Listed below is a selection of posts from across the AppleVis website which have been especially selected to help you setup and get to know your first Mac.
If you’re like most people, you likely have many online accounts with usernames and passwords. In this guide, I will describe how Apple Passwords, the password manager built into macOS and other Apple platforms, can help you create, use, and manage strong credentials for your online accounts.
While Apple Passwords is also available on iOS and iPadOS, as well as Chromium-based browsers, this guide will focus primarily on how to use it with Safari on macOS, in an effort to limit information overload. However, once you become familiar with Apple Passwords on macOS, you’ll likely find that it works similarly on other platforms.
Since 2005, I have used a variety of Macs, and have regularly used every version of macOS from Tiger to Monterey since then. Over that time, I’ve witnessed the various changes to VoiceOver, both major and minor, as well as how VoiceOver on macOS helped usher in a whole new world of mobile accessibility on iOS and iPadOS.
Today, with the Mac’s transition to Apple Silicon and the performance potential that it’s helped to unleash, it can be argued that the Mac is experiencing something of a renaissance. Indeed, as an AppleVis member, I’ve noticed an uptick in posts related to macOS, including from those who are potentially interested in buying their first Mac, those enquiring about how to complete various tasks on macOS, those experiencing issues, and others. No, I don’t have a hard number to back that up, just my observation.
Earlier this year Apple came under some criticism after a report by the Guardian on how Apple hired contractors to listen to a small percentage of anonymized ‌Siri‌ recordings to evaluate the responses with the purpose of improving accuracy and reliability.
In response, Apple promised that it would introduce options in a forthcoming update that would allow users to opt out of sharing their audio recordings.
Those options arrived with the releases of iOS 13.2, iPadOS 13.2, and macOS 10.15.1.
In this podcast, Tyler walks us through how to access and change these new options.
In this episode, Jonathan Simeone shows us how to add and remove items from the Finder sidebar on macOS.
The Finder sidebar is a list of folders and devices that can be quickly accessed from any Finder window or open and save dialog in macOS. You can choose which categories of items appear in the sidebar by choosing Finder > Settings, (or pressing Command-Comma) clicking the Sidebar button in the toolbar, and selecting the categories you want to include.
To add a specific folder, focus on it in Finder and choose File > Add to sidebar (or press Command-Control-T. To remove a folder, focus on it in the Sidebar and choose "Remove from sidebar" from the context menu, accessed by pressing VO-Shift-M.
In this quick tip podcast, Tyler demonstrates how to create and use text replacements, short snippets of text which are substituted with frequently used words or phrases when typed, and which synchronise across all your Apple devices.
In this podcast, Tyler discusses and demonstrates the Grouping Behavior options available for VoiceOver on macOS. These allow you to choose whether VoiceOver requires an action to interact with items in a content area (such as a scroll area) or a group (such as a toolbar):
In this podcast, Carlos Taylor gives a walk-through of how to restore a single file from a Time Machine backup using VoiceOver.
Note: In macOS Ventura, rather than locating a backup by interacting with a slider, each backup is represented by a button in the timeline controls window; clicking this button selects the backup. Aside from that minor change, the process is still largely the same as it was at the time this podcast was recorded.
In this podcast, David Woodbridge demonstrates how to use the Caps Lock key as the VoiceOver modifier key on macOS … either on its own or in conjunction with the Control and Option keys.
In this episode, Tyler demonstrates what to do if an app on your Mac becomes unresponsive.
If VoiceOver announces that an app is "Not responding," the first thing to try is to Command-Tab away from it, wait for VoiceOver to announce that the app is ready, and then Command-Tab back to it. If that doesn’t work, Command-Tab away from the app and turn Voiceover off, wait a few seconds, then turn it on again. Finally, if all else fails, force quit the app by Command-Tabbing to it and pressing Command-Shift-Option-Escape. Alternatively, you can press Command-Option-Escape to open the force quit window and select the problem app from the table.
In this podcast, Jonathan Simeone walks us through the process of using the Finder to find and restore a single file from a Time Machine backup.
This offers an alternative to the method demonstrated in a previous podcast which involved using the Time Machine application itself to restore a file.
In this post, we will discuss the importance of reporting accessibility-related bugs to Apple and the best way to do so.
AppleVis is a great platform for discussing VoiceOver, Braille, and low vision related issues in Apple products, allowing you to confirm with others if what you are experiencing is indeed a bug, find and share workarounds, and express your frustration. However, it's important to make sure that the Accessibility Team at Apple is aware of these bugs so they can address them in future software updates.
Starting in macOS 10.9 Mavericks, files could be given one or more "tags", to help users keep things organized. A tag is simply a text label you can assign to a file, letting you organize your files with categories instead of, or in addition to, folders. For example, a student might have a science folder, holding a textbook, handouts, tests, notes, assignments, research papers, and more. What if a quiz deals with thermodynamics, as do some files of notes and a paper. Do you put them into folders according to subject, or according to what sort of document they are (quiz, notes, paper)? With tags, you can have both. Just tag all the thermodynamics files with a "thermodynamics" tag, the notes with a "notes" tag, and so on. Now you can find all your notes, all your thermodynamics notes, all your work related to thermodynamics… You get the idea.
The default Mail app on the Mac is easy enough to use once you set up your mail accounts. You up and down arrow through your messages, press delete to trash some, and… Wait, how do you read messages? Enter? VO-J? Use the preview? When writing a message, how do you choose contacts, or add multiple contacts to a field? Why is it so hard to view attachments? How do you add mailboxes to your favorites bar, so you can access them with hotkeys? Okay, so Mail isn't as simple as it first seems, but that's why AppleVis exists.
The Layout
Assuming your account(s) are properly configured and you are receiving mail, the setup of the Mail app will be something like this:
If you have an iPhone, you’re probably fairly familiar with the Messages app on iOS, using it to send and receive texts, photos, videos, and other files. As part of Apple’s interconnected ecosystem, this capability is also available on macOS.
An example of how the Messages app could be useful on macOS is if you’re working on your Mac and a text comes in. Rather than stop what you’re doing and switch devices to view and respond to the message, you could simply open the Notification Center or Messages app on your Mac, view and respond to the message, and get back to your original task.
In my last guide on Pages and design, I described how visual documents appear with font variations and how you can manipulate fonts, sizes, styling and more so your documents can look aesthetically pleasing to your sighted colleagues.
In this guide, I’ll describe how you can quickly apply styles and customize them in your documents. Nothing here requires advanced VoiceOver skills, however you may wish to use hotspots to jump around a bit faster in Pages.
I have recently used the Contacts app a lot in macOS and have come to discover how it works, which is not the way I expected it to. I thought I would share my hard-won knowledge in the hope that someone else will benefit.
Adding a Contact
When you are in Contacts, hit cmd-n to create a new contact. It is important to note that you are not opening a new window when you do this; rather, you simply add a new row to the contacts table and are placed in the scroll area where information about the contact is stored. When you are done entering your information, therefore, simply stop interacting twice and you will be back to the main level of the Contacts window.
There is no save or cancel button as there is in most apps; if you want to erase the contact you are entering, navigate to the contacts table, find your newly created contact, and press delete.
In this episode, David Woodbridge demonstrates the Universal Clipboard facility available on devices running iOS 10 or later, and macOS Sierra or later. If you now copy text, images, or video to the clipboard on one device, it should be automatically available to paste on any other device that uses the same Apple ID.
If you're using a Multi-Touch trackpad, you can use VoiceOver gestures. VoiceOver provides a set of standard gestures for navigating and interacting with items on the screen. You can't modify this set of gestures. NOTE: Gestures that don't mention a specific number of fingers are single-finger gestures.
General
Enable the Trackpad Commander and VoiceOver gestures: VO-Two-finger rotate clockwise
Disable the Trackpad Commander and VoiceOver gestures: VO-Two-finger rotate counterclockwise
Turn the screen curtain on or off: Three-finger triple-tap
Mute or unmute VoiceOver: Three-finger double-tap
Navigation
Force the VoiceOver cursor into a horizontal or vertical line when you drag a finger across the trackpad: Hold down the Shift key and drag a finger horizontally or vertically
Move the VoiceOver cursor to the next item: Flick right
Move the VoiceOver cursor to the previous item: Flick left