Okay. to those who say it has added many new, exciting, interesting things... .. can you please explain exactly what is interesting about this?
Faster JAWS Startup with Grace Period Authorization
its just... faster. its an improvement, not a feature. That they had to describe their weird voodoo sorcery into highly technical language and slightly reveal a top trade corporate secret does not make that an addition, nor a feature.
Separation of Office Scripts
what, again, is interesting about this? this is.. a change that hopefully improves something... like faster navigation on large docs and finally, more accurate, proper braille implementation. No addition here.
Improved Performance in Office 365 Applications
again, nothing interesting. They even repeat the separation of the scripts. Its a redundant thing, even.
Audio Ducking Support for Windows 10 blah blah blah.
a bug fix, not an addition.
TAB Key No Longer Echoed
what is so interesting about this? if this is enabled by default and I am used to hearing tab ALL of the time, I would actually think the upgrade broke something.
Seriously, to make my screen reader go.. "Oh! you have just plugged a braille display, I will start using it right away!" is: 1. convenient, 2. almost magic, 3. Something I could turn on or off if desired, its an addition. I can live without it but then again, it can make life easier in some situations. And that is just an example.
ah yes and NVDA wraps. If you cannot fin it then an add on will certainly do it for you.. but again, I love to know when I have reached the end of the page for certain. But its just me.
NVDA detected and signaled spelling errors since at least last year. That you are excited that jaws will hopefully, and at the mercy of freedom whatever do this someday, well... I hope that becomes true... but again, it shows its ahead of the times in some aspects. I rarely use audio ducking as well, but hey its there and it has really saved me inn some situations... never given me any surprises like.. oh, hey its broken so pay us about 600 dollars (the price of about two months worth of very fine groceries by the way) and we will hopefully get that fixed in the next.. uh, major upgrade.
And regarding handling of licenses: its a gray area.. if you like the performance changes and improvements because of the changes in software protection, that's good, I would appreciate that as well
If you love paying for an upgrade that is more a showstopper than an actual .. "we care about our customers and thus will have a dedicated beta testing team and will resolve issues, even minor ones"then I guess that is also a way to roll.
I believe some of the stuff had already been explained as to why jaws has not improved too much or added worthwhile features... its because only a smaller 10% of the user base wrote to fs about them.. and fs ignored them.. after all, what is 60 thousand bucks to them when they already have the braille initiative .. erhmm, monopoly already running? not a loss, so they of course will ignore everything and just keep on muting the start menu key because oh, that sells to the schools and bbc news.
Case in point, I have written to their oh so professional, mature, incredibly prompt support department 5 times for the past month or so regarding their biggest scam, the packmate... I have an issue and the person using it just lost their job because their technology, pristine, reliable, high quality, interesting technology failed them.
But what, they cared oh so much about it that my calls and e-mails went practically unanswered. I kept on being assigned case numbers and then rejected.. its all a beautifully designed bureaucracy because of me being an international customer.
And int he meantime, I think 10 dollars (you can buy a week worth of groceries here with that you know) in Skype credit went down the drain calling their quote, direct.. unquote numbers.
so get.. understand this... its not jaws itself that is bad,its what and especially how! they are shaping it that its horrendous.
I used jaws for about 12 years too (since 1998 until about 2010).. when it was good and then.. it lamentably has just bluffed. No other description for it.
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