Unfortunately nocturnus, that is not the way business works. the question of access to devices is pretty much the same as the question of access in games, ie, there aren't enough consumers to make it worth a company's time.
Recently, (tom has the more precise details), the Us government issued a law stating that blind people had the right to access of information. this was I believe the driving force in establishment in a lot of access software in various os and devices. The difference with apple as opposed to google, microsoft (as far as narrator goes), and other companies is that apple actually took the time to do their job properly and design something really! accessible, rather than make a vague gesture in the direction of fulfilling their legal requirements. I am not sure what prompted apple to do this, but sinse they have, it is a good thing and it can't be denied that it has worked in terms of providing a highly useable system and lots of accessible aps to boot.
However companies like google and microsoft aren't like some small indi dev such as the creator of loraeon where I can just mail them and say "oy mate, if you labled those damnable images it'd make blind people's lives much easier!" (or a politer version of same).
heck, i've not found a way to contact google about their blasted audio captures, let alone! a fully accessible os.
ultimately the larger the company the more selfish and unreacheable they are, and the less they will care if a few thousand blind people can't use their products so long as the law is served. yes, apple went the extra mile which is a good thing, but we can't expect as much from others.
Perhaps Being! open source there is a solution there for androidif someone would be willing to work with some open source devs, but how getting that onto the main distribution of the os that google and co distribute with their phones I don't know, and you still! have the problem of accessible aps that use said speech, and it's unlikely that one person, or even a hundred people could kick up enough of a stink to be heard by the mega corporations who probably don't care about access anyway, and until things change at source, people aren't going to start buying inaccessible stuff in the vague hope it will be accessible or creating half accessible aps for a community of players who aren't there.
so, while I would agree there is indeed a circle here, ---- welcome to modern business practice!
You can choose either to buy a less effective system in protest and the vague hope that it will make some difference in the long run (and as I've indicated that is a very vague hope indeed), or just go for what you! want out of the device, and focus your elements on stuff you are! likely to change, eg, game access, or talking to the developers of particular aps who are likely small enough to be receptive and reasonable.
Myself, i know what choice I'd make on this scale, sinse I personally still view technology as there to serve me, not the other way around, but if you want to make the moral choice, fair enough.
This is the same reason I stick to windows xp and haven't gone lynux, much as I think microsoft are the scum of the earth, sinse ultiamtely it serves me! better, and if I do! have windows, I can help to make windows programs and games more accessible (as I have with several entries that are now in the db), for the macro issues, well that is exactly what I've just spent the last five years writing about, and hopefully by adding some reasonable points of view to the debate on di disability generally, I can influence the legislative actions of the British government (sinse they actually do! read papers on ethics when writing such laws), and it's only really law that has the power to sort these corporate scumbags out, and even then, not all the time and not unless politicans are prepared to do their jobs properly and not just be the pawns of the prophiteers.
Other people like tom go with lynux for moral reasons, and I could understand someone trying android for the same way, and fair enough to them, ---- I just confess it's not the choice I would personally make sinse to me it just seems like personal denial for little to no gain, albeit for a very worthy and just reason, and I'd rather try to fight the battles I can or try to come at such problems on a more professional level than just having a boycot for the sake of one.
Still, it is a choice people ould chose to make,albeit that they will be missing out in the process.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)
. I am swaying more towards Apple but we'll see.