While most of us have no doubt updated our iOS devices and Macs, there are
no doubt users who prefer not to update for many reasons. While updating is
an individual decision, I wanted to focus on what may happen if a person
doesn't update.
Like every other person who owns a computer or internet-ready mobile phone,
I use the net frequently and prefer not to count how many hours I spend
online a week. One thing I have noticed throughout my regular browsing is
the slight shift in accessibility and usability
depending on what device a person uses, as well as what operating system is
in use. I am lucky as my current job enables me to try different operating
systems and multiple versions, to see what is accessible, and what isn't,
and sometimes not updating can cause significant problems for some users
depending on the device and OS being used.
HTML (or hypertext mark-up language) is the basic building blocks for any
website, and version 5 has introduced more options which enable developers
to introduce functionality. In short this should make the online experience
easier for screen reader users. However as we all know this doesn't always
work out. The web has many different programming languages other than HTML,
and one developer may have a completely different idea to how a website
should be structured than another. One thing is for certain, not updating
even from a minor version can result in problems. I was using an iPad
running iOS 9.3 and an iPhone running iOS 9.4 1 day, and there were parts of
the same website which were not usable. To clarify this means that the phone
was better at completing something, where the iPad user could not. While
there could be many answers to this, the model of the iPad verses the model
of the iPhone being 1 line of research, I suspect the minor update issue
would be an interesting factor. So I am not saying that people should
update, however it's something which users may need to take in to account if
parts of a website or app are unusable.
Of course there are many other reasons why a person should update, security
being one of them, however unless there is a significant reason why users
are unable to update such as impacting on device performance, then I would
always perform an update to get the best possible experience.
I want to acknowledge at this point that I fully understand and support the
view that Voiceover users need to approach updating with portion,
particularly if the update makes apps which we rely on unresponsive and
cause more harm than good.
Submitted by Mike Taylor
Member of the AppleVis Blog Team
Website:
www.applevis.com
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