Read this if you're having second, Third,, Forth and Fifth Thoughts About Coming to the Mac

By Darion, 13 July, 2018

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Greetings everyone, My name is Darion Jaikaran, I've recently gotten a Mac, and I must say, I'm loving it.
To anyone who is apprehensive about getting a Mac, do it. There's a learning curve, and it'll take some time to rap your head around it, but just do it. If you are like me, you've spent years on Windows and have built up a vast skill set that could run circles around some tech professionals, and you may feel as if all your pre-existing knowledge will be useless on the Mac, don't worry. What you'll quickly realize is that the Mac can do everything you ware accustom to on Windows and more sometimes. The process however, is going to be different.
Psychological reason for what you're feeling:
If you identified in any way with what was said above, then your falling pray to the sunk cost fallacy.
Basically, we get invested in anything we've spent a lot of time with, may it be a relationship, culture... Or in your case, an operating system.
Your brain rationalizes the time you've spent on the other Operating System as an investment, and leaving this OS will result in a loss.
What I want you to do is re-frame what you're about to do as rather than losing an investment, expanding your skills to be able to do more-your not abandoning your previously acquired skills, your building on them.
With that out of the way, I'm going to discuss some of the uncertainties that held me over.
1. But what about (insert your concern here)
Web-browsing,the Mac and Voice Over are capable peaces of software for blind people to use. You can navigate web content on the Mac, just as you would do it with NVDA or JAWS on Windows.
In my personal experience, websites known to be difficult such as Facebook is easier to navigate on the Mac. Now that's not to say its all rainbows and smiles, but its more usable.
One thing I do not like on the Mac for Facebook, in terms of accessibility is how chat works. If you use vo let and right arrow, you are thrown several messages,o, days or months back, from which point Voice Over will start reading. If someone chimes in with the correct way to do this, or a work around, I'll update this post if the forum allows it.
Second thing: text editing. I was never a heavy user of Microsoft office-write some essays, do what I have to do in word and that's the end of that. If you're like me, text edit is all you'll need.
I can't discuss gaming, cause I was never in to it on Windows, so even if I begin on the Mac, I won't have a proper comparison to give you in terms of game availability, functions or accessibility.
Emailing, all the geeky stuff you've come accustom to doing on Windows can be done on the Mac.
Again, what you'll realize, is, if you are like me, a lot of the insider geek information you've acquired was really trouble shooting... I'm not going to lie to dyou and say the Mac is this magical operating system with no bugs and voice over greets you on mornings and makes tea for you, but there's a lot less fiddling to do.
Give it a try, small chunk it and you'll find that the Mac is usable for blind people and you might like it enough to come over.
Lastly, everyone has their needs, every operating system has their strengths... If what you need is better in Windows or Linux, or a Chromebook or an Android tablet, use that. :) I just wanted to tell you that the Mac is an usable operating System, and its good.
---I'm out--- :)

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Comments

By Ekaj on Friday, July 20, 2018 - 00:44

Subject line pretty much sums it up. This is exactly how I felt about the Mac prior to getting one at the end of 2013. It's also how I felt about the iPhone prior to acquiring my first one earlier this year. What's more, I have slight manual-dexterity issues and neither I nor my parents were that optimistic about purchasing an iPhone for me. However, I've found it to be a great piece of technology. There are still things on it that are a bit daunting to me and which I've not quite wrapped my head around, but with more practice I know I'll get there soon. VoiceOver is a fantastic screen reader, if you just give yourself the chance to learn it. There's definitely a learning curve, but it's worth all the investment. I get so ticked off when I hear or read people say that VoiceOver doesn't do this or that the proper way. Folks, we're dealing with a totally different OS than Linux or Windows or anything else, so things are bound to work differently. Also, even developers aren't perfect so there are going to be bugs here and there. That's all I'm gonna say on the subject. Good day everyone.

By Darion on Friday, July 20, 2018 - 00:44

In reply to by Ekaj

on point Ekaj.
VO doesn't do things correctly.
Its the same thing me and my sighted friend who acquired our Macs at the same time said...
Its different, its not Windows, its a Mac, things are going to be different.
Prior to having an iPhone, I went through two Android devices, and I'm not going turn in to some fanboy and say that Android is that Satanic operating system from hell that'll kill you of stress from trying to use it, but iOs is nicer.
TO me, the differences with Android vs iOs are as follows:
1. consistency. Mobile phone designers like customizing the interface of their devices. These customizations sometimes prevent talkback from being able to read the screen properly. On iOs, there's only one interface, that's the stock interface. Restrictive, yes, but highly beneficial for blind people. If you must use android, the first thing I'll advise anyone is to get novo launcher... It gives the best user experience as far as I'm concerned.
2. The web support. Things may have improved, I haven't attempted to use Android for a few years now, but the last time, surfing the web was a joke. iOs has this hands down.
If android could get these things sorted out, they'll actually be far ahead of iOS, since more people use android, but I believe the majority of blind people will sooner or later come to iOs.
What in particular don't you understand? I might be able to help you out.

By peter on Friday, July 20, 2018 - 00:44

I love my iPhone and iOS for the consistent UI across the board and the very good level of accessibility.

That being said, there are two things that would keep be from swiching from Windows to a Mac as my main platforms:

1. As you say, most "standard" applications written by Apple may be very accessible, however, this may not be true with third-party programs. As good as some of the screen readers are for the PC working with "standard" applications, there are a number of programs that wouldn't be useable at all without the ability to use custom scripts to enable a blind person to use these third-party programs. There is a large community of developers providing a wide range of custom scripts for Windows aplications.

2. Although programs may be "accessible" in that one can read and access all of the information on the screen, this doesn't necessarily mean that an aplication will be "efficient" or productive" to use with a screen reader. The screen readers in Windows have been specially scripted by both screen reader developers and individuals to make many aplications more efficient to use than they otherwise would be. There is a difference between "accesssibility" and "useability".

I suspect your experience is based on working with the more common aplications you spoke of such as word processing and web navigation. I would be interested to see what others' experiences are when trying to work outside of these areas.

--Pete

By Darion on Friday, July 20, 2018 - 00:44

In reply to by peter

I feel you Pete. There's definitely a difference between if a program is accessible and usable.
Given thatWindows has a larger market share, it would make more sense for developers to allocate more resources to that platform.
Well yeah, it still stands that each OS will have their strengths, and if you like Windows more, that's cool.
I definitely love being able to walk to any Mac and do my thing