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NOVEMBER 12, 2003
By Alex Salkever A Failing for Apple in the Classroom Visually impaired students now lack a Mac screen reader. That could hurt school sales -- and put Jobs & Co. on the wrong side of the ADA On June 10, small software developer ALVA Access Group announced that it would no longer support or build new versions of two products for blind and visually impaired Apple users. One, inLarge, allows users to zoom in on a section of the screen, making the letters, numbers, and outlines appear much larger. It became redundant when Apple included that capability in OS X. The other program, outSPOKEN, was a screen reader that could speak text and describe graphics and pictures. Such devices are essential to people with severe visual impairment who can't use computers otherwise. And outSPOKEN was the only such screen reader for Macs on the market. So the announcement elicited a good deal of concern from the blind community. SWITCH TO WINDOWS? It has also caused concern at Apple (AAPL ) headquarters -- and for good reason. The lack of a screen reader could threaten its push for one-to-one computing initiatives in big public school systems, where each pupil gets a laptop (see BW Online, 11/4/03, "A Classroom Comeback for Apple?"). Apple's largest victory thus far has been a contract with the state of Maine to give laptops to all seventh- and eighth-grade pupils, a $37 million, four-year deal that Jobs & Co. regularly points to as evidence of their success in one-to-one computing. Apple execs have touted the initiative as the future of educational computing in elementary, middle, and high schools. Without screen-reader software, however, blind pupils can't use Apple products and would be forced to turn to Windows products instead (two viable screen readers for Windows are on the market today). The reason: School systems buying Apple products today are knowingly purchasing systems that can't be used by all their pupils, which runs counter to the Americans with Disabilities Act. "VERY ANNOYED." Equal-access advocates are up in arms. "I think it's horrible," says Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation for the Blind in Computer Science. Giving blind students Apples will "further isolate blind kids who are already isolated from the basic school population. I'm very annoyed at Apple," says Chong. Good screen readers go way beyond the spoken-text capabilities that have long been a Mac feature. Today, they not only convert text and images to speech output but can also handle the different command structures and quirks of hundreds of commonly used programs, from e-mailers to spreadsheets. School districts would have to buy not only a comparable Windows PC but PC licenses for all the same software as well. But in some cases, no non-Apple alternative exists. In Henrico County, Va., where the school district has leased 28,000 iBooks in the second-biggest one-to-one computing initiative to date, Apple's iLife suite has become an integral part of class projects. No comparable suite exists in the Windows world. LEFT IN THE LURCH. In a worst-case scenario, Apple's dearth of blind-friendly software could be construed as a violation of federal accessibility guidelines under the ADA. Chong says some talk of lawsuits against school districts has already started circulating in the activist community. None have been filed to date. Maine's Education Dept. says only three totally blind pupils have been affected by the Apple initiative, and all have received satisfactory PC substitutes. Maine may not be a good test case, though. It has a very low percentage of totally blind students in public schools compared to other states. In any case, you can bet that Dell (DELL ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), and other big competitors have spotted the issue and will make sure that school tech buyers know that Apple has a major flaw. To be fair, the situation isn't entirely Apple's fault. CEO Steve Jobs himself can't force third-party software companies to continue developing products they don't want to build. And Apple can't be expected to pick up the slack for every third-party developer that leaves Mac users in the lurch.
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