Are Disabled Gamers Caught in the Middle of Apple vs. Flash? Part One

Since much of the Flash content has not entered the utopia of universal accessibility; many gamers in our community depend on things like screen readers and “special” equipment. We have people who are mouse-free gamers, mouse-only gamers, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and so many more. Since 2002 Macromedia the company that owned Flash has made significant improvements to their products ability to produce accessible content.

Flash released the new Accessibility Panel, which allows developers to control how elements were exposed to screen readers, and integrated support for Microsoft various accessibility centers like the Ease of Access. But was this new addition a help to the disabled gamers community, maybe not. While the features were now there, no mechanism was in place to compel developers to put these features in, and as a result much of the Flash content is still not accessible to many.

Now with Flash CS4 out, people with visual disabilities have a far better chance to access the web using either Window-Eyes from GW Micro or JAWS from Freedom Scientific. With new support for scripting and a powerful new set of accessible components, as well as support materials from the Adobe Accessibility Resource Center, designers and developers can create accessible rich media in ways never before possible.

But developers of Flash games do not make heavy use of these newly added features so not having Flash on these devices saves the person using these technologies are a lot of stress and strain. It is not totally the Flash game developers fault, most of the added accessibility features focus on “navigation” implementations of Flash, but not real useful to the game developer. So in the end, the features of accessibility go unused.

Another reason why having Flash barred from Apple mobile device’s is not hurting the disabled community is, according to Steve Jobs and others in the “Down with Flash” camp is that there’s better reliability, security and performance and most importantly better battery life.

We all know the battery life on many of Apple’s devices is not that great (the iPad is really the only outlier here). So, this is another reason why not having Flash is good because according to Jobs “H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.” And better battery life is always good so you have more time to play games and use your device.

Flash as a lot of reliability and security issues so that is cited as why not having Flash on handhelds devices is not so bad. Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. An issue in Adobe Flash is more serious. Most vulnerability is confined to this one technology; for example, vulnerability may affect a particular browser like Internet Explorer or a particular operating system or Windows 7, but it is rare for a vulnerability to span multiple platforms and products. This is not the case with Flash.

Flash exists in all popular browsers and is also available in PDF documents. It is also largely operating system independent; therefore, the threat posed by its security issues cannot to be taken lightly. Flash has become an integral part of the modern browsing experience becoming so ubiquitous that most users don’t even notice it.”

Apple does not want to reduce the reliability and security of their iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash. So who wants to take in their handhelds for more service at the genius bar. From personal experience it is difficult to get an appointment at the bar and the problem is not always fixed the first time or you may have a whole new device.

Finally, the most important reason why Flash is not good for our community and handhelds are, is because of touch. Flash was designed for desktops that use a mouse, not for touch screens using fingers.

Using fingers can be difficult for some users in our community; especially since flash requires   “rollovers”, that are popup menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. This is very frustrating on a computer with a mouse so on a small handheld it will be even more frustrating. Sites and games that are made with HTML 5 or Java do not require such a delicate touch so these are ideal for the disabled community.

But one of the most compelling reason I found for not having flash on these handheld devices is that Apple is using Gianduia, its new a client-side, standards based framework for Rich Internet Apps, to create production quality online apps for its retail users. With no need for a proprietary web plug-in like Flash or Silverlight.

Stay tuned for part two of the Apple versus Flash debate here at AbleGamers when we discuss the reasons why Flash is a good thing.

Check out part two

Comments (4)

R Bruynzeel

May 13, 2010

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There are some valid points here, but in most cases the problem lies with the dev and not the tool. In that respect html 5 offers hardly anything not already out there.
Large fonts can be made in games, but hardly any dev does so. There are plenty of sites that do not offer captcha alternatives for those of us that cannot read these etc.

You cannot enforcce AT support as a whole. Because you would have to take a huge amount of possible problems into account. The only thing that could come close are templates based for specific groups of disabled people. Even then there would be overlap or those that miss out.

A more likely situation is what is already implemented in some laws. A basic featureset that is required. For example all goverment websites here need to support screen readers, a large font option and a few other things.

The security aspect just does not hold water. That is bad design. There have been sandbox/vm options and semi vm options for a while now. You could run the entire thing in it's own area withotu any risk to the machine. There is also the shadow copy/image method used often on public machines. Where persistant data is stored in a set location and the rest is reset to a previous state after use/a problem shows up.

The power drain makes sense, but apple does not ban every app/game that uses high system resources. And what of other media formats without hardware (assisted) decoding?

In the end the biggest problem is that customers are denied the choice.
I'll never understand how people put up with the most absurd restrictions on tech. If they bought any other product with the same limitations impossed they would bolt.
How about a fridge that you are only allowed to put a specific brand soda and no meat in? A car that would stop working whenever the maker decided? Or how about a book you order online, only to find that the store has ripped out those pages they did not like?

Daniel Linger

May 13, 2010

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Got to agree wholeheartedly with RenderB's comments.

Just to add that I think the battery life issue is frankly a big crock of s***. If it does drain the battery life down to 5 hours, so what? That's up to the user to decide (a matter that Mr Jobs et al seem increasingly to ignore these days).

I don't own an iPhone, or any derivative. I was thinking of an iPad (notably for it's accessibility), but now I've seen the specs (or lack of them), and regarding this fiasco, ,I'll pass ... permanently.

Bottom line is though, exclusion in any way HAS to provide less accessibility. How much it affects us disabled will remain to be seen.

Kati

May 15, 2010

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To be honest I'm not completely sure what 'Flash' is and refers to.

Having a wonderful Mac that upgrades automatically, everything works great on every site.

I have pre-ordered an iPad (not out yet in UK)and hope to use with Proloquo2go text to speech. I'm sure I had seen a version of facebook for mobile devices but have no idea if can play the facebook games on them like Lexulous.

But there are loads of games available on iTunes and games available for consoles and computers, I don't really see what I'm missing out on anything?

I guess it would depend what you wanted to use the iPad for.

It has really shaken up the AAC community by providing a 10" touchscreen device that speaks (with proloquo2go on) for around £500 when most of the big manufacturers charge £5,000 and above!

R Bruynzeel

May 15, 2010

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Well.. flash provides a series of options. From online games to graphical elements on sites, menu's and some online store systems even rely on it. (urgh)
It is also used for video streams a la youtube.

I won't go into the technical aspects(again), but it's not the revolution apple makees it out to be. And touchscreen is not always an advantage. For people that need to get close to the screen having something in between you and the screen is a drawback.

What apple is great at is selling a repackaged idea to the general public. Tablets have been around for years but never got mainstream. Look at the ipod, it's a farse on price/storage comparison or file type support. Even on audio quality it is nothing special. There are far better sounding portoable audio devices out there for less.

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