THE 2023 Apple report card
Since 2015, Jason Snell of Six Colors has commissioned a hand-selected group of Apple watchers, including yours truly, to grade the company’s performance across a slew of categories in the last year. I added commentary in software reliability, Apple TV, of course, accessibility.
APP STORE LOCK-IN CAN BE AN ADVANTAGE IN TERMS OF ACCESSIBILITY
Amidst the hoopla around the latest round of curated Vision Pro demos with press ahead of launch—more on that in a later piece—Apple has tweaked its guidelines for developers which now allow app makers to “include a link to the developer’s website that informs users of other ways to purchase digital goods or services” using the StoreKit API’s External Purchase Link Entitlement. The change comes following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the company acted anticompetitively by barring developers from alerting users of available payment methods outside of the App Store.
At first blush, that Apple has capitulated on the anti-steering ruling seems not relevant whatsoever in an accessibility context. This inclination is mostly true—for the record, I do believe it’s not unreasonable for people to know of alternative payment methods and have thought Apple’s rules silly and needlessly punitive—but it’s worth examining why the App Store is a great first option for a segment of users. It’s here where the accessibility-oriented argument comes into play.
As ever, the argument transcends sheer convenience, which goes hand-in-hand with ease of use.
In a nutshell, the argument is the App Store is the most accessible way to make purchases for certain members of the disability community. Payment information is stored within a person’s Apple ID profile and purchases can be authenticated using biometrics like Face ID or Touch ID. Privacy and security notwithstanding, the reality is using the App Store for purchases—which includes in-app purchases—can be far more accessible than being jettisoned off to Safari to do so on a third-party website. This is mainly for cognitive reasons; for a certain type of person, it may prove overwhelming to choose between using the App Store or not. It seems like a trivial thing but it isn’t: it’s highly plausible that it can be jarring (and thus worsen the user experience) for someone to start in the App Store for something, then need to go elsewhere to complete the task for an app they downloaded in the App Store. Moreover, once someone leaves the App Store, however momentarily, the question then becomes determining the user flow for checkout. Does the site accept Apple Pay? Is personal information needed? Is the website itself accessible? These considerations are not at all trivial and all have major influence on shaping the user experience. What’s more, using an external payment system may exacerbate visual and motor friction, which may involve lots of typing and tapping, that’s eliminated with a few taps using the App Store.
Any retort that these issues are immaterial because users aren’t forced to venture outside of the App Store misses the point. The anti-steering conversation is an entirely separate matter. The salient point is simply that, as with everything in life whether digital or physical, accessibility touches the App Store in more ways than one. In this case, the ostensible disadvantage of being “confined” to the App Store isn’t necessarily unilaterally bad for every single user. Maybe as a business owner it’s bad, but not absolutely so for a customer. To cite one personal anecdote on macOS, I’m nerdy enough and technologically savvy enough to download software from the web. I used to do it during my Windows days all the time. Given a choice, however, I generally prefer the Mac App Store because I find the process more streamlined and, pointedly here, more accessible. The same is true for my iPhone and iPad. I know the App Store integrates with accessibility features I use every day—Hover Text on the Mac, for one—whereas I’m uncertain externally.
The accessibility case for the App Store (and using Apple’s StoreKit framework as a developer) is admittedly esoteric and nuanced in context of the legal issues. Still, that doesn’t make accessibility any less noteworthy or valid. Reasonable minds can debate Apple’s stewardship of its storefront. It’s also reasonable to contend the App Store’s lock-in is not as terrible as regulators say it is. From a usability perspective, it very well can be advantageous depending on one’s needs and tolerances. Disabled people use the App Store too, but I doubt the EU thinks about them.
I don’t presume to speak for every disabled person on the planet who uses an iPhone. Likewise, I don’t have an app on the App Store. It’s just really important to note that, like with accessibility writ large, the App Store is the path of least resistance. That matters a lot for access and inclusion.
‘echo’ reverberates as another winner for disability representation in hollywood
Last night, I watched the first episode of Echo, the just-released Marvel miniseries airing on Disney+, and came away enthralled. I admit to not knowing much of the mythos behind the Maya Lopez character, but decided to check it out mainly because Lopez is a Deaf protagonist. It isn’t every day you see something from a major Hollywood studio feature a disabled person as the lead. It should be noted that besides being Deaf, Lopez has limb differences and uses a prosthetic leg.
Marvel has a trailer for the series posted on its YouTube channel.
I can’t wait to finish the series (it’s only five episodes). I enjoy Marvel material and superheroes—although I’m far from encyclopedic on the MCU—but what was so enthralling about Echo to me was to see someone who looks like me feature so prominently on screen. I’ve felt this way before, as I watched CODA on Apple TV+ and came away gleeful at the opportunity to have watched a piece of entertainment that more or less accurately depicted my own lived experiences growing up as a CODA. It gives me immense, almost unbridled, joy to be able to watch Lopez, played by Alaqua Cox, who’s Deaf, and understand what she’s saying in American Sign Language without needing to rely on the subtitles. What’s more, it’s heartening to see the supporting cast use ASL to communicate with Lopez. All told, whatever plagues the storyline—I, for one, remain perplexed because I don’t know what exactly Echo’s powers are since they weren’t addressed off the bat—the authenticity and earnestness with which the Deaf community is portrayed is damn impressive.
If you’re a reader of my column at Forbes, you’ll know I’ve posted a lot of coverage over the years that sits at the intersection of disability, technology, and Hollywood. That’s what happens when the world’s biggest tech companies decide on leveraging their massive war chests to roll their own streaming video service. I’ve long beat the drum that disability coverage in the news media is piss-poor, what with the penchant to highlight inspiration porn about disabled people “overcoming” our own bodies. Yet on film and television, the tide is slowing but surely turning for the better. Netflix has titles such as Deaf U, Mech Cadets, and All The Light We Cannot See. That CODA won the Best Picture Oscar in 2022, along with Troy Kotsur winning Best Supporting Actor, truly was a watershed moment for disability representation. That Apple carries a host of disability-centric content on its TV+ roster—think the aforementioned CODA and See and the Michael J. Fox documentary Still, amongst others—is a direct reflection of the company’s institutional ethos to make its products accessible to and inclusive of members of the disability community. Whatever one thinks of See as a piece of art and its entertainment value, the fact it so strongly puts blindness at the forefront of the story is not at all insignificant or trivial. It’s something to applaud and to notice, even if the show itself bores you to tears or has glaringly obvious plot holes.
Echo is deserving of being treated much in the same way. It isn’t beyond reproach as a television show, but the representational gains are immensely important. It matters for disabled people.
I’d subscribe to Disney+ just to watch Echo. I highly recommend it.
Brave new world
Come May, I will mark my 11th year in the media industry. It’s a pretty surreal notion.
Prior to becoming a tech journalist, I spent more than a decade working for my then-local school district working in special education classrooms of various incarnations. One of the ways I would unwind after long days with my students would be coming home and writing about the latest Apple news on my WordPress blog. I used to spend my breaks during the day scouring Twitter for the latest news and analysis, then make notes to myself in my phone as to what I wanted to write about later. I remember watching Steve Jobs introduce the original iPad and the iPhone 4 during media events, and dream about someday being in the audience for these keynotes. All this daydreaming happened in the early years of the iPhone, circa 2008 to 2010, and I regularly published to my site—nearly every day—during that period. I kept it up during the nascent days of my reporting career in early 2013, but eventually stopped altogether as my career grew by leaps and bounds and my work was more “professional” and showing up in real, newsy publications.
All these years later, I never have forgotten where I came from. The original blog has long been gone from the web, but I still own the domain and faithfully renew it yearly. My work email is proof!
Follow my work closely enough and it’s obvious the overwhelming majority of my work has appeared on my Forbes column in the last few years. I make it unambiguous that I’m technically a freelancer and merely part of their invite-only contributor network. Because I’ve pushed so much content there, it’s gotten to the point where PR folks (and others) immediately assume I’m a Forbes staffer; the reality is, I’m very much indie. In April, my column will reach its 4th birthday. To say having my name attached to such a prestigious brand has transformed my career is the furthest thing from an overstatement. Believe it or not, I spent the first 6 years of my career covering Apple exclusively, The time doing my column has seen me widen my aperture to an exponential degree. It’s empowered me to cover a veritable all-star team of the tech industry, spanning the world’s biggest companies to the scrappiest startups and more. I’ve written about things and interviewed people—like Tony Coelho, the ex-congressman credited with pioneering the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook—I never dreamed were remotely possible.
However grateful I am for Forbes’ role in sending my journalistic career to another stratosphere, I have felt a pull in the last several months to take firmer control of my own destiny. As a freelancer, I’ve spent literally more than a decade as my own boss, but the salient point is I increasingly crave fuller editorial independence. Forbes gives contributors a lot of latitude to act autonomously, but it has limitations. This new website, sparsely designed it is, is an opportunity to regain full control of my writing while being yet another outlet to share my work. It feels like a rare win-win situation.
This new website I’m christening today? It’s called Curb Cuts.
In essence, Curb Cuts can best be viewed as a complementary component to my longstanding Forbes column. A sister network, if you will. There are a lot of stories I’d like to write but don’t because (a) I’m managing a one-man newsroom here; and (b) I can’t possibly cover every accessibility story on the planet. Besides, there are numerous topics adjacent to accessibility and assistive tech that, for myriad, oftentimes stupid, reasons, don’t perfectly fit the scope of my column. These tensions add lots of stress to my life, and it’s already riddled with sky-high anxiety and depression. Curb Cuts exists in part to alleviate these stressors. Now the stress becomes deciding which stories go where—but that isn’t necessarily a bad problem for me to have in 2024.
Going back to the lede, I’ve been doing this for a long time now and quite literally built my miniature empire all by myself with my own two hands and the iMac on my desk. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve done it, and feel like I’ve gained the respect and trust of a lot of people so as to try to garner more eyeballs towards my newfound little experiment here. As I said, I’ll still be putting my byline towards my Forbes column—I just won’t be killing myself putting all my eggs in that basket.
Accessibility and assistive technology is not something to cover for the glory. My reporting will never be A1 material. It will never win me a Pulitzer. Disability coverage in mainstream news is woefully inadquate, and I like to think my work is my dent in the universe. Technology makes the world go ‘round, and it’s important to me to show the able-bodied amongst us that not everyone uses their iPhones and iPads and MacBooks in the same way. I want to show people that there’s more to critiquing products than Geekbench scores, camera comparisons, and “average users.”
As they say, hold onto your butts. I hope you’ll join me on this next chapter.