Warning: Rant about just how sh*t safari still is...

If I were to follow even a portion of your guidelines, I should devote at least 60 percent of my weekday time to reporting bugs to Apple, and following their progress. Yes, I'm a beta tester and I do utilize the Feedback Hub as well as Apple's Accessibility email address. I also tweet on and off, and work with a couple of technology websites. But I'm afraid I'm not in a position to do more. By the same token, I don't think most users have the time to become Apple's 24/7 bug hunters. After all, this is a heavy burden which, among other things, most sighted users don't even bother thinking about, so why should we entangle ourselves in such a meaningless web? And, last but not least, you say - and let me quote you here: "I'm talking about blind Apple users all together, as one." So what's the purpose of the so-called bug repository Applevis has created and maintained? This is the best service all of us can provide to Apple, and it's a well-maintained repository. But someone somewhere should take advantage of these reports - stuff which mostly falls upon deaf ears.

It seems to me that Voice Over users, which probably make up less than one percent of Apple's user base, are just not going to get the kind of responsiveness when it comes to fixing bugs, as compared to bugs that effect 50 or 75 or 100 percent of their user base. We are in the overwhelmingly vast minority here and, as such, we have little leverage with which to influence them. If every Voice Over user stopped purchasing Apple products tomorrow, it would have no meaningful impact on Apple's bottom line. I think that, as a company, they do care about the blind community. If not, they would not have developed and would not maintain Voice Over. I suspect that their costs associated with VO is greater than their gross profit which comes from the relatively few of us who purchase their products and use VO. In other words, I suspect that they loose money on Voice Over. I am not saying that we should not expect issues to be fixed but I am saying that I think it is probably unrealistic to expect them to give such a small subset of their customer base the same attention that they give to their overall user base as a whole.

On the other hand, companies like Freedom Scientific, or whatever it's called now, derive 100% of their sales from the disabled community. I used JAWS from 1997 until 2016, when I switched to the Mac. JAWS served me well but, honestly, I had as many problems with it which required work arounds as I do with Voice Over, including bugs that I reported repeatedly for years that never did get fixed. Given that their entire user base consisted of screen reader users and their main product was a screen reader, they had to be more motivated to work on screen reader related problems, but, even so, one hundred percent of Freedom Scientific's resources probably did not total one percent of Apple's resources and so, in the end, that may be why there wasn't that much difference in responsiveness to complaints, at least not from my prospective. I cannot speak to the difference or lack of it now.

I don't think that either Voice Over or JAWS is really a better screen reader than the other. They are just different, with different shortcomings, and which set of shortcomings someone wants to live with is up to them. Personally, I find the increased overall stability of Mac OS and the very integrated nature of the Apple ecosystem to be compelling enough to keep me as a Mac user, at least for now. If that ever changes, I am blessed to live in a world where I do have choices.

When I use windows, I run into a lot of bugs. Granted, as some people have said you have two screen meters but it's not just the fact that I have 2 screen readers to choose from I run into annoying things like programs loading up slow focused not staying in one place, etc.. While I do get that the Mac is not perfect for what some for what I do, the Mac is actually really good! I actually feel that Safari is snappier than ever and I have not ran into many problems. For example, I use spectrum and one of the really cool things that I can do when watching TV is use the J and L to jump by 30 seconds when watching a TV show. When using Microsoft, for example, the same app doesn't work on the edge only on chrome which kills my battery life, even more than it would on my Mac. Speaking about battery life on my Microsoft products, which includes a surface, pro or surface laptop battery life is awful! Are usually only get about four hours of battery and that's with my screen brightness at zero. My MacBook Pro 14 I usually get roughly around 14 hours and that's with some PlayStation two gaming. Lol! To be fair, my Mac is my secondary device after my iPhone. If there's something I need to do, I typically am going to use my iOS device to complete the task, such as fill out a form or visit a website even. My job I have a Windows computer that I do most of my word editing on so I don't have that pain point. I do like to use audio editors and audio recording software, which the Mac exceeds tha I think you need to look at what your computer needs are and base your used case off of that versus just going with something for one reason or another. Overall, I've enjoyed my Mac experience and I always think about getting a newer Microsoft device as my surface is a surface pro seven but I ultimately can't justify it because of the bad battery life and in my opinion, just a even worse experience with windows and apps. For example, I know you can go to speed test.net using edge, but I have a speed test.net app that works flawlessly on my Mac. It just seems to me that Windows is a bit clunky and no one seems to talk about that in these posts it's just complain complain complain about how bad the Mac is. I mean, I can actually get apps in the store on the Mac that are actually Fricken useful. What a concept. On windows, there's like one or two apps that actually work well.

Agree fully with what you said. I use a windows vm and I experience a lot of the things you described above. I as well use my phone for web browsing as well, I do use the mac for this sometimes, but in all honesty, its easier to do this on the phone, imo. You nailed it with your post, was about to say the same but you beaq me to the punch haha. To be honest all of the complaining in these posts gets old. I mean yeah everyone has a right to complin yes, but... that's all the thread is, literally.

Isn't saying "false claims about accessibility" a little harsh? Apple is one of the biggest accessibility-conscious players out there, despite the fact that one might wish certain things to be different.

Apple's PR suggests all accessibility features are fantastic and allow everyone to do anything. The problem is this isn't 100% true and of course it doesn't mention many of the problems we have in macOS and to a lesser extent iOS. What frustrates us is we know Apple can do better and has done so in the past as far as the Mac is concerned. The question now is why a something trillion dollar company that's committed to accessibility features allows VoiceOver in macOS to stagnate? That little incident with the Mac Studio and a mouse is definitely a false claim and should never have happened. I'm not sure I'll ever forget that and it simultaneously makes me want to cry and hit something really hard!

I really wish Apple's culture wasn't the problem, but I suspect that's a big reason why we can't go anywhere. No one from Apple will acknowledge when they make mistakes or interact with the users they claim to serve. Apparently you have to be a special insider to speak to these people. The only reason I still use iOS is because they seem far more committed to making that particular platform as accessible as it can be. If that changes, I'll have no problem tossing my iPhone and never buying another Apple product. I've gotten to that point with the Mac. I keep telling myself next year will be different, but it never is. I spent way too much time reporting macOS issues only to have them be completely ignored which is very disheartening.

Joe, while I don't have any of those issues you mentioned with Windows 11 (I mean programs don't load slow and focus is really stable), I do agree with you about assessing one's use case, or cases, before jumping ships or before selecting an OS in the first place. Of course, one point worth mentioning here is that while going with a Windows machine does provide a greater deal of flexibility, it doesn't mean that low-teer or some low-to-mid-tier machines are going to be as accessible or nice to use as one wants. In particular - and like Apple machines, the use of at least 8GB of RAM (and preferably 16GB), the use of a solid SSD, and at least a 10-gen mid-to-high-end CPU is a must. Once these conditions are met, Windows machines will be quite snappy regardless of the screen reader used.

I have a I7 I forget which gen intel processor and 16 gig of ram and sometimes the damn thing just crawls. I open up TuneIn the web app, and it takes forever to load to the home screen. Same thing with Outlook or word. Microsoft apps are not optimized for their own system! I know that the Intel generation definitely improved around 11 but again I don't think it's worth me paying $1000 to find out. For me, the web browsing, I do and the apps I use the Matt gets the job done! My Dell at work is also supposed to be high spec with 16 giga, RAM and an I seven processor I believe 10th generation. I have Microsoft teams and Outlook open and the damn thing sounds like a jet taking off! Lol I'm being comical a bit here but ultimately I can complain all day about windows too! My MacBook Pro 14 has never even had the fans come on! I'm also running multiple applications tabs etc.

Of course they do. That's the job of a PR-department. I'm not saying don't file bugs or that Apple are perfect, but no company is. For what it's worth they've always responded to my accessibility issues a couple of days later, and it's usually fixed within an OS cycle or two. There might be long standing accessibility quirks with the mac that should be looked at, but I think certain statements in this thred are uncalled for.