First time buying a Mac, some input needed

Straight up, if your not running ai or huge projects there's very little reason to opt for 24.... I'd still go with a terabyte though.

Forget Windows. If you find parallels, there are some, great, congratulate yourself and enjoy. Actually, you know what? I wrote up a whole thing on this, let me find it. It was too the Logic Accessibility group, so it even covers music a bit.

Here are my two big Mac tips.

1. Ignore Windows. Just assume Mac is an alien world. Imagine it has an interface where you have to do dance steps or something, if it helps. The big thing people run into isn't just the habits part, where you've been doing stuff for twenty years, so it feels very familiar. It's also that you want it to work that way, that it's what you expect to happen.

2. Voiceover and the arrow keys. The other big thing I hear from people switching to Mac is, oh tab needs to work here but it doesn't, oh I can't remember when I use tab or the arrows or whatever. Voiceover and the arrow keys work, all the time.

3. I know I said two, but consider this a sub-tip of 2. You'll thank me. Caps lock as Voiceover modifier. It wonders me how many people complain about how you have to press twelve million keys at once, but then you find out they're still using, is it ctrl-option? I don't even remember what the two key version is anymore. Use caps lock. Even if you don't use it exclusively, per The Oreo Monster's recommendation in the getting started course, you will simplify your life immensely.

These tips are coming from somebody who tried the Mac twice, and went back to Windows. About two years ago now I bought a base Mac Mini, because I wanted to try Garage Band, Logic Pro really, but I started with GB. I made myself use nothing but the Mac for the return period, a few weeks I think, maybe a month maximum. Other than briefly using Windows to copy stuff over to the Mac and reset that laptop for sale, and a virtual machine on the Mac for gaming, I've been using the Mac ever since.

While I'm writing a novel, apparently, two more things.

1. You can use Reaper and Ableton on the Mac. That's why I wanted to try it, because I knew if I liked Logic, I'd still have access to everything else.

2. If you have iOS and a Bluetooth keyboard, a lot of the commands and the way you navigate and such is pretty similar. So if it's harder for you to tackle the Mac because it's a computer, try using your phone with a Bluetooth keyboard and Voiceover. You can't really expect the phone to work like Windows, because it really is pretty different.

The big thing that helped me with the Mac is almost thinking of it like a phone. What I mean is, I really tried to let go of expecting things to be a certain way, and just went, "OK, how do I do X on the Mac"? Then you learn that, and try it a bunch of times. See if you get used to it. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. There are things I know you can do on the phone that I don't, because they're just easier somewhere else. I'm not saying this is some sort of magic cure that will make you love a Mac.

I'm saying this is what got me past "this is so weird and frustrating", which happened twice over a period of years, to actually using the Mac exclusively. If you just assume there's a Mac way of doing things, and that's probably going to be different, that is, IMO, half the battle. Then it's less frustrating, and you're just learning something entirely new, and seeing if it's a way of working you can deal with or not.

There are still a few things I miss from Windows here and there, I'm not gonna lie. But I can get all my daily stuff done on the Mac just fine, and I get awesome stuff like Logic, a fully-featured accessible DAW. By fully-featured I'm not necessarily saying Reaper or something else isn't, but with Logic you get instruments and effects and such built right in, you don't have to go chasing them down, like you might with Reaper. Plus, like I said, you still have access to Reaper and Ableton. I don't feel slowed down by the Mac or anything like that. And I used Windows almost exclusively from 95 to 11, and MS DOS before that. So I had *a lot* of accumulated habits built up!

There are my thoughts on getting to grips with the Mac, for whatever they're worth. Hope they help somebody, at least a little bit.

Anybody wanting mac studio m3 ultra 128 - 256 - 512 gb to load a gpt grade ai model? Be my guest, you will pay for it :)
TLDR, I am a cs student. 16gb for my current needs is enough.
As for voiceover..... Yes, no matter whatever new half broken things we got in quick nav, I always, always use capslock + arrow keys, it always works. Voiceover is just ... voiceover, there are countless threads here about power users, developers about the issues. But it is usable enough for us to do anything we could ever want to do with a computer, with an experience that could be much more polished. Terminal will be your friend even if you hate it for the first year knowing the bugs compared to nvda for example. I mean the native terminal. No any special voiceover setting or whatever. Vim may or may not work for you, it doesn't for me but one lucky guy use vim and a browser to do everything here so... Just expect bugs and an honest amount of frustration, even if and especially if you are a power user / developer, you will realise quickly(unlike some here) how voiceover's core on macos is being neglected by apple for over a decade now (I only have 3 years of experience). If you feel hopeful / have time, file feedback when you feel able to.
I sincerely wish you good luck.
I know 3-4 blind people around me who have a mac too and roughly have the same tech profile, and we are mostly happy.
And yes, I pay parallels yearly for the most official debloated windows 11 microsoft will give, to apple users :) .

For general Mac stuff, I'd say here, both the existing resources and asking questions.
For music stuff:

Logic:

https://www.theblindlogic.pro/

There's a great free getting started course, if you subscribe. Also:

https://groups.google.com/g/logic-accessibility?pli=1

Reaper:

https://www.theglobalvoice.info/reaper/

Also a great group:

https://groups.io/g/rwp

Ableton Live:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/access-ableton/id1814535308

And a group, pretty low-traffic though.

https://groups.io/g/abletonaccess

I don't have anything for coding, sorry. Do we have a guide for XCode or anything? I feel like it's something people just pick up somehow or other. Or is it just writing the code with whatever editor and using the CLI compiler?

That wonderful, lengthy, informative post is exactly how I teach my students. I agree with everything and would love to throw in the Track Pad commander which is extremely useful if you are familiar with using your iPhone. Enjoy your mack.

Ah yes. I didn't throw that in because I don't use it. I have a base Mac Mini M2. I'm still debating if I want to upgrade to another Mac Mini, or get a Mac Book for the portability. So I figured I'd skip a track pad, because if I get a Mac Book, it will have one built in, so it would be a waste of money to get one now.

That decision was like a year and a half ago now though, and I still haven't upgraded. And of course, now we've hit the price hikes, thanks AI! People also really seem to love the numpad commander, you can do useful things, e.g. '2' interacts, '8' stops interacting. Some people have even gotten a USB or Bluetooth numpad to go along with their Mac Books, I think.

When I got the Mac to see if I could work with it, I too wanted to try Logic, I decided to just use the normal keyboard, because I knew if I got a laptop, it wouldn't have a numpad. So I've just been doing that.

But the numpad commander gives you one key access if you need it. '4' and '6' are VO-left/right respectively, so it works like quick nav, you just hit one key, but it works all the time like VO-left/right. I like the smaller keyboard, gives me more space for where I'm at now to stash random instruments/musical equipment, but I can see the appeal of both the track pad and numpad. I'm just used to caps lock and the arrows now.

Oh the other reason I didn't worry about the numpad is, IIRC it doesn't work on iOS. So you're keeping your keyboard layout more parallel if you don't use one, they're not 100% identical, but close. So if that matters to you, there's another consideration. So for me I just figured since the smaller keyboard is working, I'll stick with that and take up more space with a track pad eventually, if I keep this Mac long enough or upgrade to another Mini. Plus, you can stick the smaller keyboard in most pockets, a bit sticks out sure, but they're pretty portable. So if you're on the go and need a keyboard and don't have a folding one, well, there you go.

NumbPad Commander, plus TrackPad Commander, equals a very enjoyable and entertaining macOS experience.
True story. 😀👍

that is out of date language. now, as of sequoia,, it's also . use VoiceOver with ... in commands, and us veterans of the mac, use the older terminology.. unlike windows, the macs boot menu is fully accessible, no safe mode to worry about, it is as well possible to do a clean install with VoiceOver, though various bugs with that came, went, and if you beta test, are still here. but, that's discussion to be had in the beta Megathreads.

There are some reliable edge cases where only the trackpad and literally nothing else can make us able to navigate in this particular ui, a prime example would be the interactive search menu everywhere in the help menubar, though with tahoe all these element are more easily searchable in Spotlight, tldr the help menu was already doing this, all the menu / user guide page being searchable. I believe when obs was less worse then it's become over this year alone the trackpad could help navigate in some menus.

I would recommend keeping the future in mind. With the way Apple is building AI into the OS, it's going to require more RAM down the line. Since it's not easy to upgrade or replace a MacBook frequently—say, every 2 or 3 years—it's better to buy 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage now to be future-proof. It's much better to spend a little more money today than to have to buy a whole new MacBook later. That's just my thought, of course.

Does it just require it though? Or is it required for AI. I have AI turned off. I turned it on once to try and get it to create an image for me. The text field where you're supposed to be able to type didn't work, at least for me. So I turned it off again. I can't imagine AI doing much of anything I'd really want to use.

So what I mean is, say Mac OS 29 comes out, and it's all, oh you need 32 GB of RAM now! Is that if you want to use AI, or will it not run on anything less? Because those are two different things, and they matter, either way. If I want to use AI, I need to know that. if I don't care about AI, I can save myself some money, if that's not absolutely required for the OS to function at all.