06/wwdc-2020-ultimate-accessibility-wish-list/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/30/mac_users_burned_after_nuance_drops_dragon_speech_to_text_software/
[7] https://developer.apple.com/videos/frameworks/accessibility
[8] https://go.theregister.com/tl/1956/-8477/running-your-modern-net-application-on-kubernetes?td=wptl1956
On the other hand, I have come across disability features in MacOS that stunned me. Did you know it can translate (crude) facial expressions into actions like "left mouse click"?
There's still a long way to go, but at least they're working on. ALL platforms can still do better IMHO.
Lack of Support
I think the lack of progress is typical of Apple's approach to many apps; they release them with a fanfare then ignore them and the users and rarely update them. Apple's voice recognition "keyboard" could be useful to me (I'm able bodied) but the lack of a 'return' command means that for many apps I would have to use the keyboard on the screen to finish a command. It's been like it for ever, it's been reported as a bug/feature request, it's been ignored. Similar problems exist in other apps that have been around for ever: Contacts app has only one line for UK street addresses and custom ring-tones reset randomly. Calendar reminders default to midnight. I could go on (and frequently do).
I have the impression that Apple, the people working on the next new thing are much more important than the people working on making them better. I guess it's because the new things get people into the walled garden and once they're in they don't leave.
Are any other phones any better in this area?
Blackberry derivatives will prob do better for sight impaired people at they have puttons - a smooth sheet of glass is of sod all use for people who are sight impaired.
Lack of engagement with disabled people
I get the impression from the article that able-bodied people at Apple have just got together and decided what features disabled people "need" rather than, you know, actually asking them and getting disabled people involved with the design, implementation and trialling of the project.
Re: Lack of engagement with disable people
That is an assumption, and it is incorrect.
They have disabled people involved, they actually employ several of them. The keynote of WWCD 2020 highlighted a few, if I recall correctly there's even a whole specific department for it.
Re: Lack of engagement with disable people
Well it sounds like there was something fundamentally wrong with Apple's approach if people can't do something a basic as ending a call using voice. What if two disabled people are talking to each other and neither of them can physically hang up the call, does it go on for days or until the phone's battery dies? I'd call that a serious fail of the most basic kind.
If that is true, then how can one get the impression that Apple doesn't know how disabled people work with a computer ?
Because that's what the author of the article wrote.
What are the penalties for excluding disabled people?
It makes me cringe to write this, but it reminds me of published guidance on website accessibility with regards to those who have - for just one example - visual impairments up to and including blind people.
Unfortuantely it isn't particularly well enforced. So you can get a web developer who makes a "beautiful" looking website and then goes "meh, making this accessible for screen readers is too much work / makes my work look un-sexy". If they take this approach, there are very few consequences. Theoretically they could be fined. When was the last time you heard about someone being fined for that?
UK Gov are apparently very focused on making all of their own digital assets accessible to those with disabilities. But you get the impression they don't really want to do this, they're just doing it to make it look like they comply with guidance - guidance which they probably don't even understand, or care about.
If there were severe penalties for producing any technology that was seen as exclusive (as in excluding) towards disabled people some of these companies may think twice about where they put their efforts.
Nokia had basic voice calling in 2007
Since that time things have gone downhill. Apple devices are of no appeal and I have never wanted one, but no one else has devices that can reliably operate in voice control mode. I am not disabled, though there are times when I really need voice control, such as after hand surgery, or when my hands are involved with such as dog walking, and other two-handed activities. I use a 4-year-old Android phone. Voice searching is only good for laughing at the stupid suggestions it comes up with when I want to call home. I suspect that someone, somewhere, possibly in a 'clean', noise free chamber has managed to get all these wonderful toys to work. In the outside world with noise, accents, imperfect acoustics and so on they are crap. Nokia had a good speaker dependant voice calling in the 2000s, others added thrills and spills, making voice no longer worth consideration for anyone. I have sympathy for those who are forced to use voice management full time. Post-operative experiences show their lives must be far more restricted than well-thought-out and implemented technology should allow. My problems affected me in the short term, theirs are life-long.
Hmm
Ableism in some of these posts is a little creepy!
Apple is far from perfect but disabled users use a huge variety of methods....also they employ several a-grade devs with disabilities - who aren't just working on accessibility I hasten to add.
Voice control isn't the magic bullet drawn here, worth doing but their work on switch control (iOS7) is a better bet for most users with physical disability and pretty ground breaking (first native scanning support on any platform mobile or desktop)
.....have a look at Christopher Hills videos https://www.youtube.com/user/icdhills/videos as a for instance.
Blind/VI users have migrated in droves to iOS/MacOS for VoiceOver - https://applevis.com/ is a good spot on this.
There's a ton of more trivial to implement accessibility stuff also in iOS - visual adaptations and screen reading etc
Toolchains have improved greatly too, but despite the native support the biggest issue you'll find in forums like AppleVis is software developers who don't create accessible products or understand the accessibility features provided by the OS.
I think the lack of progress can be down to disabled people not being the target demographic of Apple. Apple shiny’s are a lifestyle statement. “Look at me, everything is beautiful, and so am I and my Apple, were perfect!”.
To develop tools for the disabled is a passive admission that not everyone is perfect, and that some people need additional functionality to perform tasks. Apple on the other hand like to brag how they specialise in reducing tasks to a minimum compared to other platforms, they use it as a selling point.
If they start to offer additional functionality for disabled users, and it works, then you can bet that it will work just as well for the non-disabled and they will start to use it. Then suddenly apples minimalistuc UI is no longer it’s selling point. Better to do nothing and hope disabled customers go somewhere else and stop making the brand appear ugly.
Me cynical? I’ve found that with Apple I’ve never managed to run out of it. The cynicism just keeps flowing.