Zoomtext 10

[tom0_85]

How is the development of zoomtext?
When can we expect zoomtext version 10?

Is there a development blog of some kind so we can see where Zoomtext is at?

Thanks

[jjandzinski]

Hello,

There is a possibility ZoomText 10 may come out next year or possibly the year after that. We don't have a current time of when it will come out. We are working on updates for 9.1 which should hopefully be out later this year.

There is no development blog at this time.

Thanks.

[JamesSoftware]

Is there any BETA tests comming up?
.Jim H.

[jjandzinski]

Hello Jim H.,

I am not aware of any Beta tests at this time. If we do have something we will let you know. Thanks.

Take care,

James

[CosmicD]

I've been out of the loop recently with zoomtext stuff as I am a windows vista 64bit user. So I guess not a chance zt will hop on that one ? (as with so many peripheral vendors )

[jjandzinski]

Hello,

We have been having more and more customers getting the 64 bit version of Vista with out even having a choice on what version they want. So we have been putting it in our features request list. And we have been pushing the fact that we need to get a 64 bit compatible version of ZoomText. We in Tech Support are hoping we will develop a 64 bit compatible version but we will let you know if we plan on it. Thanks.

Take care,

James

[baayers]

Unfortunately as you are probably aware of it has gotten to the point of almost impossible to find 32 bit systems anymore and vendors are becoming more reluctant to provide a 32 bit disk. I was wondering if there has been any progress in making a 64 bit version of ZT and if so is there any chance of at least a beta in the near future.

Thanks in advance,
Benjamin

[JamesSoftware]

Welcome,
I suggest you should write and call ZT customer support. They are good at doing improvements that they know about.
Jim

[jjandzinski]

Hello,

We do have a Beta version of ZoomText that will work with the 64 bit version of Vista. If you go to our home web page of www.aisquared.com you will see something stating that fact and also an email address (ztbeta@aisquared.com) you can email to get that Beta version of ZoomText. We are hoping to have a full functional product in the first quarter of 2009. Thanks.

Take care,

James

[HonkyHonk]

Hello,

There is a possibility ZoomText 10 may come out next year or possibly the year after that. We don't have a current time of when it will come out. We are working on updates for 9.1 which should hopefully be out later this year.

There is no development blog at this time.

Thanks.

This is horrific!

"maybe" and "the year after that"?
But I guess this is the attitude you could expect from a company which almost have monopolistic status in the zooming software business.

Well - at least they got the 64-bit BETA version out....

I am very disappointed in AI Squared.

[tom0_85]

To be honest i dont really see much of a future for zoomtext.

Windows 7's magnifier is better than zoomtext, even if it lacks some of the glitter zoomtext has, it performs better and has what we need.

People who need speech as well as magnification can now just get jaws or windows eyes and use windows 7 magnifier which will give a far better experience both in speech and in magnification.

Zoomtext doesn't even support 64bit OS's, it doesn't magnify anything that is processed from a GPU 'like areo, or direct draw' it makes mulit core chips into single core chips (which is very misleading as it should say this in the documentation) and doesnt really work with vista properly.

Even linux has a far more advanced magnifier than zoomtext and that is free!

Unless AIsquared pull something out of the hat, and fast and release something amazing, there will be no zoomtext, period. And if this is the case, then good riddance.

I used to be a supporter of zoomtext, but when i discovered the mulitcore bug and alerted the help team about it, they still haven't made an official comment on it, nor advertise that zoomtext can decrease a computer's performance by up to 75 percent. Which is immoral and even illegal in certain countries...

i just hope they wake up n change there act, but as things go i will certainly never spend any more the product.

Thom

[smithers]

Two problems with the Windows 7 full screen magnifier that I can see are that it ONLY does full screen when Aero Glass is running, i.e. the computer has got a good enough graphics card to run full Aero in the first place. On the laptop I installed
W7 Beta on to initially, I only got Aero basic because the laptop has only got integrated graphics chipset, and the magnifier only worked like it does in Vista/XP i.e no full screen mode.

The above may mean that existing users who are not prepared to upgrade to a new computer with decent graphics card will lose out. Having said that, you could buy a reasonable spec desktop to run W7 for around the price of ZT Mag/Reader!

Was testing W7 Beta out today in dual boot on the same machine I run Vista+ZT 9.1, the full screen magnifier is pretty responsive (better than ZT) BUT big problem is that ZT's XFont smoothing is really pretty excellent. And frankly, the full screen zoom of the anti-aliased/cleartype fonts in Windows 7 is a pixelated mess. This is exactly the same issue I had last year - I bought a Mac Mini with Leopard to theoretically replace my Vista+ZT setup because Leopard has got a decent full screen magnifier. But I had exactly the same issue i.e. AA/smoothed fonts look terrible zoomed in. So I sold the Mac, and back to ZT 9.1 it is.

But, I totally agree with the sentiments in this post - AI2 have been living on borrowed time for a few years, frankly, and I've been using ZT since v7. The last time I felt ZT was actually a smooth running piece of software was 7.11 on Windows 2000. 8.0 on 2000 was sluggish, 8.1 on XP was less sluggish (but not as good as 7.11). 9.1 LOOKS beautiful with the font smoothing, but is a horrible bloated mess with 20-30% typical CPU usage, that multi-core CPU problem, no support for Aero Glass, and even stupid issues like not being able to play DVDs in Media Centre without closing Zoomtext completely first (Media Centre automatically turning zoom off is not sufficient), and if Microsoft can take note of customer feedback (i.e. Vista) and make amends with Windows 7, AI2 really focus on getting the speed back into their product. A magnifying engine using the GPU really is essential in 2009 onwards.

So, AI2 developers - PLEASE give us in ZT 10 the Xfont smoothing of 9.1 with hardware GPU magnification. Yes, it will be a big redevelopment, but to be honest, I struggle to see how long you will remain in business long term where your product basically expects the user to have a PC with technology circa 2003.

All it would take is for Microsoft or Apple to do something like Xfont smoothing in their free magnifiers and you will be in a real tricky situation. And as mentioned above, new visually impaired users are unlikely to spend $500 just to get smoother fonts, large mouse cursors and more configuration for screen reading etc when their new Mac or PC has an OS with a more simplistic but basically the same type of magnifier built in.

Sorry to sound negative. Just a note of caution from a long standing ZT user.

[HonkyHonk]

I have to agree with the two above statements.

But unfortunately I don't think AI2 care about what 3 of their customers think - they have planty of customers out there. Here in Denmark the official organizations for the visual impared is supporting ZT, so they will not loose any significant number of customers in the near future.

Why? Because ordinary people do *not* know of any alternatives to ZT, they do *not* know about the dual core issue (even I didn't, but now it makes sense to me that my new dualcore machine is so slow).

We need to open their eyes, we need to tell them about the alternatives and the issue with ZT - so that we ALL can put some preassure on AI2.

I am not sure on, how to do that, but you are very welcome to contact me, if you are interested in starting some kind of lobby for improviing ZT.

The first big step for AI2 would/could be just to inform us on their plans - so be it, if the development for ZT10 is taking a year or more. We just need to know what to expect - will ZT10 give us that performance boost that is soo needed?


And regarding the fullscreen magnifier in W7, I miss all the hot-keys - but that should be pretty easy for MS to fix.
And I have to agree on the issue with AA/smoothing.

[bubazoo]

In all fairness to Aisquared here... I'd like to clear up a couple of un-truths here.

first of all, WIndows 7's full-screen magnifier, does not work with color enhancements enabled.
Microsoft calls color enhancements something else, just says high contract mode, but essentially
the same thing. Like pointed out above, the magnifier ONLY works in areo mode, and does not work
in high contract / color enhancements enabled. Zoomtext's biggest selling point isn't just their
magnifier. I'm sure even Aisquared themselves would probably say, if all you need is a magnifier,
just purchase the express version, which is dirt cheap, its like what $99? not $800 like the
full version is, so in all fairness, there is still a market for ZT.

If all you need is the magnifier, and you don't like Windows 7's magnifier that doesn't work with
color enhancements enabled, then just buy the express version. its as simple as that.

Secondly, ZT is more then just a magnifier. If you've ever gone thru all the options you'd know that.
IT has cursor enhancements, mouse pointer enhancements, scripting, the ability to remove problem
colors, focus enhancements, along with the color enhancements that you can turn on and off with a
simple keystroke, something very important that WIndows 7 does not, and never will have.

I am just a customer as you are, but I don't agree with half of what your saying.
They came out with a 64 bit version awhile back, and yeah you may not be able to "buy" a
32 bit computer anymore, but there's still enough of them floating around. The laptop I own now
is an AMD Athlon 3200+ 2.0 ghz processor, which is 32 bit. Now granted its probably ancient in
today this moments standards, but the laptop is barely 2 years old, and i plan on keeping it for
at least another 3, so its not quite time to dismiss 32 bit support yet.

Lastly, AiSquared could still pull something out of their hat in the next year with Zoomtext 10
that gets rid of 32 bit support, and only supporting 64 bit. You never know they could do that.
All I see is them not answering press releases right now, which for development and competition
I happen to agree with, because the bottom line is, Zoomtext may not be the only alternative for
blind users, but for visually impaired users there's nothing out there that even compares to it.
I use Linux and a Mac, and I don't see either of those 2 platforms that have what Zoomtext has.
Personally I'd like to see Zoomtext support Linux and Mac's as well. Even with the Mac's
built-in accessibility options, again you can't enable the magnifier and color enhancements
at the same time, or "on the fly with a specific keystroke", so at least IMHO, what you guys
say doesn't hold water.

I use both WIndow Eyes and Zoomtext, and I have to tell you THe Speech synthesizers in
WE sucks. It does, it reminds me of computer generated speech from the 1980's back in
the days of that wargames movie. Its terrible, so I find myself using Zoomtext's speech
synthesizer more often because I like Neospeech better then any of WE's alternatives.
W.E. says it supports neospeech's synthesizer sets, but I haven't found that to be true.
When you try to use neospeech's synthesizers in W.E. the speech is REALLY slow
and choppy, doesn't run as smooth as it does within Zoomtext... I haven't tried Jaws yet,
but as far as their speech goes, there is nothing like zoomtext's neospeech I'm sorry.

The only thing I've ever wanted out of zoomtext, that it currently doesn't offer, is what I use
Window Eyes for, and that its ability to navigate around a webpage or office document
using the keyboard only with various key commands. I am not completely blind yet,
but I am geting close, so most of us who are extremely visually impaired, still prefer
using BOTH Window Eyes and Zoomtext at the same time, which believe me if you
think ZT is slow try running it at the same time with WIndow Eyes, that REALLY slows
down a PC to a crawl, so I think ZT should have more Jaws or W.E like features.
If they do in ZT 10, which they very well could, then I'd probably get rid of W.E or Jaws
forever personally, but again, its up to them rather they decide to pull something out of their
hat with the next version or not. They could, but I do understand for press reasons why
they are so hush hush about it, from a development standpoint they should be.

[tom0_85]

Just to clear a few things up from the above post.

Firstly, windows 7 does have colour enhancements. With small tweaking you can get a fully high contrast windows 7 magnifier, with large cursors and even focus. ALL of this is available in free easy software that can be added on on to any windows 7 machine for $0. They are not as featured as zoomtext but the point is they are more than adequate and its completely free.

Mac and linux have the ability to use colour enhancements and hotkey support, there have been significant upgrades in accessibility in the past couple years with both linux and apple, so i'm not surprised that you didnt know this.

I'm more interested in the up-n-comming updates of lunar and MAgic.

But seriously, Microsoft just needs to release an update that adds extra font smoothering and better high contrast and it will absolutely annihilate zoomtext. Apple have already deverstaed mobile speak and Talks with Iphone. It is probably already too late for zoomtext.