Mac OS X 10.4: Apple Spoken Interface
The following Spoken Interface page has appeared on Apple's website.
The page describes an upcoming feature for Mac OS X ("included in the next major release of Mac OS X")
:
The technology appears to be related to a previous job opening at Apple for programmers for a "Screen Reader" application. This technology provides spoken descriptions and the reading of text from the computer.
According to this article, Apple was pressured to release their own solution when the only developer of such software for the Mac discontinued their version. A lack of availability of such software may have threatened Mac OS X's adoption in the education sector.
The page describes an upcoming feature for Mac OS X ("included in the next major release of Mac OS X")
:
Introducing the spoken interface for Mac OS X. The Universal Access capabilities of Mac OS X will soon be enhanced with a spoken interface that provides a new way, through speech, audible cues, and keyboard navigation, to access the Macintosh.
The technology appears to be related to a previous job opening at Apple for programmers for a "Screen Reader" application. This technology provides spoken descriptions and the reading of text from the computer.
According to this article, Apple was pressured to release their own solution when the only developer of such software for the Mac discontinued their version. A lack of availability of such software may have threatened Mac OS X's adoption in the education sector.
Top Rated Comments
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103 months ago
Hey, that sounds quite cool, think it will be a 10.3.x or in 10.4?
aethier
I would think 10.3.x, just because if it was 10.4, they would hold off on the features until it was announced.
But then I read this:
"Apple's spoken interface technology is currently in development and scheduled for delivery in the next major release of Mac OS X."
So I guess 10.4. I hope we get improved voice sythesis, Apple hasnt really done much on that fron these days - except for that new Victoria in 10.3.
-Adam
103 months ago
I like the current system in OSX for Voice Activation. I hope this new one is easier than the current system.
TEG
TEG
103 months ago
I think it's interesting to see that the Apple page says (halfway down first page):
"In fact it will be included in the next major release of Mac OS X"
So this answers the three above posters' question. We are looking at a shot of 10.4.
"In fact it will be included in the next major release of Mac OS X"
So this answers the three above posters' question. We are looking at a shot of 10.4.
103 months ago
No child left behind.
It's nice to see a company develop products to help ALL of us.
I'll say it again.... WAY TO GO APPLE!!
It's nice to see a company develop products to help ALL of us.
I'll say it again.... WAY TO GO APPLE!!
103 months ago
yay. This is a huge deal. Jaws for windows (the industry standard) is over $1000. It's also ridiculously difficult to learn and generally craptacular. It will be interesting to see how well Apple does the integration with safari; Jaws' integration with internet exploder is it's crown jewel.
103 months ago
oh and I also forgot to mention. With jaws you have to buy it or run the timed demo, which means many developers never bother to test against it. Having the screen reader built-into the system by default, freely available to developers means the applications they create are much more likely to be accessible. This is also a huge deal.
103 months ago
I expect to see this turn in yet another English-only feature... Speaking of which, Apple could at least re-bundle the Spanish (Mexican, not Spaniard, but less is nothing) voices that we had in pre-X systems (not compatible on X) so that at least we can have the oh-so-new feature like text-to-speech (I cannot dream of course of getting anything similar to Speech Recognition, that is indeed demanding too much for such a relatively newly introduced English feature).
103 months ago
Why do I get the feeling that if this continues and more stuff like this finds its way into 10.4 it is going to be an upgrade worthwhile to get.
Especially if they get the improved database in and more useful things, since 10.3 was more of a performance upgrade. We will see I guess, but it does sound promising.
Especially if they get the improved database in and more useful things, since 10.3 was more of a performance upgrade. We will see I guess, but it does sound promising.
103 months ago
So this mean no new hardware (PM G5, PB G5, iMac G5) updates until OS X 10.4 is out, huh? :p
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