MD Testing

#Test Post
I’ve tried twice today to post a real, uh, post. Unfortunately, WordPress is doing funny things with the formatting. So I’m putting this test post up here to see what happens. Part of the problem is that this symbol: — is being replaced with weird characters–let’s see if that’s still happening.

#Heading level 1
At least, it should be. Here’s a list:

• i1
• i2

##Subheading Thingy
Here’s a
test link
to see if that’s working.

#Okay?
Did all this do what it was supposed to do? I hope so!

iPhone Plus Dog Equals Amazing Navigation

Today there was a local festival just under three miles from my house. My mother and sister headed down around 1630, and I decided to walk down a bit later to meet them. I knew roughly where the event was, but I was not sure exactly how to get there. Plus, I did not know just where my family would be.

The bulk of the walk was uneventful – a route Cosby (my Guiding Eyes guide dog) and I have taken many times before. As I neared the festival area, though, I was not sure where to go. So, out came the iPhone, and the super cool part began.

First, I opened Blind Square, a GPS app designed for the visually impaired. I knew I had to turn on a certain street, but I was not positive about that street’s location; with Blind Square telling me each intersection as I came to it, finding the proper street was easy. Then, I opened the Find Friends app and looked at the location of my mother’s phone. I opened that address in the Maps app, and got a route to the location. As I walked along, Blind Square told me all the intersections, while the voice of Siri told me where to turn. At that point, Blind Square was technically superfluous, but it was nice to have it confirming that I was indeed on the streets Apple Maps thought I should be.

Cosby and I reached the area with no problems. Once there, I found a barrier preventing me from taking the last hundred yards of my route, but I called my family and we soon met up. The place was crowded with distractions for Cosby – food and children are his big ones – but he did an admirable job of ignoring everything and stain on task. Once we’d met up, my phone was no longer necessary, and Cosby really shined. He followed my family, even as we wove through children scattered in groups on the grass or went past people holding food. I only ran into one person the entire time I was there, and, except for that time, I never had to correct Cosby at all.

Between my guide dog and my iPhone’s amazing abilities working flawlessly, it was a very enjoyable experience. I know many people have this kind of thing happen to them all the time, but I have never done it before and I just wanted to share what a great feeling it is to be so empowered in terms of navigation. With my phone to give directions, and my guide dog to help me follow those directions safely… Well, it’s a wonderful feeling. That’s not to say I never walk anywhere, but I’ve never navigated to a new area, encountered large crowds, and tried to locate someone else, all in one go. The fact that I was able to do everything with no difficulty is, to me, incredible.

I’m Done with Braille Notetakers

I have used a Braillenote since I got my Classic in 2002. It was the first-generation motherboard, the one with no Compactflash card slot; it needed a hardware update just so it could receive email, and it came with Keysoft 3.06 on Windows CE 2.12. I even remember its serial number, all these years later: 12494.

Fast forward twelve years. Humanware has released the BrailleNote mPower, PK, and Apex, and we are now on Keysoft 9.4.1, running under Windows CE 6. A major competitor has come on the scene: Hims, with its own line of notetakers called the Braille Sense. Other companies like APH have introduced notetakers as well. If you’ve followed me at all in the last few years, you’ll know that I find Humanware’s lack of timely updates and bug fixes to be frustrating and disheartening, while Hims continues to deliver exciting updates and provide, if anecdotal evidence can be believed, better support for customers. So, am I announcing my switch to a Braille Sense?

Nope, I’m announcing that I’m done with braille notetakers altogether, no matter who makes them. While this is a personal decision and is not right for everyone, I’ve come to the conclusion that my iPhone is a more-than-adequate replacement for my Apex, especially when supplemented by my Macbook Air. Therefore, since I never use it, I’m returning my Apex to the state agency that purchased in four years ago, and I’ve resigned as moderator of, and unsubscribed from, the BrailleNote email list (yes, that list is still around, and pretty active). I’m now a member of the VIphone and Macvisionaries email lists, and the Editorial Team for
AppleVis.com.
Why the change? Glad you asked!

The simple fact is this: the BrailleNote and Braille Sense are both based on Windows CE. Specifically, CE6 , released in 2006, which will
lose support in 2018.
Microsoft seems to have switched focus to variants of Windows 8, and so far, neither of the notetaker giants has jumped on board with any adapted version of that system. No matter their home-grown features, the fact remains that both are relying on outdated technology to drive them, and they are bumping into limitations there.

Hardware is another concern. It costs a lot to develop, prototype, test, refine, and eventually release any computer system, especially a highly customized one like notetakers use. Still, it took until the release of the Braille Sense U2 for any notetaker to finally boast a 1GhZ processor (the Apex still uses a 520MhZ chip), and neither device has more than 256MB of ram. They both use bluetooth 2.1, type G wifi, and VGA output. Granted, the U2 has more modern internals, such as its gyroscope, vibration motor, and GPS receiver, but the fact is that any $100 Android tablet will almost certainly have more capable hardware than a braille notetaker costing upwards of $5,000.

And here we come to the crux of the problem: user-facing software. No matter what hardware you have, no matter what underlying platform you use, no matter how you dress it up, at the end of the day the consumer is going to care about one thing: what can the device do, and how well can it do it for me? When you look at just the two major braille notetakers, you limit the decision considerably. Nowadays, it is important to take mainstream devices like iOS and Android into account at the same time, especially given the braille support both include. These days, I’m using my iPhone and a Macbook Air for everything, and I don’t miss my Apex in the slightest. Here are just some of the reasons:

1. Size: the Apex, even with no display, is a large device. It has to be, to fit its ergonomic keyboard and other components. By contrast, my iPhone fits in a pocket or on my belt, and I barely know it’s there.
2. Notifications: the Apex cannot do anything when it is off, so when, say, a message comes in, nothing happens. My iPhone lets me know when I get a message, or when it is my turn in a game, or when an important email arrives, or a new podcast has downloaded, or I need to do something… You get the idea. It is always with me, but can operate while locked, letting it deliver notifications at any time. The Apex can only manage this trick through the use of an alarm, whose sound cannot be changed, and which only works through the planner.
3. Apps: the Apex lacks many things, and vital parts of what it can do are limited or buggy (such as the email client). The iPhone has no such problems, and bugs are fixed by Apple instead of being ignored for years. Additionally, I can download many of the same apps that sighted people use, and so benefit from a larger user base, timely updates, and all the other advantages of using mainstream software. Apps exist for nearly any purpose, giving my iPhone an almost unlimited range of uses.
4. Updates: you can count on Apple to release a major update once a year, and several smaller ones subsequent to that big one. These updates include new features, bug fixes, and new opportunities for developers to improve their apps. This year, iOS8 will offer, among other things, third-party keyboards, direct braille input on the touch screen, tighter integration with iCloud and Mac computers, and many more features. Meanwhile, Humanware might release an update once a year, and it will usually have one or two features. The last couple Keysoft updates have focused on the web browser, which does seem to work better, kind of, if you ignore the fact that it’s basically Internet Explorer 6. Humanware has also let users read .pptx (but not .ppt) files, and .docx files. I should mention that Word 2007 support was promised in 2010, and not delivered to Keysoft until 2013, even though Humanware’s digital book player had the capability in 2011. The email client still can’t handle IMAP, and still tends to corrupt its own database; the chat program is still text only and lacks basic shortcuts and features (like account switching); you still can’t trust any kind of advanced formatting to stay in place in word processor documents; the daisy book player has been slow and crash-prone since its release, and has yet to be improved; the Eloquence speech synthesizer still has problems with choppiness and stability; I could go on, but you get the point.
5. Price: $650 is the starting price for the iPhone5S, and $499 will get you the latest iPad. If you go for an iPad Mini, iPod Touch, or older iOS device, the prices are even less. Meanwhile, an
   Apex with no braille display is $1995.
   and prices rise from there if you need braille output.
6. Cloud integration: my iPhone talks to my Mac all the time, and the Mac talks back. If I make a new calendar event on the Mac, my iPhone knows about it. If I use Siri to add an item to my shopping list on the iPhone, that item appears on my Mac’s copy of the shopping list. A great deal of information syncs between the two devices, and any other iOS or OS X device I care to sign into. More than that, though, I can sync calendar events, reminder lists, photos, and other content with other people. For instance, my family all shares a shopping list, so any one of us can add to it or check things off, and we all see the changes as they happen. We also share a Home Appointments calendar, for things like lawn care, internet or phone service appointments, and so on; if any of us schedules something that requires someone to come to the house, we all know about it and can check the event’s details at any time. For files, I can write in a file in Dropbox on the Mac, then view or edit it on iOS, and the changes sync. I can make a Pages document and invite others to share it, letting a group of people work on one file. On the Apex, I can email files around… and that’s about it. If I want to sync my contacts and calendars, I need to be running Outlook on Windows, and Outlook has never been very easy to use, especially with NVDA. Even then, I have to sync manually, whereas all this data sharing happens automatically and wirelessly on iOS. Additionally, the BrailleNote offers no syncing support for the Mac, or even other Windows applications. Yes, it can use Windows Mobile Device Manager, if you can get it working, but again, there’s nothing automatic or convenient about that solution. It’s 2014, Humanware.

So why not get a Braille Sense? So far I’ve only compared iOS to the Apex, yet Hims offers many more apps: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, Youtube, Bookshare, Google Maps, Excel viewing, an SDK, voice chatting, and so on. While it is true that Hims gives their customers more bang for their buck, and is better at updating their products, the fact still remains that all this is based on Windows CE 6.0 and is still, essentially, closed. Twice now, the Braille Sense’s support for Dropbox has suddenly stopped working, necessitating a software patch, and those are just the times that I (not a user of the product) know about. If some app on iOS stops working, I can just find another one, but I’ve never yet had an app fail on me due to a change in a remote service. Again, apps on iOS are most often mainstream, so there is a much larger user base behind them pressuring the developer to keep things running smoothly.

In addition, even if a Sense can do what I want, it is still big, heavy, expensive, not updated as much, and overall not as convenient. For all its better-thana-BrailleNote features, it still can’t sync all my data or let me choose which app I want to use for a given task. If I don’t like the way Twitter works on the Sense, my only option is to hope Hims changes things; on iOS, I can just grab a different Twitter app and see if I like it more.

As you can see from the comments, and from Twitter mentions I’ve gotten since this post went live, braille is the main sticking point. While that is certainly a valid concern, I am not a heavy braille user, so it does not affect me. Braille is great for silently reading, or reading where it is too noisy to hear speech, but I find I’m faster at typing on a qwerty keyboard than on a braille one these days. I never read braille books, because I like to read books as I do other things and so use synthesized speech, and I don’t find braille to be helpful in other activities like coding or proofreading. Again, this is my particular situation, and I’m not saying that a notetaker will never find a use for anyone ever again. If you read a lot of BRF files, a notetaker, or something like the Braille Edge, Perkins Mini, or upcoming Vario display may be a good fit for you. These three displays all have basic notetaking functionality built in which can act independently of a connected computer. If you want reliable braille input without the hassle of thinking about odd translations or delays, a notetaker might work better, assuming you can live without the advantages of a mainstream device. Even there, though, it is worth considering that some displays let you type in native braille, then send what you wrote all at once, eliminating the frustrations of braille input on iOS.

Again, I realize this is a highly subjective topic. I also realize that there are different notetakers of different sizes, and that iOS devices are not perfect. Overall, though, I’m done with the slow updates, persistent bugs, large sizes, and restricted nature of braille notetakers. I’m firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem and the mainstream market, and I find it a far more freeing and convenient place to live my digital life. It feels odd, yet liberating, to finally close the door on notetakers; they have been part of me for many years, but I’m excited to finally leave them behind completely. For some time now, I’ve held onto the Apex simply out of habit, never actually using it but telling myself I might one day, if Humanware ever made it worth it. I doubt Humanware ever will, though, and even if they did add some more features or fix problems, I see no reason to ever go back. So, good-bye Apex, and good-bye, world of braille notetakers. Hello, mainstream accessible devices… Hello, convenience, solid support and updates, myriad apps… Hello, future.

Hims Has Done It Again

On Thursday, June 12 Hims
announced version 8.2 of the firmware for their Braille Sense line
and, once again, they blew away the competition. This update includes as its most notable feature a Facebook application, so users no longer need to use the Facebook website. This comes after the last two updates gave the Sense notetakers Twitter, RSS, Youtube, Dropbox, voice chatting, and much more.

The Braille Sense also supports viewing Powerpoints (both .ppt and .pptx), and Excel files, in .xls/xlsx formats or direct importing/exporting in .csv. It can handle IMAP email accounts, it can (as of v8.2) record in Daisy audio, it lets you keep multiple applications open at once, it supports Nemeth, it can let you browse and download the Bookshare and other book collections without using a web browser, its daisy playback works well (from all I’ve heard), and plenty more.

You know where we have to go next, because we always go here. The Braillenote lacks almost every feature I’ve mentioned so far. A
recent update
brought support for .pptx (but not, for some reason, .ppt) files, VNC visual displays, Nemeth support, and improvements to the long-neglected web browser. Welcome features, yes, but they are coming slower and, I feel, are not in line with what today’s customers want from a device costing thousands. Students need Dropbox, and reliable web-browsing, and who doesn’t want the freedom to browse Youtube? In fact, you could argue that Youtube is important for students – what if lectures are posted online, or an assignment requires the student to watch some videos? Of course, the social networking aspect is important, not just for collaboration on projects, but for feeling included. Everyone nowadays is on Facebook, Twitter, IM, and so on, so having easy access to those services is socially advantageous.

Yes, a computer or mainstream mobile device is capable of all this and much more, but often, braille notetakers are intended as the only computer a student will have, or at least will receive training on, for years. The notetaker must therefore do its best to meet the student’s needs, and Hims has that covered much better than does Humanware. If you tell a student they will be using one device for years to come, then put a Braille Sense and a Braillenote in front of them and explain how much more the Sense can do, which do you think they will choose? The one that will be more useful to them, of course, which is currently the Sense.

If it is basic note-taking you want, save yourself some money and get a basic notetaker, such as
the Braille Edge from Hims
or the Perkins Mini. If it’s more advanced features, such as email, web browsing, music playback, and more, you can choose between the Braillenote from Humanware and the Braille Sense from Hims. They both do the same things, but Hims does far more and is updated far more frequently, while offering both a full-sized and mini device; Humanware has only the one size. Considering the upgrade tracks of the two companies, it seems quite obvious which one cares more about its customers’ needs.

The Braille Sense can now handle the major social networks, plus many other popular services, and even offers an SDK so anyone who wants to can build more software for the Sense. Humanware, in a word, doesn’t. As always, I’ll end with my plea for Humanware to step up and prove me wrong. Competition is good, and Humanware should take all these new and helpful features of the Sense and put them into the Braillenote, adding their own spin to make the BN a more useful and enticing product than the Sense. Hopefully they will, but for now it seems like they are just happy to wave bye-bye to Hims as they (Humanware) are left in the dust.

Update on Humanware’s Braillenote Line

After my post last year,
asking Humanware if they were silently getting rid of the Braillenote line,
I never posted an update! My apologies to Humanware for this oversight.

Greg Stilson, the product manager for the Braillenote as of January 2013, insisted that he has no such plans. Having talked to him via both phone and email, I do not doubt his sincerity at all. In fact, he was the reason that keysoft updates finally went free – he feels that the new features of keysoft should be available to anyone who owns a device capable of running the software. Other people to whom I spoke gave similar answers.

It seems to be true. Late last year, Keysoft 9.4 was released, with support for viewing .pptx files and inputting Nemeth braille. The Nemeth support is not perfect, but it is the first of its kind among today’s notetakers.

So, while many of my points have yet to be addressed, at least Humanware is continuing to improve the Brailenote. yes, users should still stay away from key mail as their primary email storage system, and yes, plenty of other bugs still exist, and yes, many features are still lacking. However, Nemeth support is a major win for Humanware in the student market, and there is hope for more improvements. Greg was unable to give any timelines, but he acknowledged the serious problems in key features of Keysoft and said that the development team is looking at major rewrites of the underlying Keysoft code that will not only fix problems now, but make it much easier to fix things in the future. A vague claim, but no one likes to give hard deadlines in the world of software development.

For now, I can conclude that Humanware remains dedicated to the Braillenote. The glory days of feature-packed updates and exciting new releases seem to be over, but at least the company is pushing ahead. Do i personally recommend Braillenotes? No, i still cannot do that, partly because of the problems I’ve mentioned in the past and partly because of missing features. I also feel that notetakers are not the automatic go-to solution they used to be, with iOS as accessible as it is and cheaper braille displays able to handle basic note taking tasks (such as Hims’ Braille Edge or the perkins Mini 14). It will be interesting to see when and if Humanware follows through on these major changes.

Hard Answers About Windows Phone’s Upcoming Accessibility Features

Microsoft recently announced its partnership with Code Factory to provide a screen-reading solution for Windows Phone. Reading the different articles and press releases available, people are left with questions: are only the apps provided in Code Factory’s screen reader accessible, or can users navigate apps downloaded from the Windows app store? Can a user independently set up a Windows Phone device? Are there accessibility frameworks in place for screen-reading solutions by Microsoft or other developers? What, if any, keyboard commands are supported? How fully can a blind user access a Windows Phone device? A lot of questions, but very few answers, so I decided to go right to the source and give Microsoft a call to get some definitive information. Here is what I discovered about the accessibility of Windows Phone.

First, Microsoft does have a phone number to call if you have accessibility-specific questions, just like Apple, which is very commendable. I dialed that number and settled in for what I thought would be a long wait, but my call was answered in only about two minutes. The representative I spoke to had a strong foreign accent, so clearly Microsoft does not use American workers to answer Americans’ questions. For those of you saying that I can’t make that assumption based on only one representative, just hang in there. Anyway, I told “John” that I was asking about the newly announced screen reader on the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1. After I got him to understand my question, he told me that he could not help me, and I would need to talk to the Windows Phone department instead. A bit surprised that the Microsoft Accessibility team could not answer an accessibility question about a Microsoft operating system, I nonetheless agreed to be transferred to the WP department.

I was on hold for five minutes or so, and the call dropped. I think that was my fault – I tried to open an app (MBraille) on my iPhone to send a text, and I don’t think my iPhone liked that idea. Undaunted, I called MS Accessibility again and asked to be transferred to the WP team again. The rep, not the same one I had just spoken to but who also had a foreign accent, agreed and sent me over, and thus began my thirty-minute wait. Finally, CJ picked up the phone and asked, in a strong foreign accent, what she could do to help me. I explained my question, and she told me I had reached the general Answers Desk and needed to talk to a different department. Annoyed, but still willing to push on, I told her to go ahead and transfer me.

After a wait of only a few minutes, another rep, again with a strong accent, answered. Once I told her what I was wondering, and once she finally understood what I was talking about, she happily informed me that Microsoft does not offer phone support for Windows Phone devices and I would have to talk to my phone’s manufacturer. I explained that I did not yet have a phone, that I was just curious to know how accessible they are, and she quickly grasped my problem… telling me once again to contact my phone’s manufacturer. It took only two more repetitions of this “contact the phone maker” “I don’t have a phone” before she finally got my point. She gave me a link to visit where I could basically find a phone I wanted to ask about, and contact that device’s manufacturer. I expressed my incredulity that Microsoft does not provide phone support for an operating system it makes, and she made fake sympathetic sounds and gave me the link again. Very frustrated, and with a small halo beginning to shine around every Apple device I own, I got off the phone and stood there for a moment, trying to understand what had just happened.

So, what did I learn from my forty-five minute adventure? First, Microsoft accessibility support has no clue about Windows Phone accessibility, so don’t bother asking them. Second, Microsoft support reps are happy to transfer you to departments that don’t actually exist, which is a remarkable trait in any tech support center. Third, Microsoft relies on device makers to provide Windows Phone support. Fourth, no one at Microsoft Support is American, at least the reps I spoke to were not and I feel certain I can infer from that that they are all overseas somewhere. Fifth, no one at MS Support knows anything about Windows Phone accessibility, so don’t bother asking them that either. Sixth, if you have a disability, I cannot recommend Microsoft as a viable option if you need support for accessibility questions.

Perhaps my final point is unfair – the MS Accessibility Team might be great with supporting Windows 8 or Windows RT. Then again, maybe not: if they rely on device makers to support accessibility for Windows Phone, who’s to say they won’t do the same thing for tablet makers for Windows 8 or RT? Microsoft clearly does not have a commitment to accessibility like Apple or, to a lesser extent, Google, so how can I trust them to support Narrator in the future?

So, there you have it: answers regarding WP8’s accessibility, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. While these are not at all the answers I was hoping to get, they are extremely telling and have cemented my dislike of Microsoft.

Humanware Announces Keysoft 9.3… Should We Care?

A few months ago, I posted my letter to Humanware, asking “are you killing the Braillenote, and hoping no one notices?” The response was, in summary: “No, it is our flagship product and we are always working to improve it. We certainly don’t have plans to abandon it, and future Keysoft versions will show this. We even made Keysoft free, so we can release smaller, but more frequent, updates since we don’t have to worry about having enough features to justify the cost.” Okay, I get that, and I’ll even try to avoid bringing up Keysoft 9.2, when you charged full upgrade price for one new feature and a couple tweaks… I’ll try, but no promises (no, I will never let you off the hook for that one).

So, along come the summer conventions and, right on time, Keysoft 9.3 is announced. It will be released in July, and demonstrated live at the conventions. Of course, it will be free for all users of the Apex. So, what’s inside, and should we care?

1. Support for .docx files
Yep, the Apex supports a file format that has been around for a mere six years, and has been supported on Humanware’s digital talking book player line for two (or maybe it’s three, I don’t remember the date of that one). Either way, it is good that the Apex can finally read these files – better (six years) late than never, as they say. Oh, you can’t edit the full file; to view the file formatted as the author intended, open it in Keyweb. To edit it, you have to open what they call a “simplified version” in Keyword. We don’t yet know what that (A) does to formatting or (B) allows you to save in terms of formatting.

2. Keyweb, um, works now!
For years, Braillenote users have struggled to access http://www.bookshare.org, a very popular resource for books in the United States for those with visual or print disabilities. The main problems are that the site takes a very long time to load, and “security alert dialog” boxes keep appearing. These boxes are not just in the way, they take a while to dismiss – you have to press space to move through the dialog until you find the “yes” button, but each press of the spacebar takes at least one to two seconds to do anything. Once you dismiss the popup, another appears. Sometimes there are two, and sometimes there are so many you finally give up and pat yourself on the back for having the restraint to not give your Braillenote a personal lesson in the unforgiving laws of gravity and physics (I.E. you didn’t throw it through the nearest window). Other problems have plagued the Braillenote’s web browser, such as the inability to log into Gmail because the username field simply disappears, no way to download files from Dropbox, Sendspace, and other services, problems logging into and purchasing items on Amazon, and so on.

Keysoft 9.3 claims to fix all these and more, which is great. However, as with Word 2007 support, it is very late in coming. If they took this long to fix a simple security dialog problem, how long will they take to come up to spec with HTML5’s new coding standards? What about other technologies? Will we be waiting years more for them to catch up to today’s internet?

3. Voicenotes can now use their keyboards with screen readers
Braillenotes have been able to connect to computers for years, letting users type into the computer in braille and read, also in braille, what the computer says. Of course, this is all done through screen readers (such as Jaws, Window-Eyes, NVDA, or Voiceover). However, Voicenotes despite having a perfectly useable braille keyboard, have been excluded since they lack the means to output what the screen reader says. In Keysoft 9.3, this has changed: Voicenotes are now able to be used as input-only devices for screen readers (no word on which ones they will work with, but iOS was mentioned). There is, obviously, no output, but at least users can now take advantage of typing in braille if they so choose.

My thoughts: good, but still late. Yes, all these advances are great, and I applaud Humanware for the work they put into this update. However, they are still so far behind the curve they can’t even see their major competition, and this update does nothing to help that. They support .docx files, but it took six years; they improved the web browser, but Bookshare has been a problem for four years, if my memory is correct; yes, Voicenote users can now type into computers, but that has been technically possible, just not implemented, since the Apex came out over three years ago. So, while the improvements in Keysoft 9.3 are laudable, they hardly inspire me with confidence about the future. My point still stands: Humanware is doing nothing to innovate and draw users in, it is simply coasting along, adding features years after they become necessary and hoping to skate by on name recognition alone. So, good job on 9.3, Humanware, but you still have done nothing at all to prove you even want to give the Braillenote any sort of competitive advantage, or even fix serious bugs that have been around for years, some of which cause loss of user data. But it’s okay, because we can finally read a file format that has been in use for over half a decade. Yippee!

Letter to Humanware: are you killing the Braillenote and hoping no one notices?

Below is the content of an email I plan to send to Humanware tomorrow or Monday. If you have any comments or suggestions, let me know. I have received mostly positive feedback from the members of the Braillenote list about this so far. Incidentally, another reason Humanware has gone so far down in my view: they used to run a mailing list for the Braillenote, where users could discuss things, ask questions, and so on. HW almost never participated directly, but at least experienced users could help out. Then, in September, the list closed, HW didn’t bother to open a new one, and two BN users had to start their own list to keep it going. Hims, the manufacturer of the Braille Sense (the BN’s main competitor) has an email list for their products as well, which is run by Hims. In addition, one or two of their employees is on that list to help out, so it is not all up to users. Anyway, my letter…

Hello,
I have been a Humanware/Pulsedata customer for a long time, since 2002 when my school got me a Classic BT 32. It revolutionized my schooling, and I talked it up to everyone who would listen. As the years passed, though, and competition arrived in the form of the Braille Sense, I saw my Classic fall behind. Then you came out with the mPower/PK lines, and were on top again, especially as Keysoft 7 and 7.5 were released and added tons of features. The competition continued to innovate, though, with the Braille Sense Onhand and U2, so you answered with the Apex. You told us, your users, that the Apex’s more powerful hardware, plus code changes to Keysoft itself in 9 and 9.1, would allow you to offer some truly great features – multi-tasking, .docx support, and a lot more. We watched the Sense line get more and more features, not to mention their better hardware and helpful features like the vibration motor and built-in GPS, but were content to wait for you to deliver the breath of fresh air that would, we thought, be 9.1. Well, you gave us some new features, but the long-awaited .docx support, multi-tasking, and updates to other applications which badly need them, were all absent (more on new features in a moment). Okay, 9.1 was free, not paid, so maybe they’re saving the big stuff for the next SMA release, we thought.

Well, that paid release arrived in the form of 9.2, and we thought this would be it, the revolutionary advancement to the Apex that would answer at least some of our hopes. It turned out that the PAID (PAID, as in $135) upgrade offered two new features: interface tweaks and a PDF viewer, which itself is just an adaptation of what appears to be an open-source library. The free 9.1 offered more features than that, yet we paid for it, some users even purchasing an SMA just to get it.

Now, of course, Keysoft updates are free (unless you want 8.1 for your mPower – those folks still have to pay up, for some unknowable reason). A free update delivers more features than paid updates, and now Keysoft is free… I can’t help but see this as a sign that updates will only get worse from here. Your competition continues to offer new features that everyone will find useful, as well as features students will use (students have always been your target audience, it seems), but Keysoft not only fails to deliver answers, it fails to fix long-standing, sometimes serious, bugs.

So, the question I pose is this: are you killing off the Braillenote line, hoping no one will notice you do it? If you are, at least tell us so, but if not, please, please start delivering what users want and need. Stop Keymail from eating its own database and causing the loss of every message; stop Keyword from erasing data when you switch to a different task; stop users having to pass around modified webpages just to log into Gmail or Amazon; stop Keychat from looking like a project someone hacked together in a weekend. Add features the modern student or professional needs: IMAP for Keymail, support for .docx files (which your Victors have had for YEARS), an updated web browser able to understand modern HTML and Javascript/AJAX, the ability to actually run multiple tasks at once, Powerpoint support, support for popular IM protocols (Skype, Yahoo, Facebook) in Keychat, and so on. Add features users would like to see, such as Twitter, Youtube, a much-improved Keychat, ID3 support in media files, better web streaming, more Keyplus functionality, more games, maybe even an SDK so users can make the programs they want for themselves. What about Bookshare? That website has been giving Braillenote users trouble for years now, and there is no end in sight, making what is likely one of the most popular book websites for the blind in America unusable on your devices. Why has this not been addressed, or even acknowledged?

The Sense line includes everything I just mentioned an more, and seems, overall (based on what I read on the Braillenote and Braille Sense lists), to be more stable and have less data loss or other major bugs. When are you going to answer this vast improvement with an update, or are you? Yes, you have increased Keyword’s support for complex files, which was welcomed, but why still no .docx support? Yes, Keybook supports more formats, but the Daisy engine that plays them is still broken and full of bugs, just like it was way back in the Keysoft 7.x days of the mPower; when is that going to actually work properly? Do you even plan on updating Keysoft anymore? Is support for the Braillenote going away? As I said, I used to be a huge fan of your products, but I am no longer, and have not been for a few years now, due to the reasons I have outlined above. I am no longer able, in good conscience, to recommend your products or suggest you as a resource, because of the consistent lack of support I see in the Braillenote line. At least give me this one last answer: are thousands of Apex users about to find out that development on their nearly six-thousand-dollar machines is stopping? Are you killing the Braillenote, and hoping no one notices? For the sake of all your Braillenote users, I hope the answer is “no”, but I am forced to conclude otherwise based on the evidence.

I realize that I am just one customer of at least tens of thousands, and that you do not owe me any answers or explanations. My intent in writing this was partly as a last-ditch effort to give you an idea of where at least some of your customers are coming from, and, admittedly, a small hope that I might receive something in the way of the afore mentioned explanation, though I realize how unlikely that is and why that is so. I just urge you to consider how you are coming across to your customers, and to do something about it.

Well, there you have it: my letter to HW. I assume that most of you reading this post know the basic backstory regarding the downhill slide of the Braillenote line, so I will not go through it all here. If you have anything to add, comment on this blog or tweet me (@mehgcap) and I’ll consider adding your idea(s).