Podcast summary:
Jeff Thompson welcomes Sree Roy back to Blind Abilities for a conversation that begins with rising technology costs and quickly evolves into something much deeper. They discuss Apple’s price increases, AI subscriptions, and how accessibility technology is becoming more expensive for everyone. From there, the conversation turns to the gradual experience of vision loss and the emotional adjustments that accompany it. Jeff shares how subtle changes in his own vision have made organization, workflow, and daily routines more important than ever, while Sree reflects on his journey from fear to confidence after losing his sight. Together they explore the value of taking small steps, learning new skills early, leaning on the blindness community, and celebrating everyday accomplishments. Whether discussing VoiceOver, organizing a workshop, or simply finding the kitchen sink, this episode reminds listeners that blindness is not about giving things up—it’s about discovering new ways to keep moving forward, one step at a time.
Main Topics
- Summer plans, fitness, and everyday life.
- Apple price increases, AI subscriptions, and the growing cost of accessibility technology.
- The personal experience of gradual vision loss and recognizing changing abilities.
- Practical strategies for organization, safety, and adapting daily routines.
- Learning blindness skills early and accepting change one step at a time.
- Finding encouragement through community, organizations, and shared experiences.
- Celebrating small victories and understanding that every journey is unique.
Memorable Quotes
“We are going to encounter a lot of trials… but we do have a community, organizations, and individuals that support us.”
“My Kilimanjaro is pretty small things, but I get rewarded from them.”
“There’s a lot of things that I thought being blind, you can’t do… and then you hear these stories of people doing amazing things.”
“Little steps take us far.”
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Full Transcript:
{Music}
Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. This show is produced live in the Blind Ability Studio, and I want to thank all of you for listening and for sending in your feedback as well. Appreciate it. And if you want to send in some feedback, send us a message. Give us a call at (612) 367-6093. We’d love to hear from you. So without further ado, let’s get this show started.
Sree: We are going to encounter a lot of trials. There are going to be tough, but we do have a community, organizations and individuals that support us. I mean, that is how I made it through this.
Jeff: You talked about some people do these amazing things, you know, Kilimanjaro, but my Kilimanjaro is pretty small things, but I get rewarded from them and I recognize the reward of an accomplishment.
Sree: There’s a lot of things that I thought being blind, you can’t do. And then you hear these stories of people doing some amazing things, and they inspire me to believe that if there is something in your mind that you want to try and do, you can do it.
Jeff: But my Mac studio was in my cart, and the next morning it was $500 more.
Sree: It’s such a sour apple in my mouth.
Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson, and in the studio with me is Sree Roy. Sree, how are you doing?
Sree: Pretty good, Jeff. How about you?
Jeff: I’m doing good. I don’t have a beach trip coming up, but sounds like you got to get in shape.
Sree: I do, I do. Annually we do our beach trip, and this time we’re just going to do with the family. Typically, we go with my college friends, but this time it’ll just be us three going to the beach.
Jeff: There you go. What part of the world?
Sree: We’ll be going down to Delaware around the Dewey Beach area.
Jeff: Huh? Sounds like fun. Anytime to get away. Get away from all the other stuff. You know what I mean?
Sree: Yeah, yeah, it’s just, uh, our daughter’s going back to school, so we just thought we’d do a little bit of a short trip. With the flights being kind of expensive, we just decided to drive to the beach for the for a few days.
Jeff: So getting in shape is that like, lay off the Krispy Kremes for a day or two, or is it actually physical work?
Sree: Well, I was hoping that I could eliminate from taking some of those Krispy Kremes, but I did have a chocolate chip cookie today. But I did go out and do some physical workout.
Jeff: So yeah, I’ve been doing that too. I’m taking a shed apart. So today I was moving everything out of the shed. That exercise, going back and forth carrying stuff that gets to you after a while.
Sree: It kind of reminds me of Rocky Balboa when his when he was fighting, he would do these hard labor type of workout versus the guy would go to the gym, but you know, he’d be out there in the fields, you know, lifting things and pushing things and so forth.
Jeff: Well, yeah, I left a few things here and there, you know? Yeah. It’s fun to actually feel good about physical work. I’ve gotten some a pair of hokas and I got a pair of Brooks, actually two pairs of brooks because I got kind of flat feet. Yeah. And I always feel better when I’m wearing them. Fully supported or cushioned shoes.
Sree: Yeah. I’m a big fan of the Hokies. I have a pair too, and that’s what I mostly do when I go for a walk or if I’m going for a, on the on the machine itself, I’ll use those.
Jeff: Yeah. I got two pairs of Hokies, I guess two pairs of brooks and a pair of Nike Air. I like the Brooks for walking. Yeah. If I’m going to be walking a lot, but I like the Hokies. If I’m just going to be around the house and they’re very comfortable.
Sree: They are. They’re just. I think my daughter actually got me into those because she had a pair and she said, you know, if you want to be standing around, this is the pair of shoes to have. And I, I definitely agree with her. It’s very comfortable. It’s very light. It’s one thing I look for shoes is it needs to be light and comfortable.
Jeff: Yeah. You know, lately I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Mac. I got the last Mac, the Pentium, my other one fried, so I needed one. And it was like three months before they came out with the M1. And so, you know, I got a really nice one. It’s still updating and it’ll update one more time, I believe when the 27 comes out. So I’m like, ah, I had it in my cart and I was sitting on it, but I wanted the Mac studio and basically the, you know, I think it was the M4 that I had in my cart and it was 1999. Um, because you don’t need to beef up too much once you get into that level of the M4 and stuff to do what I do, since I don’t do video editing and all that, I do audio editing. And the other day I noticed the price jumped to 2499 in my cart.
Sree: Yep.
Jeff: And I didn’t change a thing.
Sree: It’s such a sour apple in my mouth. Apple.
Speaker 3: Ooh good one. Yeah.
Sree: I just I cannot believe it. It’s crazy. I’m so disappointed with them. Especially these are devices that’s already in the storage. I mean it’s in their inventory and they’re still raising the prices for these. And it’s one thing if they’re raising the prices for the upcoming hardware. The Mac studio to me is like way, way too expensive. Now, I think if you really spec out the really high end one, it’s like five grand now.
Jeff: Oh, yeah, but who needs that big of power?
Sree: No, I agree, but like you, I bought mine for two grand. Now it’s 2500, so.
Jeff: Oh, yeah. That’s right. I was talking to you about that a while back. Yeah. And you told me you used the student. Yeah. Purchase. And you saved a couple hundred bucks. Now I’ll have to.
Sree: If you definitely got some family member who’s going to a school. Definitely, you know, get it through them because you’re going to at least save some money for something that’s gotten more expensive now.
Jeff: Mhm.
Sree: You know, the sad part is a couple of sad parts that I noticed about all this price increase. My Apple TV box, which has not been changed for almost three years. Same hardware went up $100.
Jeff: The same device, same device.
Sree: No upgrades, no nothing. It’s not even probably going to support Siri 2.0. And now it’s going to cost me $100 more.
Jeff: And that’s one of the biggest problems that I see happening. Everyone’s going to this AI and all these features and all that stuff, which is demanding more memory. All the databases are eaten up, all the memory, and that’s what’s driving the prices.
Sree: We want AI, we bless the AI, and now it’s actually costing us more to have AI.
Jeff: And I just heard an article saying across the board, all the AI’s, the ChatGPT are going to be going up at that $20. They’re losing money on that $20 subscription. Yeah. And I see people paying $100 now a month, $200 a month because they’re doing coding and they’re doing this, that, and the other thing and everything, it’s like there’s a new world and it’s like, wait a second, I don’t need all that. I don’t want all that. And yet you can’t use the phones to their fullest capacity now unless you get a brand new one. And then you’re talking to pro or pro Max to really get into the AI stuff. So this AI is driving everybody into, uh, having to pay more for me.
Sree: You know, I had enabled ChatGPT on my 15 pro Max to, you know, instead of substituting it for Siri. Now, when I ask a few questions and it says, okay, I’ve hit my limit. And the crazy part is when I ask Siri a question and it can’t answer it, it’s transferred me to ChatGPT and ChatGPT is telling me I ran out of my daily allowance tokens.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Tokens, tokens, tokens keeps adding up and they want to charge for it. So I see where this is going. People like we had telephones who would have thought that we would have to pay for internet and phone service up in the 150 to $250 a month. When we think back 20 years ago and now for this, uh, AI to be able to use it, and a lot of people are using it, that $20 is not enough that you might have to start paying a hundred bucks a month if you want a certain level of usability.
Sree: I mean, I would say if somebody’s working and this is helping their job. And it’s a tool. It’s another tool for them to do that. But for us, you know, like normal users, you know, we’re asking basic questions. I’m not a heavy ChatGPT user. Probably. Maybe I might ask 3 or 4 questions a day. And now I’m experiencing where that’s not even working for me. So I think it’s a blessing and a curse with this AI because it definitely helped our community. But now we’re probably seeing the cause and effect of the demand for it now.
Jeff: Well, I see coming out in the new smart devices too, that are moving up into the like the Google just came out. And to really use it to its maximum, you’re going to be having to pay, you know, X amount a month more.
Sree: Yeah. I think it’s all going to be subscription. You know, we’re going to hear subscription subscription subscriptions.
Jeff: Yeah. Or just be dumb, right?
Sree: Yeah. And you know, another crazy part about this price hike I was just thinking about also is I bought the Apple Ultra and I have the model one, which is about, I guess about maybe 3 or 4 years old. It’s the highest priced Apple Watch. And three years later, I’m not going to get all the benefits of what’s coming out. No, you know, this is the first time I’ve seen one of their high end product within three years become not getting all the benefits. You know, the software that’s coming available now.
Jeff: Well, the 15 and the 16 were able to use some of the Siri AI features and stuff. And now with the latest coming out that they talk about, it’s only going to be maximized down to the 17.
Sree: And not the regular 17, the 17. Well, it’s going to get the Siri 2.0, but it’s not going to get the new Siri voice on the regular 17.
Jeff: Pro and up.
Sree: Yeah, you’re only going to get it in the Pro the air and the Pro Max.
Jeff: Oh the air is following up huh?
Sree: Yeah, it’s getting on the air. But I really feel sorry for those who had the 17 and I think the 17 E. I don’t think they’re getting it. I’m talking about the Siri voices, not the Siri 2.0.
Jeff: Yeah. Like we were saying, the cost of memory is being driven by AI and all the chat bots and everything else, the data centers. And now everybody across the board just got taxed. It’s basically an AI tax because the cost of the memories.
Sree: Yeah. And you know where I live here in Northern Virginia, we have very, very large data center in Sterling. And we hear a lot about the community that lives around this data center. They’re just they’re not happy. Some people say they’re hearing a buzzing sound.
Jeff: Got him. Hey. Yeah, I heard that buzzing noise, too.
Sree: Some people say they’re. They think it’s unhealthy. You know, you have all these homeowners are complaining. So we’ll have to see how this all plays out down the road.
Jeff: Yeah, they need a lot of water for cooling, and then they need a lot of electricity to drive everything. And the company that was serving everybody in their neighborhoods before is producing a lot more electricity. But who’s really paying that bottom dollar?
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: Because if they need to upgrade and improve their capability of production of electricity, they’re going to tax everybody across the board.
Sree: Yep, yep.
Jeff: Mhm. There’s a topic that I wanted to talk about, and it stems from something that you mentioned a while back. I did an interview with you. You were on Blind Abilities and you mentioned a part where you were working, and pretty soon your eye started changing and you went through some examples. And one that stuck with me is following the cursor. Whether you’re using a mouse or trackpad or something that got harder and harder and you know, you magnify it and magnify and pretty soon it’s the reality is your sights going.
Sree: Yeah. Yep. I still have memories in my head about that whole process and bringing the cursor to the corners of the screen, because I had to find a spot where I can actually find it and then slowly move it around so my eyes could kind of follow it.
Jeff: Mhm.
Sree: You know, I did have some areas where I would lose sight of it, and I had to start all over, go back to that corner and slowly move it around.
Jeff: And I just started noticing myself, changes. Changes in, you know, this, that or the other thing, a little foggier not as much detail and stuff. And it’s like, okay, I see the signs are coming. Now what do I want to do to be prepared for next year and the next year?
Sree: Mhm.
Jeff: And so me teaching and going through a lot of experiences of, you know, teaching students that are going through with RP or all this, I’ve seen it for years and years and I’ve been the one that, you know, talks positive about learning the skills and all that. However, when it’s happening to you or in my case, myself. It’s more than just a chat to myself. There’s a lot there. There’s a lot there.
Sree: Yeah. Like for me, you know, I actually observed my older sister and my older brother go through this before me. And so I had some understanding because I could actually see at that time. So I could see what they were actually going through this process of slowly losing your sight. And my brother, I remember him telling me, he goes, Sree, when I was starting to lose my sight, he goes, the hardest part is this process of losing your sight, you know, slowly. But when you don’t have any sight, then that worry goes away. Which is true because I’m not worrying about what I could see or slowly not being able to see. You know, those kind of questions in my head went away. But it’s a tough thing. And the only thing I tell people is start learning when you have some sight. Because for me, that course of learning when I can still see made my journey of learning how to do the things that I’m doing now much easier.
Jeff: Mhm.
Sree: Compared to like my brother who started learning this after he actually lost his sight.
Jeff: I coincidentally, my shed was getting old and I deciding to replace it and make it bigger, make it bigger and better. And I want the back wall when I’m done with it. I want it to be organized so I can have like tubs of Halloween stuff, Christmas stuff, decorations go right down the line and have it all labeled. So not only I can find it, but Laurie can find it, you know?
Sree: Mhm.
Jeff: Anybody that goes in there should be able to find it instead of how things were. Like, I’ll go dig it out, you know? I think one of the things I’m concentrating on right now is organization.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: Because I can’t have a cluttered table. Yeah. I can’t have a cluttered workbench out in the garage. I can’t have shrapnel laying all over the place. It has to have a place. And if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t go anywhere. Until it does. Because you just turn and you step and you trip and you break things and it just doesn’t work out too well. Yeah, I noticed that the other day. I walked into the bedroom and I decided not to turn the light on, you know? And I’ve always had some sight. You know what? I came to the bed and I turned the corner to to go down my side of the bed, and I thought, prospectively I should be going straight. But I was going towards the bed more and I kept on riding the bed in a sense with my leg. And it’s like I was fighting the bed because my perspective was it shouldn’t be there. Yeah, I just had to stop and then reach across and, you know, there was the windowsill and there’s the bed and it’s like, oh, that was me. You know, I, I turned early or something, you know, I did something, but little things like that that have been popping up. Of course, that was in pitch blackness, you know, but it was still my body fighting what I used to be able to do better. And now it’s like changing. And so I have to adjust.
Sree: Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, I go through that when I can’t even see right now. Like I’ve been in the kitchen thinking that the sink is in front of me. I’m in nowhere near the sink. And my daughter and my wife would ask me, hey, do you need some help? And I would say, no. Let me just see if I can figure it out. And I’m sure they see me kind of just exploring and exploring. And sometimes, you know, they would tell me I’m actually in the opposite side. And I had no idea. And even though, you know, like I listen for certain things because there are certain noises your kitchen makes, and I was listening for those noises and I still didn’t get to the sink the way I thought I would get there. So, you know, we are going to go through these things and we shouldn’t be frustrated about it, but we should. You know, I always tell myself these are lessons learned.
Jeff: Mhm.
Sree: What I couldn’t figure out, I try to figure it out and say, okay, this is how I learned it. Because if we just lived on full frustrations, you know, our life is going to be very tough if if everything’s just going to frustrate us. So, you know, I try to keep that perspective in my head all the time because yes, things are going to be very slow. I mean, that is the the most toughest thing that I had to kind of put into perspective. If people were walking around my house, I always let them go in front of me because I know I’m going to be the person that’s going to hold the traffic. So I just let them go because my path is going to be very slow getting to the destination.
Jeff: And that’s the same way with me. Over the years, I’ve noticed because I had sight, and then I’m doing stuff that I used to be able to do with sight. Is that adjustment to the expectations of what I’m going to get done, or how long it’s going to take for me to get it done. I’ve totally accepted that I get it done when I get it done, in a sense, yeah. And I’m okay with that because I have to be sure. I have to be safe and I want it right. And I think more than ever is when I’m working on something, I work on a process or I’m working on one thing, I put the things away. Whether it’s in the kitchen, whether it’s in the woodshop, I use something, I put it away, I use something, I put it away. When I’m done gluing, I clean up the whole mess. Everything gets put away and I start from scratch again because I can’t just set it to the left because in my mind, I move my project around or I doing something out of sight, out of mind, and I’ll knock it over.
Jeff: Yeah, some people are a lot better than I am, but I found out the way that works best for me is do one step at a time, just like the instructions say. Step one. When I go to step two, I start from scratch again. I noticed something the other day. My son gave me a Dutch windmill solar light. And it’s, you know, it’s about a foot tall or something like that, maybe a little taller. And you have to put the propellers, the the windmill together. And it comes with a two circles that trap the four blades and you snap it together. Well, every time I used it, I lost one of the circles. And it’s not that I lost it. It was just out of sight. Off to the side and I retrieved him. And then my wife found one of them on the chair where I was sitting. She said, hey, this just fell on the floor. Is this what you’re looking for? And I thought, wow. I was going to call the company. Say they didn’t send it to me.
Sree: It’s funny you say that because I’ve definitely done that. Like I go, I’m missing something in my package and not realizing, you know, that I’ve actually dropped it. So nowadays now I make sure I’m on a table, a flat table that’s, you know, a big table so that when I open up a box and I make sure that the box is very, you know, very close to the table. So if it does fall, it’s not going to roll so that I can get all these pieces, because there’s definitely small pieces and packages that when you can’t see it, it’s out of sight. It’s out of mind.
Jeff: Yeah, it’s just been happening this year more and more as I go along and it’s like, huh, I can’t deny it.
Sree: I would say you’re probably about maybe 6 or 7 years where I was if I had to kind of guess. Hopefully everything stays the way it is. If it’s, you know, it’s not the only thing I can tell you, Jeff, is it’ll be okay. You know, that’s what I tell people. When you lose your sight, you’ll be okay.
Jeff: Yeah. Like I said earlier, when we were talking, I’ve been a teacher. I’ve seen people go through this many, many, many times. And I’ve been that light for them, that encouragement, you know, that you too can do, you know, give them that little bit of positivity. And now that another stage and that’s, that’s, I guess this is just like when I first lost some sight that was devastating as well, you know, like, and then you get to a point where you’re comfortable of it and then you’re the sighted person around the blind people, but you’re the blind person around sighted people.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: And you don’t have, you’re on that fence left and, you know, you don’t have a real home. And now I see right now that I’m headed towards another shift. And, uh, I was just concerned, you know, it’s.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: Made me think of you and, uh, because you talked about that, not too many people talk. About it. They they talk about they’ve had little changes. But when you talked about it, you. You referenced your brothers and sisters and you knew what was coming. And. Yeah. So I’m glad we. Can have this open conversation about this topic because it’s, it’s pretty personal. It’s really personal. But I think other people are going through it too or have gone through it. And I think everyone challenges themselves differently.
Sree: Yeah, I think I don’t know if I mentioned this to you. I tell people about my three T’s when we start losing our sight, we’re we’re terrified, you know, we are terrified what’s in front of us, what this is going to be like. And as you go through this, we go through a lot of trials, some of these trials, you know, they’re just going to be a bump on the road. Some of them are going to be a wall that we’re going to have to figure out. Do I climb over? Do I go around it? Do I go through it? You know, we’re going to have all these trials. And when you go through these trials and when you when you’re able to fully understand it and then go through these trials, then you have the triumph, you know, the, the feeling of that you accomplish something. And my life has been like that. I’ve gone through a lot of trials and some of them are very tough. They’re not easy. These aren’t very easy. But you know, some of those I’ve gone through and I was able to go through it with some time.
Sree: I was able to accomplish it, and I felt the thrill of accomplishing these things, you know? And so we are going to encounter a lot of trials. There are going to be tough, but we do have a community organizations and individuals that that support us. I mean, that is how I made it through is, you know, I got involved in the blind community. And I would encourage anyone who’s starting to get involved in your community. There’s a lot of organizations out there because not only do they understand you, they support you. And that’s where I felt that I don’t have to feel so bad for myself. I wasn’t, you know, saying to myself, why me? It was more of at that point, it’s like, you know, what do I do to make my life be easier, not only for myself, but, you know, for my wife and my daughter. So I’m not always just having them, you know, support me because, you know, that can be very taxing to, to them.
Jeff: I remember when I first started losing eyesight, I went to a training center and a guy told me, you know, you can just do it. You know, it sounds silly, but just, just do it, you know? And but I watched him do it and he was thriving, striving, you know, he was doing. And he’s also the one that handed me a, a box of tapes. He says, I’ve read all these so many times. Just take these tapes. And it was audiobooks. It was just so cool. I put these books in and I was reading again, you know, it was like. And then I got into it and I really got into it. And I, you know, got involved in state services for the blind and stuff and found out that I could get these books from RFB back in the day, you know, it was just from one person, my interaction with one person. So yeah, I agree, whether it’s organizations or groups on, I think AFB has a bunch of these Zoom calls that you can get involved in and chat with people. And there’s just so many opportunities to do stuff like that that you can learn from others. And I think learning from teachers is one thing, but I think the students that were in the classes when I went to training, I learned a lot more from them in a sense, because they were doing stuff. Yeah, and that was interesting. What do you mean you’re doing stuff? Oh, we’re going out to eat. Where are you going? You’re going down there. How are you getting there? We’re walking. Who’s walking? You know, it was just all this stuff. Like I was acting as if you can’t. I can’t do anything. Well, I sat around for six months when I first got diagnosed with loss, vision loss and I couldn’t drive, so I couldn’t do anything, you know? But here’s people going down to restaurants, getting a beer, doing stuff, hanging out, partying in a sense, you know, they were doing and I wanted to do so I totally agree. Find people that are doing stuff.
Jeff: Yeah.
Sree: Not to, not to feel pity or anything here. But you know, I just know our life can be very fulfilling. You know, there’s a lot of things that I thought being blind, you can’t do. And then you hear these stories of people doing some amazing things. And they inspired me to, you know, to believe that if there is something in your mind that you want to try and do, you can do it. You’re going to get the support from the community. You know, just being here, talking to you. You know, I remember when I and I, when I first lost my sight, I installed this app called Blind abilities. Had no idea where this was going to take me. And here a Few years later, I’m sitting here talking to you. You know, you just we never know until you go through this journey and find these amazing different forks in the road and enjoy the ride. When you get to these, you know, these forks. As they say, take a test, drive on it and see where it takes you.
Jeff: Yeah, sometimes people want to do stuff all at once. And the other day I was thinking about what am I doing today? And I thought to myself, well, I’m just adding to what I usually do. And then in about six months, someone comes over and says, wow, you did that. How’d you do that? And I’m thinking, well, after breakfast every day I started doing this, or I started working out to go to the beach, or you make a cognizant effort to do something and work your way towards it. It takes a while to get to these goals and get to this acceptance of blindness as well. It takes a while, but if you I don’t want to say nickel and dime, but if you chip away at it like, you know, take one page at a time. You talked about some people do these amazing things. You know, Kilimanjaro. But my Kilimanjaro is it’s pretty small things.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: But I get rewarded from them and I recognize the reward of an accomplishment. What did I do today? Well, I got closer to a goal that I won’t see until, you know, September, maybe. But it takes this step before I can go to the next step. So I’m okay. I think I’m okay with this change that’s coming on.
Sree: Yeah, we don’t have to conquer, you know, this climbing the mountains or the example that you gave. You know, we all have these journey. And I always, you know, when I teach these classes, I always say, you know, this is not about how fast we can get to the finish line. It’s all about enjoying the ride, getting to the finish line. You know, enjoy these experiences that you’re having as you get to the finish line of whatever that task might be. I always tell people when I teach voiceover, you know, it’s before you learn how to create a contact in the contacts app, learn the gestures to get to the contacts app. You know, learn those gestures how you can enter information and enjoy learning that part of it. Because once you learn that, that takes you somewhere else on your phone that you could do.
Jeff: Yeah. It’s all about the little steps. Little steps.
Sree: Little steps takes us. As you go through these little steps, they’re going to take you far.
Jeff: I remember there was, uh, Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer. Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door.
Sree: Mhm. Mhm. We learned to crawl. Then once you mastered the crawling part of it, then learn to walk. And then once you mastered learning how to walk, then learn how to run. I never tried to run for something that I was not prepared for. You know, I take, like you said, I take these baby steps and learn the process. So that number one, I’m being safe. And number two, you know, I feel like I can I’m doing it.
Jeff: Well, this has been great. Not Apple’s hiking the prices, not ChatGPT, dominating the driving point for all the memory being used up, and that reflecting upon the prices and changing. And even if you don’t like it, you have to pay the tax because it’s part of what we’re using for accessibility. And I admit, a lot of people are doing a lot of stuff building accessibility with ChatGPT or the other devices. But you know, for me, I’m more of a, I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m going backwards with the technology. I like technology, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like where’s Apple’s going with their devices? It’s like, either you’re going to stick with them or you’re going to fall off. And even if you fall off, you got to pay the extra 100 bucks. Like you said, your Apple TV, the same one, no upgrades, no nothing. 100 bucks more.
Sree: Yeah. I think, you know, for me, if my Apple TV, if one of my Apple TV breaks spending $100 more to me at least. It’s going to be much easier for me to replace that than for me to start all over and find something else that’s less expensive, and go through the process of setting all that up and understanding it.
Sree: So I think at this point in my life, you know, sometimes we do have to bite the bullet. And, you know, in all fairness, when you look at Apple in general, they’ve kept their prices, even though prices are high. They haven’t really raised any of this for a long period of time. You know, we always hear, oh, the iPhone price is going to go up, iPhone price is going to go up. But you know, it hasn’t really gone up.
Jeff: But my Mac studio was in my cart and the next morning it was $500 more. And I’m like.
Sree: Well, you know, we can still go to, I think the third party sellers are still selling it at the regular price. So I would say if you’re looking to buy a computer, definitely check out the third parties. And you know, if holding off trying to wait for the, the next, you know, end of the year models, I think if you need one, this is probably a better time to buy it. And I would never say that because I always say, hold off until, you know, the new stuff comes in. But now. Now I’m not sure, because if you can find it at a third party reseller and it’s at a lower price, I think you might want to take advantage of that.
Jeff: It’s really hard to find the Mac minis or the Mac Studios though. I mean, they’ve pretty much swallowed them up. A lot of people are using them for their own little AI servers type of deals, you know, load it up with all their stuff so they can run it at home instead of online.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: That’s where all the Mac minis went. They say they just scarfed them all up and you know, well, we knew it was coming. It came and now we’re whining a little bit. But the way things go.
Sree: You know, also definitely check out the refurb market to see if there’s something that you can find.
Jeff: There’s nothing there. I looked.
Sree: You looked, okay.
Jeff: I went down the line. There’s a lot of NEOs already. The new laptop, you know, that’s, uh, went up 100 bucks, but they’re in the refurb. I highly suggest I think Apple has the best refurb program there is. I’ve never heard someone get a refurb and be upset.
Sree: Yeah, they support their product.
Jeff: Well, Sree, thank you so much for coming on and chatting about this. And we’ll have to do this more often.
Sree: Yeah.
Jeff: All right.
Sree: Jeff, thanks a lot. I appreciate you allowing me to be part in today’s discussion. Thank you.
Jeff: All right.
{Music}
Jeff: For more podcasts with a Blindness Perspective, check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com And if you want to leave some feedback, give us some suggestions. Give us a call at (612) 367-6093. We’d love to hear from you. I want to thank you for listening. And until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities