I called Aira to get the information on a new credit card transcribed. I have the option of receiving a chat message (which only lasts the duration of the call) or receiving an email, which would probably be fine because we're both on Google Workspace, but ... yeah, no.
I thought the chat message would be easy. I should know by now that nothing is ever easy. The chat interface has no copy function for messages. Nothing in the edit rotor or the actions rotor, no long-press menu. I just can't copy a message to the clipboard. So I used VoiceOver's "Copy Last Spoken Phrase" function and just cleaned up the output.
As I was rating the app, I realized that the rating selectors had changed to a five-star system, and no matter what I select as a rating, the label for the adjuster is always "Five star rating". So VoiceOver will say something like "Five star rating. 2 of 5 stars, adjustable."
I have genuinely never been so baffled and discouraged by a companies refusal to maintain the most low-hanging of low-hanging fruit in the accessibility of an app whose entire purpose is to serve blind users. We see examples of indie developers adding robust accessibility to their apps just because they want to, and yet this company that profits off blind users is somehow unable to do the same.
If we had another app that offered the same functionality as Aira, we would be using it. Aira is making money because they're the only option, not because they're the best option. They have the freedom to choose whether to make a janky mess of an app or put the work into making something that is actually pleasant to use. Their current priorities speak volumes.
Simon Jaeger
npub1ez…qwagq
2026-03-05 04:25:13 UTC
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npub1ezwmkgpt0tlgn2kgz385gph3qfrqcc7z02qgg5xkkcg0dtg2cmfstqwagqPublished at
2026-03-05 04:25:13 UTCEvent JSON
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