AT support for role="application"

Hi all,

I am trying to understand the functionality of application role and what the
current support of AT is for the same. From the w3 description (at
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#application) once role="application" is
specified AT would set the user into non-browse mode and pass arrow and
other key strokes straight to the the application so the application can
support keyboard functionality.

To verify the behavior I tried the spreadsheet
example<http://www.mozilla.org/access/dhtml/spreadsheet>(from
mozilla.org) using FF3 and Window Eyes 6.1. While WE 6.1 recognized the
application mode and announced "Browse Off" as soon as the page has been
rendered, it continued to stay in browse mode until an explicit focus change
occurred to one of the elements on the body. Is this the expected behavior
of an AT for role="application"? The behavior certainly makes sense to me,
but what threw me off is the fact "Browse Off" has been announced but I
continued to be in browse mode initially. Once I understood, what it is
doing I actually like the resulting user experience, but want to make that
this is the expected behavior.

Also, has anyone tried a combination of application role and document role
on the same page. Any good examples out there that I could play with? What
about other AT, anyone know if JAWS and all has any support for this or
planning to add?

Thanks,
Srinivas

-- 
Srinivas Annam
Software Engineer, Accessibility
Google, Inc.
Cell: 408.898.4928
Email: annams@google.com