Apple Doesn't Want My Filthy Disabled Money

http://deborah.dreamwidth.org/63403.html

by lizzard • 15 years ago

41 21 15 years ago

deborah.dreamwidth.org

sjs• 15 years ago

If you are rude or demanding you will be treated accordingly, and this post has a very demanding tone. Maybe I'm cold but I don't think being disabled is a pass to treat other people in a condescending or rude manner. It sounds like a frustrating ordeal and I am sympathetic but can't help but think the other side of this story may be different.

You only need a credit check if you are getting a phone on a contract. Perhaps the carrier you want a contract with has some policy about credit checks or driver's licenses. Did you try going through the carrier directly?

It sounds like you've given up or are at least very soured at this point (I don't blame you) but it might be worth cooling down and trying again via the carrier. Here in Canada you can get a credit check done with an existing credit card number and your SIN (social insurance #). Politely suggesting, to Apple or a carrier, that a credit card and SSN should be enough for a credit check could be worth a shot.

nknight5• 15 years ago

Every time someone or some system lazily says "driver's license", substitute "state-issued photo ID" in your head. You can get one from your local DMV office for a few dollars and a little time. It and its number will work fine in any context (other than actually driving) in which a driver's license may be called for.

bigohms• 15 years ago

Agreed. The poster most likely has one and didn't state the fact. It is a requirement to have a government issued ID card (with number) to apply and receive disability benefits.

hga• 15 years ago

Really?

If so, it was only to apply, and only when I visited the local Social Security office (initial application in the middle of the last decade was online). I don't remember being asked for it, but if I was I most likely wouldn't remember.

After that, in the journey of a successful appeal because the denial was totally bogus (as in the denying staff doctor, who never saw me, wrote up a report that the administrative law judge, his assistant, my lawyer or myself simply couldn't understand), and dispersal of benefits, absolutely no demands for an ID card were made.

Side note: I have an official Missouri "NONDRIVER LICENSE" (that's what it's called :-). Amusing name aside, everyone understands what that means and for everything non-driving related it serves the same purpose. It's also very cheap to get. Heck, my father has one because Missouri's concealed carry renewal period is shorter than the driver's license renewal period so this saves him money and hassle.

EDITED: Massachusetts has one: http://www.mass.gov/rmv/license/13bMAID.htm along with a "Massachusetts Liquor ID" (!) that appears to be the same thing except for the obvious age limit. A bit expensive at $25/5 years but that's Taxachusetts for you (says this refugee from that benighted state). One also heard horror stories about suburban DMV offices but I always found the central Boston one to be on the ball, pleasant and efficient.

shinratdr4• 15 years ago

Precisely. When I get carded I don't complain that this discriminates against people who don't drive, I realize they want any sort of applicable government ID and offer what I have. I'm pretty sure all states and provinces offer an alternate form of ID for those who don't drive.

jiggy20112• 15 years ago

In that case why specifically say "driver's license"? And when she complained that she did not have one surely it would have been easy for the person on the phone to correct her and state that any valid ID would be fine rather than insist on a driver's license, I'm sure it's not the first time this has come up.

In the UK people will usually say "Passport or Drivers License" (or if your in a bar just 'ID?') since almost everybody will have at least one of the two.

Pherhaps this is because less people in the US have a passport?

nknight5• 15 years ago

(Edit: I'm rather displeased that the comment I'm replying to here is getting downvoted. It's in no way deserved. He asked a reasonable question as a European to whom this aspect of American culture is, not surprisingly, alien.)

It's an embedded cultural assumption that gets written down for people who abdicate thought to what their computer screen literally says.

Historically, almost everybody in the US has a driver's license, and almost no one has any other meaningful form of ID. Many, if not most Americans will never leave the country, making a passport useless, and up until a few years ago, a US citizen could travel throughout much of North America and the Caribbean without one anyway.

They say it because it's what people say. Treat it as an historical quirk of American English.

bowyakka• 15 years ago

We do say this in the UK, but .......

its really rare to be asked for ID, it happens but only on the really big stuff (loans, getting a car, buying a _house_).

You would not need to provide a driving license to buy an iPhone.

I have just moved to the US for work and I am amazed at how often you guys get asked for driving license / SSN etc.

shinratdr4• 15 years ago

> In that case why specifically say "driver's license"?

Because more people are confused by government ID thinking it means passport, military ID or something like that, than are confused by thinking Drivers License means only a drivers license and nothing else. They may also try to offer items that don't count, such as a photo-ID health card.

Mz• 15 years ago

A lot of the people that will try to ask for this info aren't that knowledgeable and won't realize there is a way around it. It can be a real problem.

My ex was career military. So was his father. He spent most of his life on or near military bases, where everyone will take a federally issued military ID. He renewed his driver's license by mail one year when we lived very far from the state where he was registered as a voting citizen (paying taxes and keeping his driver's license from there). It showed up with no photo and in place of the photo it clearly stated that it was valid as proof of license to drive but was not to be used as "identification". He was on recruiting duty, so we weren't actually near a military base. Which meant that for the first time in his life, no one wanted to take his military ID (with photo and SSN on it) as ID if he wrote a check or something. They all wanted his driver's license, which he would then whip out and show them it couldn't be used for ID purposes. This stumped a great many people in entry level retail jobs.

epo• 15 years ago

Whiny, rude, disrespectful, also not smart enough to proffer alternative ID. Her problem isn't disability, its stupidity.

mcherm• 15 years ago

> Whiny, rude, disrespectful, also did not choose to proffer alternative ID.

Her problem may be rudeness. But rudeness is not stupidity. Confusing the two is either stupid or rude (depending on the reason for the confusion).

nknight5• 15 years ago

How is it you are magically divining from 9 short bullet points posted on her personal blog how she acted in her encounters with Apple employees?

And how is it you're magically divining that the people she encountered were not whiny, rude, or disrespectful?

lisper• 15 years ago

I call BS. I just went through the process of ordering an iPhone from the Apple store. No drivers license required, only an SSN, and that is SOP for any credit check. If you order an unlocked phone and pay full freight you don't even need an SSN.

shinratdr4• 15 years ago

Clearly. As anyone who has ever purchased any iOS device besides an iPhone locked to a carrier knows, Apple couldn't care less about your drivers license number. That's something the carrier you picked wants so that they can run a credit check.

shinratdr4• 15 years ago

Alternate Headline: Disabled woman outraged that things aren't just handed to her because she is disabled, actually has to do stuff.

For the record, I'm Canadian and I have never once had to proffer ID to purchase an iOS device, and I've owned an iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Sounds like a requirement of whatever carrier you are trying to get the phone from because you don't have much of a credit history or an existing relationship with a carrier. Not exactly Apple's fault.

I'll give her the accessibility thing, but when is that ever the case? I mean with the exception of possibly wheelchairs and items that are designed for disabled people, what company has reps that can properly explain all the accessibility features in a given product? Accessibility in iOS and OS X is documented much better online.

How about this: just buy the damn thing from Best Buy, try out the accessibility features, and if you feel they aren't adequate, return it within 30 days. You'll learn everything you need to know, and you'll give some kid an open box iPod touch to purchase at a discount. Everyone wins.

> I understand that Apple is trying to position the iPhone as the phone that's great for people with disabilities (which to Apple means "blind people").

Custom vibrations are for blind people? Screen flashes/LED flashes for alerts? Mono audio? Custom gestures and TouchAssist? I don't know why she found it necessary to throw in that little condescending comment at the end.

Apple bakes in thousands of dollars (literally, what it costs to add these features in to Windows 7 or XP) of accessibility features into iOS and OS X, for people with all sorts of disabilities. It's really insulting to characterize that as just some token features for the blind.

ben1040• 15 years ago

Discover on my frustrated way out the store that "expert in accessibility" apparently meant "took the accessibility training".

What more do you expect from a retail store? They're going to have someone who went through a training course on the devices they sell.

They're not going to have someone on staff who has studied and published manuscripts on device accessibility, just like they're not going to have a baseband firmware engineer there on staff to tell customers what airplane mode means.

leoedin• 15 years ago

One thing that seems to be missing from this page, the "trying to buy an android phone" page, and the about me page, is what the actual disability of the author is. I'd be interested in knowing what they can't do - it's worth taking it into account when designing your own UIs.

It's very hard for someone who doesn't suffer from a disability to imagine how someone with a disability will interface with their product. Screen readers/accessibility for the blind is relatively easy - write some software that reads the screen and presents what it sees in an auditory menu. Imagining how other disabilities affect the user, and then working around that, is hard. Given the extensive range of disabilities in the world, it's impossible to take into account everything. A device has to be designed with the most common disabilities in mind.

Apple Doesn't Want My Filthy Disabled Money

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