But most people don't have that background. “And if you're an expert in the field, you can configure it the right way for this particular child or this adult. “In a way, all AAC apps, including our own, they're designed by experts,” he said. The bottom line? Trust Niemeijer and team to guide you in the right direction. For AssistiveWare’s part, Niemeijer and team feels the majority of folks are better off sticking to Proloquo unless, again, they have an insatiable desire-and the know-how-to customize and micromanage. The classic Exhibit A is the oft-cited cry from the nerd crowd that Apple limits the installation of third-party software to the App Store, but Android customers can sideload apps in addition to using the Play Store. By contrast, Proloquo2go is Android in this analogy: Whereas Apple’s philosophy is more conservative in nature, Google in comparison gives users much more free rein in terms of extensibility and modifying the operating system. Put another way, Niemeijer likened Proloquo to the iPhone: Powerful yet simple for everyone and impossible to screw up irreparably. Niemeijer estimates over 80% of customers disregard the company’s suggestions, while another 40% opt for the considerably smaller grid of icons. The crux of the issue is most people ignore AssistiveWare’s suggested settings the company recommends a grid of 77 buttons on a page, yet oftentimes users will reduce the size to show only 20. What originally was designed to be intelligent became a lot dumber. In a nutshell, they found customers-mainly parents, speech & language pathologists, and AAC specialists-were taking an extremely powerful tool and effectively turning it into a toy. Four years ago, AssistiveWare began looking into how people approach the OG Proloquo2go app in practical use what they discovered raised eyebrows and concern. The apps are meant to be complementary of each other. (I, on the other hand, have been covering WWDC up close and personal since 2014.) This year, Niemeijer was eager to tell me all about what he described as the “next generation in AAC technology”: Proloquo and Proloquo Coach. Niemeijer has been attending Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, for almost two decades.
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