“Holly Bligh, 9, has albinism, a genetic condition that affects not only the pigment in her skin, hair and eyes, but also her vision,” Evonne Barry reports for The Herald Sun. “But the sight problems that once made school a struggle for Holly are now largely a thing of the past – and her parents thank her touch-screen tablet.”
“The iPad has replaced a weighty magnifying glass as Holly’s classroom companion, and a simple swipe of her finger now zooms in on text that once had to be enlarged by teachers on the photocopier,” Barry reports. “Holly’s attention span has increased and her mother, Fiona, estimates ‘visual fatigue’ now takes twice as long to set in.”
Barry reports, “So impressed was Ms Bligh with her daughter’s transformation that she sent a message to the very top at Apple. Within hours of directly emailing multi-billionaire chief executive Steve Jobs, she was thrilled to receive a response. ‘Thanks for sharing your experience with me. Do you mind if I read your email to a group of our top 100 leaders at Apple?’ he wrote. Mr Jobs signed off with ‘Thanks, Steve,’ and asked for a high-resolution photo of Holly with her iPad.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dharmesh Jasani” for the heads up.]
Confidence and sarcasm in the face of idiocy.
Genuine class when it matters.
Gotta love him.
You mad, bro?
This is a touching and heart-warming story. No sarcasm, no idiocy.
Read the 2nd line.
joe
The second line applied to this story. His first line was referring to times when Steve replied in a sarcastic tone to the times some idiot emailed him.
3 separate points indicated above
He is glorifying steve with respect and praise
You have indicated the opposite maybe a re read of themacadvocate note is in order
He’s saying that Steve will reply in like for like fashion. In other words if you send him a snarky email about FCP X, for example, he will reply in kind. But if you send a heart warming story in to Steve will back you to the hilt and love you in return.
And what will be the tone when I write and tell him that Apple took a huge amount of money from my credit card with absolutely no authority. A thief stole my identity.
No tone. no reply.
Apple. Used to love ya.
I am not clear what you expect Apple to do in response to a thief stealing your identity? Are you claiming that it was through their negligence that this happened? That is the only circumstance whereby you could hold them personally responsible. Surely otherwise it is your bank or credit card that should be doing something about it.
“A thief stole my identity.”
It must suck to be him.
KillerCat, slow down when you’re reading, so you can comprehend.
All of you are wrong. I looked in my Nostradamus cliff notes. It is obvious the meaning of “TheMacAdvocate”‘s message was about the impending destruction of the world set to occur this october.
In fact, we should stop discussing Apple products on this site and dedicate more comments to “theMacAdvocate”‘s post.
just my $0.02
Awesome that Apple & Steve care about accessibility. Apple has made computing available to so many with ease, clarity and delight. My service Newf has vitiligo; I’ve seen what a loss of pigment can do to vision. Kudos to Apple.
Apple were always ahead of the game with accessibility.
The original Mac had a section of the standard manual typeset in large print, so that visually impaired users could get started.
Cascadians: Service Newf as in Newfoundland? Damn, this MDN post was touching enough and then a service dog got mentioned. There is really special place in Animal Heaven for service dogs.
There was an albino girl in my class in junior school, and one sunny day when she was away from school I smelt something odd, then noticed the sun shining through her large magnifying glass was setting her desk on fire! Her brother also suffered from it, and both had very poor eyesight, so I can see (pun not intended), just how much technology like the iPad really means to children and adults who can take advantage of it.
thats exactly what technology is supposed to do-get out of your way and help make your life better.
Thank goodness some tech companies get it.
Ah dude come on… you don’t think she’d get the same benefit from a 20 pound slate running Windows 8 with the magnifier as hot air blazes out the likely needed exhaust port on the bottom with McAfee doing a full system scan to make sure she is safe and protected out on the big bad interwebs ?
I can just see the reply from Balmer already…
“Thanks for sharing that story! Would you mind if we used your daughter in a commercial to help us advertise our new Windows(r) 8 Slab Extreme(tm) ??? Stories like this are pure gold!
I LOVE THIS COMPANY. GIVE IT UP FOR ME! YEAH!!!!
Thanks,
Steve
Actually it’s about the little girl not Apple. And yes, another tablet computer would make her life better even if it was a inferior product compared to the iPad. If the CEO of another computer company were approached in such a manner by a parent they would respond the same way Steve did. Quit using every damn thing to pump up Apple and run down other companies. It’s really not necessary. Apple clearly makes the best product. Steve is clearly the most driven leader on the planet. Apple has always strived to make their products accessable to everyone. But enough of the fan boy crap that goes on here endlessly. Geez, many of you are adults. At least in age. Don’t be such idiots as to think that Apple is the only company that makes products accessible or have employees or a CEO that gives a damn. I doubt that any of you work for Apple. Does that mean that you are all useless slugs? It must because only people at AAPL care. Only people at AAPL innovate. Apple makes great stuff. It’s a company. There are good people everywhere. Grow up!
In case you didn’t notice this is an Apple Fans’ website – If you don’t like the opinions, go somewhere else. Most of MDN followers keep coming back BECAUSE we are fans and like the MDN takes. For us it is exhilarating to see bad competitors, silly tech-pundits FAIL. And anecdotes such as this one make us feel good. Why would you want to take that away from us?
If you could cite a credible source for your assertion, people might (note I said might) take you seriously. So please, show us a similar story from another tech company.
=:~)
Aaplou and Chas : you just don’t get it do you? Cite a credible source? I don’t owe you or anyone an example. And Aaplou : I have been a AAPL fan and user for over 25 years so some pussy like you isn’t about to tell me to go somewhere else. You two are typical of fanboys living in mom’s basement. Right asswipes?
awww is someone cutting onions around me because my eyes keep tearing up.
Thats why we Love Steve.
“He cares about the impact that his Products can Make on People’s Lives”
(Hey Steve Get Well, we Love You)
Agree with all the comments above.
Surprises me that some idiot has not yet posted something negative about this yet. I am sure the PC media are working on something along those lines. Lets see how long it takes.
It won’t be something negative, more like some jackoff posting about how millions of blind users are running Jaws on Windows every day but you just don’t hear about it. lol.
That or they’ll point out accessibility features or explain how ‘you could do the same thing on windows if you…. (long list of instructions and registry edits follows))
Actually, to be fair, some of the accessibility features in Windows (and 3rd party apps) are better than built into the Mac. Certainly Windows machines used to have more features for the visually impaired than Macs did a few years ago. I have a friend who has both visual and hearing issues, and she’s been forced to go PC because they have (had?) a wider range of assistive technologies.
Oh my god! Are you crazy? You can’t come here and post honest information! What will Aaplou and Chas think? How dare you!!!
What’s so special about this story? Instead of an overpriced iPad, this young girl could have had two, maybe three, rooted Nook Color tablets and solved her vision problems. After all, Android tablets will have the highest market share by 2015 due to their “open-ness”, low cost and Flash capability.
Wait until this vision-impaired little girl tries to access some Flash sites with that iPad and sees a gigantic blue block of ambiguity staring in her face. She’ll be in tears and ready to send off a scathing email to Steve for hobbling the iPad with his controlling and narrow-minded attitudes. Just wait until Microsoft rolls out Windows 8 and some ultra-Sandy Bridge tablet and then that little girl will be in seventh heaven. Yeah, man. The tenth time will be the charm.
good lord, you are a trolling moron. what’s special about this story is a little couldn’t see things that well. she used to have to lug around magnifying devices. that’s a thing of the past. as far as flash goes, SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO USE THAT ANCIENT CRAP. i haven’t missed not having flash on any of my ios devices. would you do us all a favor and go jump in front of a bus.
Witty sarcasm – check into it.
I don’t have albinism, my only problem is not being 20-years-old anymore, but I appreciate the ability to read on the iPad without reaching my eyeglasses.
MDN’s promise to offer larger font sizes in a future app update is also appreciated.
I second that about the bigger fonts on the mdn app!
I have a niece about Holly’s age, albeit a year younger, who looks as cutie pie as Holly. I love her to bits and I can understand why Holly’s mother wrote in to Steve Jobs to thank him for the use the iPad has been put to increasing Holly’s attention span. You would do anything for a cutie pie like that. Muaks.
Absolutely awesome story.
What strikes me is not so much that Steve replied, but its what he asked for… he asked if he could share that story with leadership at Apple. From there it will trickle down to the masses at the company.
That says a lot about his leadership style and how he wants the company to conduct itself.
I guess that rear camera is handy, after all…you never know what will be of critical importance to some users.
…wipes tear…
I’m all teary!
I admit it…. a good Apple related story still gives me goose bumps.
Yeah great story makes me happy and sad at the same time
How Wall Street just hates smarmy human interest stories. After reading this, the hedge funds are gonna short the hell out of Apple. Helping one visually-handicapped girl is not going to get Apple stock off the shorting hook since there aren’t that many albinos to buy enough iPads in this great big world. Thanks to little Holly Bligh (alias Miss Capt. Bligh), Apple shares are going to be down another $10 by Friday.
I hope Steve shows that high-res photo to some leaders on Wall Street and see if it brings a tear or two to their eyes. Nope, it will not. Entities without souls don’t shed tears.
What a sicko.
Hi Faye, is this your first time here? Enjoy your stay at MDN. There’s always great stories to read.
About those sickos, the best you can do is ignore them. We get a couple like that on this site who spout nonsense, well at any rate more nonsense than me. They get a kick out of the negative comments in reply so the best thing to do is not to feed the trolls. Soon the lack of attention will drive them away.
Little-known fact – the person posting as TheWiseInvestor picked out his user name on Opposite Day.
Otherwise he would be known by his true attributes – Dumb&Broke.
That’ll bring a tear to a glass eye. Love the story & love the response from SJ.
If i’m not mistaken… thats an iPad 1.
The only thing missing from the story, is Apple sending her an iPad 2.
Ranks up there with the Autistic kid Apple shown at the launch of the iPad 2, Shows that a little bit of tech can go a long way in helping those with disabilities.
“You would do anything for a cutie pie like that.”
People who truly care, would want to benefit all kids who need help, cute or not so cute.