Okay, so here's my adventure through iOS and Android. A year ago, I had an iPhone 6. Then a Google Pixel. 6 months later, I have a n iPhone 7. I just can't make up my mind, right?
My first smart phone was a Samsung Stratosphere. It ran 2.3.5, and was updated to 2.3.6. The Google Pixel ran Android 7, then was updated to 8. The iPhone 6 ran iOS 9, and is updated to iOS11. The iPhone 7, of course, ran iOS 11. So, right off, you see the huge varieties in version numbers. I'll get to that later.
Accessibly, iPhone wins, hands down, not because of what it conceptually could do, or what Apple might do with it in the future, but what it does, right now, right here, on any iPhone. With Google, we always have our head in the clouds, because AI and Machine learning are so mysterious and just, what'll they do next! But no.
Apple's accessibility team may be strictly managed, although plenty of bugs do get out, this coming from an Apple Public Beta tester of iOS 11, shut up about the DNA, no one cares. Voiceover hasn't grown as much as it could, but that may be because they want accuracy, as much as possible. Take the photos identification they added in iOS11. Its crap, and everyone knows it. This isn't because Apple can't do it; they're the riches company in the world, or so I've heard, its because AI isn't very confident about what it sees. Have you ever gotten a crazy answer from Seeing AI? Yeah, Microsoft puts the AI at a bigger confidence level, because the results may be right, but usually its pretty off, and may be false, even. So, it may get better in iOS 12. I don't kno. I'm not a prophet sent by Apple to proclaim that accessibility isn't dead.
Android doesn't even have this feature in Talkback.
Yeah, crazy isn't it? The AI-first company doesn't have any AI at all in its screen reader, when all others, except NVDA, JAWS, ORCA, Emacspeak, … Okay, Narrator and Voiceover, the two main competitors to Google's first-party option, do have AI. Get to work, Google. It's not even that hard, just use all that AI-first stuff you keep jabbering about within a screen reader, and give me credit and money for bringing you the idea, please.
Apple sometimes "just works." Google "just works when we hammer the pieces into place and make it look so easy." There are way more apps on Google's play store than the App Store. Why? A one-time fee of $25 gets you into the Play Store, where you can find some pretty cool apps, although the coolest require root access and may be out to grab your personal info also, while others are just rusty old code splattered with paint and sirup in the hopes that it'll catch on and give some money from in-app purchases to reveal more stick smelly mess. Why aren't iOS apps ported to Android? Why aren't Android apps updated? iOS users pay, and are usually the ones to use their phones more, and usually see their phones more than as "good enough" tools because Google is just the best open platform now, which of course means the person is one of those that either runs Windows and uses his computer for mostly everything except calls and sends texts to his computer through apps, or runs Linux and just uses Android as an extension of that decentralized environment where everything is free. No app developer wants to work with that, because it's an unsteady user experience. At least, what I've described above is what I've seen from blind Android users.
But Apple has bugs! Yes, so does Google. One huge bug going around at Google is the inability of the different teams to cooperate. See the many threads on the eyes free list where Victor, one of the developers of TalkBack, frankly says that the Android accessibility API's, or programs for programmers to use to make things easier to access services or parts of an operating system, won't allow the Android accessibility team to implement. That's just terrible, you say. Yes, it is, because it shows that Victor would love to make magic happen, but the others in Android development have their own priorities which block accessibility development. iOS may have this problem too, and we may never know about it. But at least with iOS, you have the luxury of not knowing how bad a situation it could be, with Apple folks not even able to express their frustration at their coworkers outside of Apple in any way. Now, this isn't exactly pity for Victor, he should stand up for us, stop being wowed by working for the big Google and proverbially slam his fist down and say enough of enough, accessibility must progress. That's what Microsoft has done, and now look at them. Take a step back and look at what an open platform could be: two apps for the blind in the Apple App Store, a screen reader that keeps growing, and Microsoft accessibility on Twitter, actually replying and liking Tweets themselves, whereas Google accessibility on Twitter is much less lively.
But come on, Apple is a control freak. Sure, would you rather a control freak trying to be a hero handle your contacts, bank cards, and so on, or a group of people unable to even advance accessibility? Sure, Siri sucks, on every single Apple device. Sure, VoiceOver seems to be stagnating. Sure, dictation doesn't always work well, and in some cases now doesn't work at all. But its between Apple: Premium price for trying to make a premium product, or Google: Free and half-done because ye can't beat free, hyuck hyuck.
But, all the extensibility of Android! What am I gonna do! You can make your phone do all kinds of things in Android, but really, only when you're rooted. Verizon Pixel owners don't even have that ability. So, extensibility is out, for me it was at least.
But, Eloquence on a phone! Beat that, Fruitveil consumer! Sure, we have Fred. Sure, it may not have the recognizable tones of Eloquence, which most blind people seem to idolize, but it is a voice completely based on computer-generated speech, and its on your phone, your Mac, and your iPad.
But VoiceOver sucks because Apple is bad, Android has ... Uh, yeah, shine plus, ha ha. Uh, yeah its a great screen reader, I think. This is where extensibility falls short. We have so many options for music players, video players, GPS navigation systems, book readers, but unless you use Samsung, Talkback really is the only viable screen reader. People talk about Shine Plus being a screen reader, but they just say it because its there, not because its any good.
We have Vocalizer and Accapella and and ... All these speech engines even eSpeak! First, is it eSpeak NG? No? Thought not. Second, is Accapella even that good? No? Thought not. Third, we have Vocalizer too, for free. On all of our devices, Lus Alex, who uses, probably, AI or Machine learning or both, to read whole paragraphs instead of just lines or sentences, making his reading of passages pretty amazing when you stop thinking of how creepy and unnatural and and and all that his breathing is and focus on what his voice actually does when it speaks. Of course, having the ability to focus on the text itself that he speaks is great, I wish I could do that all the time. But having a great speech engine and voice is like having a great computer, it sure helps. Note this, more doesn't equal better. Accapella's speech is unnatural and the intonation is terrible, jumping all over the place. eSpeak is even more mechanical than Eloquence, and Google TTS sounds like the Compact versions of Vocalizer voices… Oh yeah, it is. 6 MB for a US English voice, and there is no way to enhance it. Have I asked about this? I sure have.
Now, am I an Apple fanboy? Maybe, but I'm also a Microsoft fanboy, and maybe even a Google fanboy for what they do with AI, and the most devoted fans want products to get better. That's why, if you read my Twitter, or even my comments on MacDailyNews, you'll see that I'm just as hard on Apple. No headphone jack, slow updates to services, like Apple Music, which could be updated at any time, and which isn't. Apple Music not able to start music on one device where I stopped on another, handoff for music. VoiceOver seeming to take a back seat, way in the back, compared to frivolous and useless Animoji and toys like that. The company I have the most praise for is Microsoft, and they don't even have a dog in the mobile race right now, although I've heard of the Surface Phone, I have no idea where that all came from, and even then I wish they'd use what they have to its fullest, allowing Narrator sounds to use Windows Sonic for Headphones, more customizability for Windows speech, head size, breathiness, and intonation, so the guy behind Emacspeak for Windows, Saquib Shake, can put OneCore speech into Emacspeak, and so that Narrator can show formatting information in a clear, definite way; and please let it be the mobile voices and not the slow and unresponsive desktop voices this time. No one uses the desktop voices when they know there are more mobile voices, and they're much faster.
So yeah, I choose iOS over Android any day.