Food for thought: A Perspective from a Blind Person’s Experience

I have often privately been accused of being an “Apple fan boy” by some in the past. Perhaps, to some degree, this might be true. However, as a blind user of technology, my “loyalty” and overall opinions are based on experience and interactions with my clients and other users.

Thus, I am going to post to consecutive articles in this posting from a clcient I worked with in the past, Donna Jodhan. More than that, she has become a friend, and I value her opinions quite a bit. The following might seem “controversal” to some in regard to the nature of this website, but I feel that Donna makes some valid points here. Also keep in mind that I walked her journey with her and can attest to her experiences.

I will preface the following by indicating that there are efforts behind the scenes to “correct” or “fix” the exam issues mentioned in the articles, but that has yet to come to pass as actually “moving” in that direction at the date of this post.

Here is Donna’s words with her first article:

The Apple announcement

In response to an Apple announcement on December 19 2023, I write the following and respectfully ask the Apple team to respond to my queries by writing to me at donnajodhan@gmail.com.

In 2021, I successfully completed an Apple certification Support Professional certification with the assistance of a Procter through the Pearson Onvue company. However, I sadly state that Pearson’s online system failed to accommodate my needs as a vision impaired person despite having had a proctor to assist me. For starters, the promised additional time that Pearson said that they would give to me to complete my exam did not materialize.
Next, my qualified proctor had great difficulty describing images within questions, and finally he had to spend a great deal of time ensuring that I understood several of the questions based on their structure.
In short, it was impossible for me to complete my exam independently as a vision impaired person.

Upon contacting Pearson to engage with them to see how they could make their exams more accessible to vision impaired persons, I was quite shocked that in actuality they did not test their online system before hand for accessibility. In addition, the Apple team emphatically stated that the onus would be on Pearson to make their exams accessible to me.

Yes; I succeeded in passing my exam but the experience on the whole was nerve racking and it did not help that during the course of my engagement, the Pearson team wanted me to sign an NDA while at the same time refusing to pay me for my time.

I continue to hear horror stories of blind/vision impaired persons continuing to encounter insurmountable challenges when attempting to write various Apple exams and I am now respectfully asking both Apple and Pearson to have an open engagement with me to see how we can rectify this. For after all; Apple says that access matters so now it is time for to put their money where their mouth is.

The following is the Apple announcement.
Updated course content and exams based on iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma.

On December 19, Apple launched exciting new updates, including course content and exams based on iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma.
Here’s what’s changed:
Apple Device Support introduces you to the skills, tools, and knowledge you need to support and troubleshoot Apple devices in an organization as a level 1 or 2 help desk professional.
The prerequisite to pass the Apple Device Support exam prior to the Apple Deployment and Management exam has been removed. IT professionals now have more flexibility to take the course and exam that align better with their role.
The courses are free, open to the public, and available online. Exams cost $149 USD and are delivered in an online-proctored format through Pearson OnVUE .
If it’s been a while, consider earning these new industry-recognized certifications from Apple. Visit the Apple Training website for more information.

Apple Deployment and Management introduces you to the tools, services, and best practices you need to deploy, secure, and manage Apple devices at scale in organizations.
Each course is self-paced, and includes articles, tutorials, and linked resources. Use the Planning for the Exam section and sample questions to help you prepare for the exam. If you pass the exam, you earn the corresponding digital badge, which is valid for 2 years from the date issued by Apple.

Just my two cents for today.
Image = A green apple whose surface is cracked and full of deep fissures.

To learn more about me as an award winning sight loss coach and advocate visit www.donnajodhan.com

Article #2:

What does Apple really mean by the slogan access matters?

I am respectfully asking the Apple company to enlighten us further! For whereas I would consider this slogan to be one that can probably give us hope, there needs to be more than this to convince persons with disabilities that Apple and other technology giants are prepared to walk the talk.

For too long we have been hearing and listening to those high profile technology companies tell us that yes! They are committed to ensuring that accessibility is important and that they are going to work to ensure that persons with disabilities are not being left behind but alas!
We are still waiting for concrete action! We continue to wait for them to develop software, hardware, apps, and websites that show us that indeed! Access matters!
We continue to wait for them to start engaging in meaningful communication! We continue to wait for them to use their influence to pressure their third party vendors to get serious when it comes to using user testers with lived experience to test and verify their products.

So when Apple tells us “access matters”, we need more than lip service! Show us that you mean it! Show us that you will take the next step and do it now instead of maybe tomorrow!
This is my call for other technology giants to do the same! Apple is not the only culprit here!
Time to get going!

Just my two cents for today.
Image = A green apple whose surface is cracked and full of deep fissures.

To learn more about me as an award winning sight loss coach and advocate visit www.donnajodhan.com

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Mac for the Blind Fall 2023 Online Courses Announcement

Mac for the Blind is proud to announce the continuation of the online courses series!

Please pass this announcement along to as many people or email lists as you feel would benefit from this information.

After the success with the previous online courses and requests from several people, I will be conducting five more classes into the middle of December. I’m going to be doing things a little differently this time around, however. These courses will be a five part series all involving VoiceOver and the Mac that will be geared for people who might be seriously considering the purchase of a Mac, people who are just getting started with their Mac, or users who are experienced but want to sure up their knowledge. The first course will be free to everyone, but the four subsequent sessions will be $20.00 to register separately with a $70.00 cost for those who would like to register for all four paid courses at once. You can, of course, pick and choose what courses you prefer, but understand that I will be teaching the material in a series with the assumption that participants have been exposed to the previous sessions. Again, these will all be held via Zoom in the same manner as the previous courses with the Zoom links being sent directly to you when the course date approaches..

Please click on the link below for specific details and instructions. Read the information carefully, and note that even if you are choosing the free course, you will still be adding the course to your shopping cart for checkout. You will receive a confirmation email for each course you select.

Click for more information here

I thank you in advance for your interest in the online courses and I hope to meet you all again in Zoom!

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iOS 17 and iPadOS 17

With iOS 17 and iPadOs coming soon, I am posting a link for the known bugs that have been collected by the good folks at Applevis. Again, as they state, understand that not everyone experiences all of the bugs they present, but being aware and prepared is better than not knowing at all.

ios-17-ipados-17-accessibility-report-card

Also, on Tuesday, September 12, Apple held another event . In this case, it was to announce the releases of the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and the iPhone 15 lineup. To make it easy, you can:
see here for the details

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Mac for the Blind Spring 2023 Online Courses

Mac for the Blind is proud to announce the continuation of the online courses series!

Please pass this announcement along to as many people or lists as you feel would benefit from this information.

After the success with the previous online courses and requests from several people, I will be conducting six more classes into the middle of June. Three courses are free and three involve a registration fee of $20.00. They will also cover a mixture of Mac and/or iOS material. Please feel free to register to as many or as few as you feel you would want to attend. Again, these will all be held via Zoom in the same manner as the previous courses with the Zoom links being sent directly to you when the course date approaches..

Please click on the link below for specific details and instructions. Read the information carefully, and note that even if you are choosing the free courses, you will still be adding the course to your shopping cart for checkout. You will receive a confirmation email for each course you select.

Click for more information here

I thank you in advance for your interest in the online courses and I hope to meet you all again in Zoom!

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Mac for the Blind Fall 2022 Online Courses

Mac for the Blind is proud to announce the continuation of the online courses series!
Please pass this announcement along to as many people or lists as you feel would benefit from this information.

After the success with the previous online courses and requests from several people, I will be conducting six more classes into the middle of December. Three courses are free and three involve a registration fee of $20.00. They will also cover a mixture of Mac and/or iOS material. Please feel free to register to as many or as few as you feel you would want to attend. Again, these will all be held via Zoom in the same manner as the previous courses with the Zoom links being sent directly to you when the course date approaches..

Please click on the link below for specific details and instructions. Read the information carefully, and note that even if you are choosing the free courses, you will still be adding the course to your shopping cart for checkout. You will receive a confirmation email for each course you select.

Note: There might be a delay in confirmations of registrations between September 20 and October 6, as I will be away and will have limited email or internet. I will, though, make sure everyone is registered and notified of their registration when I return.

Click for more information here

I thank you in advance for your interest in the online courses and I hope to meet you all again in Zoom!

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Special Invitation for Apple Users

A May 22 2021 invitation
Opened to all interested persons across North America and beyond!

Date: Saturday May 22 2021
Time: 1 pm Eastern
Title: Let’s talk Apple

World renowned Apple trainer and consultant John Panarese and
Apple Certified support professional Donna Jodhan
Are pleased to announce the following special event

On May 22 John and Donna will be hosting a very special and unique event!
A Zoom session to give you the chance to share your thoughts and suggestions as to how Apple can further enhance and improve its products to meet the requirements of blind and vision impaired persons and for you to share some of your dreams and visions as to how we can foster more collaboration with Apple.

We are very excited about this event as it is probably one of the first of its kind.
We are hoping to attract many participants and because we want to ensure maximum participation we will limit the number of persons signing up to 50 and should there be a demand from more than this then we would be happy to host more than one zoom session.

Description
John and Donna will host a 90 minute session consisting of three segments.
Segment one will last for approximately 40 minutes where you will have a chance to share your thoughts and comments with others about the Mac.
Tell us what you think could be another revolution or enhancement or challenge that Apple should be aware of.

Segment two will last for approximately 30 minutes where you will have a chance to share your thoughts and comments with others.
In this session we will turn your attention to IOS devices and ask for your input in a similar manner to segment one.

Segment three will be one where the floor will be opened to your questions directed to John and Donna.
You will have an opportunity to ask any of your favourite questions.

All of your feedback will be shared with Apple and rest assured that identities of respondents will be kept strictly confidential.

To register, please send an email to john@macfortheblind.com no later than noon Eastern on Friday May 21.
Zoom details will be sent to you closer to the date of May 22 2021

We look forward to welcoming you to our May 21 2021 Zoom session.

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Mac for the Blind is proud to announce the continuation of the Mac for the Blind Online Courses! The planned courses will run through the Winter and early spring of 2021.

Click to see the new course list here

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Mac for the Blind is proud to announce the continuation of the Mac for the Blind Online Courses!


Click for more information here

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New iPad Pro models released by Apple with Interesting features and Updates to the Mac Book Air and Mac mini Models as well

Since Apple is not holding an official event because of current circumstances, they did release updates to the iPad Pro, Mac Book Air and Mac mini lines. For your convenience, a client of mine, Frank, sent me this link that summarizes everything.

Apple Just Made the Biggest Change to iPad

These are the iPad Pro models that are effected. Unfortunately, I don’t currently own an iPad Pro and probably won’t purchase one yet.

The Mac Book Air has a new keyboard that replaces the problematic butterfly style keyboard, and the specs have also increased with the price point coming down. As for the Mac Mini, they doubled storage capastities, but left the price point in place.

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Holiday19 Coupon is available for all audio Tutorials and Apple Slices

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all from Mac for the Blind.

Once again, to celebrate this time of year, all of the
Audio tutorials
and
Apple Slices
are available with a discount coupon code. In this case, it’s Holiday19, and one will receive 25 percent off of any purchase with bulk discounts also available.

Look for new audio tutorials in 2020, as I will be looking at the existing ones for and have suggestions and ideas for future additions. Of course, anything else that you might want to see be made available can still be submitted to me.

I thank all for your continued support, and I look forward to providing more training materials in the upcoming new year!

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