Category: Geeks r Us
So, I've been really looking into getting a MacBook and I'm really wondering, from a blind perspective, is it a good idea? I mean, yeah, they have voiceover (I love you apple) and it's supposed to be fully accessible. But really, is it a viable alternative to windows? I'm one of those people that uses jaws at like a million miles an hour and one of my main concerns is that VO just wouldn't be able to keep up with my current speed. I'm curious though, what do you blind users of mac (or people who have tried mac before and decided to use windows) think? Why did (or didn't) you choose mac? What do you really like about it and even though you use it, what don't you like?
Thanks,
Daniel!
Like anything, you'll have people saying they love it, others saying they hate it.
Here's what I'd do if I wanted to know what I thought.
Buy, or rent my Mac. You get 30 days return on it, and 90 days free support.
Before I buy my Mac, I'd get the manual on Voice Over, and I'd search the post on appvis.com to lear all I could.
Now, you have a manual, the computer, and your time.
What do you think about it?
Smile.
Just a slight change, I believe it's 15 days direct from apple as far as returns go...
Am I the only one who read the topic title and thought someone was gonna talk getting baked, fried, or just hammered? Then I saw the category Geeks R Us. Lol we all have our biases / places our minds go when people use certain words I guess.
Most electronics are 16 days, but I'll bet it could be extended depending on where it was purchased from.
Renting is the better option. Any Mac model will due for this, so you can see if you just like the platform. After that, you can buy the model you want.
The Mac is just as usable in most respects as Windows. That said, most of what you know about screen readers can be tossed out the window, there is a learning curve for sure. Is it for you? Well, I suppose it depends on what you need to do. Do you require Eloquince in such a way that you cannot live without it? If so, you can't legally run that on the Mac, so that alone is a deal breaker for a few people I know. There are some things that can help the transition though. For example, if you have an iDevice and already know the gestures on the touch screen, you'll be happen to know many of the gestures on the trackpad are the same. I'd also suggest taking a look at This Applevis page, as it has a lot of useful links and things that can help you.
If you have an iOS device you might want to get the free ibook "Mastering the Macintosh with VoiceOver" to get an idea of what to expect with a Mac.
RBM: Great resource. I'll get that book myself, even though I don't have a Mac. The Wife does, but it's Hers and I'm glad She is being very independent with it these days. When She was on a Windows machine, I was constantly having to support it, understandably so given my background. And She is fully sighted. But Her mac She does largely on Her own, so I've never had occasion to turn on its VoiceOver, and She has the only account on it.
But someday I may get me one, and in that event I ill definitely learn how to use the VoiceOver.
I look at it like this: If the training information in the 90s was enough to teach me JHAWS for DOS and then JAWS For Windows, surely then anything the Mac people have will be good enough. I'm not dissing those old tapes either: I never could; without those I would not have learned so quickly and begun supporting my family with an income.
The available podcasts in 2009 / 2010 were enough to get me going on the iPod Touch, which I sat down and learned hot to use over a vacation I had at Christmas 2010.
So I think it's great they have this resource, and thank you for pointing it out. I'm happy to see all these independent trainers popping up now who specialize in training on the mac also.
Hi,
I have the Mac; here are the pros and cons I think:
Pros:
1. Long battery life; typically with VO on, you get around 8-10 hours, depending on what you are doing.
2. Great keyboard; it's like typing on a cloud; it is very nice to type on when you are writing long papers; you don't get tired, nor do you have to use a lot of pressure to press the keys.
3. Gestures with Vo, as others have mentioned, can be performed on your trackpad; this is referred to as Trackpad Commander. The advantage here is that if you are already familiar with the IPhone, then a lot of gestures are similar. For instance, if you wanted to navigate Safari with the trackpad, and wanted to go to a specific heading, you would press the function key; the one at the bottom left-hand corner, while rotating two fingers counter-clockwise to activate the trackpad gestures mode. To get to a heading, you would use to fingers like your turning a dial, wait until you hear "headings", flick down with one finger on the touch pad, then right to read the contents under it. However, a really nice feature that I have yet to see implemented on the Mac is the ability to open apps without having to press a key to get to the doc first. Why didn't apple include an on-screen keyboard, like the IPhone, and make everything controllable from the Mac's touch pad? That way, people who can't master the Mac at first, have another option? I mean, it's pretty easy to do, I think; for example, to bring up a list of apps, press down on the gesture pad twice, like your clicking the mouse. I would like to see this; the ability to use touch completely; I don't think this is available.
Cons:
1. You have to press a lot of keys to perform commands from the keyboard; you can lock the vo keys, but sometimes this conflicts with certain Vo features.
2. The actual operating system, meaning, how files and folders are laid out, is difficult to get used to.
3. You can't run MS Office; VO doesn't support it, so you're pretty much stuck with Text Edit, which doesn't have as much advanced formatting as Word. Don't know why Microsoft and Apple don't work together to improve this.
Instead of renting a Mac, because I presume this costs some sort of downpayment, I would suggest reading up on VoiceOver first, visiting an Apple Store, trying it out, going back to the store a couple of days in a row if necessary to keep playing with it. . That way you don't have to spend any money up front.
Hope this helps,
Nathan. I'm not a super Mac user; so, Roman, where did or do you get that E-Book from, Mastering the mac with Vo?
Hi Hardyboy, from my understanding, you had got rid of your Mac months ago, and was having a lot of problem with it, because of your lack of understanding on how Voiceover work and how Mac OS works in general. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, you were asking questions on public quicknote on the possibility of getting a Mac in the future...
I guess, wat i'm trying to say is, your experienced with the Mac was rather unpleasant, and that was like, um, at least some months ago.
Some of us Mac user make suggestions to you on how you can deal with the problem, but the next thing we know, you got rid of your Mac and back to windows... Anyway, back to the topic...
1. Apple offers 30 days refund for all apple Hardware, unless it changed in the last month, the 30 days refund policy for Apple Mac stands as it is.
2. I don't think, the ability of refund or return the product should be even on the back of the mind when you purchasing Mac, to try it for 30 days, and if you don't like it, return it back. From my own experience, and some other people experience, if one have the mentality of they can refund the product by 30 days, they are more than likely not paying full attention to the product, but keep thinking that they can return it because things simply, don't work out for them within the 30 days. And, in all honesty, you might need months to switch from windows to Mac, and feel comfortable about it.
3. MS office for Mac is not VO accessible at this stage, but IWorks is definitely VO accessible. IWorks come with IWork, KeyNote, and Numbers, which is the apple version of Word, XL, and Powerpoint.
4. The reality is this, Mac and Windows are two totally different operating system. They are getting more similar, in the sense of how Windows 8 and 8.1 coppying some functionality of Mac, but they are different. So, in all fairness, we can compare Apple with, as it might be, orange and hoping that apple will turn to orange, or orange will turn to apple, and end up with a squash rotten mellon.
5. Both screen reader, voiceover vs Jaws, as it may be, are very different. For those that is partially blind, or low vision, one would found that Jaws simplify windows in a way that it is unnatural for a sighted person to work on a window machine when Jaws is turn on. This is very different from the Voiceover prospective. Voiceover speaks things as it is on the Mac, on the screen, and require you to navigate with the icons, images, or whatever it might be, either byb navigating it, or interacting with it. Voiceover doesn't control you, you choose what to do, but Jaws, in some way, control how you use Windows as a blind person. The closest screen reader to Mac from the windows prospective is Window-Eyes and NVDA in some way.
6. I agree with Scott, if you already have an Apple mobile device, migrating to Mac from Window is definitely easier compare to someone that may not expose to Apple products at all. Like what Scott already mention on post 6, the gestures on iOS and what you can do on the trackpad are very similar. And, if you are one who already used to the bluetooth keyboard on your iOS, you will found that most commend that you use on your BT keyboard can also use on your Mac Keyboard as well.
7. Switching to Mac is definitely a learning curve, but it is one that will be rewarding, if you see the light from the end of the tunnal. As a Mac user for years now, i still learning and discover new thing e ach and everytime i got my Mac turn onn. And having croud resources like Applevis, Mac vo email lists definitely help a long way.
learning Mac with Voiceover is like learning for the first time, as it may be, how to swim, or how to ride a bike. Some may not able to swim for their life, some may falls on the bike, but for most, after some intensive sessions, and forget about the idea will get sink if you can't swim, or you might fall and get injured, one will able to swim and ride a bike, well enouh to save their life.
Pina Colada, I have limited experience with my Mac; i never got rid of it; you are assuming. That's not the case at all. I have it boot camped, in fact. I was asking for training resources to become more familiar with the Mac is all.
That is one thing I have knowticed...You do have to press a lot of keys to do things with voiceover. Do any of yall find that it's hard to keep pressing these keys all the time And does that get in the way sometimes? Are the VO keys (on a regular MacBook keyboard) only on the left side of the space key or are they on both sides?
@pinaColada At least in the US store return policy is, and has been for years 14 days! This is deffinitly worth knowing should someone be unhappy with their product!
From the apple site:
There are a few important things to keep in mind when returning a product you purchased from the U.S. Apple Online Store:
list of 3 items
You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it.
Only items that have been purchased directly from Apple, either through the Apple Online Store or at an Apple Retail Store, can be returned to Apple. Apple
products purchased through other retailers must be returned in accordance with their respective returns and refunds policy.
To answer your question about the MacBook keyboard layout, the keys are only on the left side, that is the VoiceOver key, but I believe you could assign other keys for them if desired.
Don't forget that the iWorks suite is now accessible and documents created in Numbers, Pages and Keynote can be exported to office formats such as excel, powerpoint and word. I do much of my work on the mac and export it to word and so far no one has complained about my reports.
If you can claim student status, you can pick your dream up for 750 right now.
Something to think about.
Or, if you know someone who is already a student, you can get them to do it for you, maybe?
the doc is the least efficient way to open anything on the mac.
You have spotlight for one. this is the feature that inspired windows search in
windows vista/7/8.
You can easily access it by hitting option space. then, you start typing.
in os 10.9 and earlier, it can find music, movies, documents, apps, emails, and
much more.
OS 10.10 adds even more internet sources it can search.
In addition, you can assign all sorts of tasks to keyboard commander, like
opening apps, checking the time, and more. VO's default keyboard options
allow you to do a lot, but IMO, the power of the mac really starts shining threw
once you learn how to use trackpad commander, keyboard commander, and
activities. Among other things.
A lot of people have trouble adapting to mac, because its very different than
windows. People can't accept that things will work differently, and there are
things you will need to re learn.
Many computer concepts cary over, but if you can't stop comparing it to
windows while using it, you'll never adapt.
Next problem most people have, is that rather than actually explore settings
and use the help, they just assume features they expect to be there are not.
Sometimes this leads to people not knowing how to best use the mac.
while other times, it leads people to spread incorrect and unhelpful information.
there ar several ways of getting help on the mac.
For starters VO H will open the help menu, from there you can access quick
start information, see all the keyboard commands grouped by function, learn
voiceover sounds, and more.
In addition, you can hit VO K to start keyboard help.
This is basically the same thing that jaws, window eyes and NVDA do. this mode
allows you to query keyboard commands for Voiceover, and in some cases, the
system commands, as well.
On top of that, many internet resources exist that have already been mentioned
here.
I had a mac and sold it off to buy a kickass desktop. I recently had a grant for one so I could get into IOS dev. Here are my experiences:
1) Voiceover tends to do a lot of busy ready, busy ready. It's not aweful, but in some applications it can get pretty bad. I'm running with a 3.4 ghz quad core and 16 gb ram, so resources should really not be an issue.
2) Terminal support is flaky. Sometimes when you get a big chunk of text back, voiceover just skips it entirely and moves on.
3) Huge chunks of text (unzipping a big tarball for example) will actually lock voiceover up tighter than a duck's asshole and good luck getting it back. you have to disable voiceover, wait a bit and then bring it back.
4) There are a lot of sites voiceover just refuses to play with. I've seen it get stuck in a loop and only read the top half of apple.com, for example.
5) If an application is unaccessible, it's unaccessible. You're not going to use the jaws cursor or NVDA object nav to get anywhere.
6) Ask all the people who love their Mac about their copy of VMware fusion where they run windows. If I need another OS to complete my daily tasks, it probably isn't the system for me.
7) I love some of the apps: mac mail is incredible and I wish I had it for windows.
8) While it can sometimes get irritating, the method by which Voiceover presents information can be really nice.
9) I really like using the trackpad for navigation.
Hopefully that helps,
For the last poster, what you mention on most of your points, are mainly generally, user errores rather than the mac os itself.
And no, actually, there are lots of Mac users that is blind that don't have a VMFusion or bootcamp for windows install. I have had 4 Macs, and never install any windows on it.
Is Mac the perfect solution? it is not, just like windows is not an ideal solution either. It is what one can toleret, willing to toleret, and work with it.
I'm using MacBookAir wit 4gb of ram, running os 10.9. I never expereince any slaggishness with VO on opening any website or multitasking or opening a large document either. When i' talking about large file, i'm talking about potentially, hundrets page pdf files, or a few hundret MB image raw file.
That's awesome. Reported bugs are user error and that's that, eh?
1) Voiceover tends to do a lot of busy ready, busy ready. It's not aweful, but in some applications it can get pretty bad. I'm running with a 3.4 ghz quad core and 16 gb ram, so resources should really not be an issue.
I'm not sure exactly how this is user error. It tends to happen a lot in XCode, so if you could shed some light on what I could do that would prevent this, I sure would appreciate it!
2) Terminal support is flaky. Sometimes when you get a big chunk of text back, voiceover just skips it entirely and moves on.
Again, this isn't much user error to me. If there's something that you should do differently (maybe stand on my head)? Is there something that would prevent voiceover from not reading larger chunks of text? Maybe a logical explaination for this?
3) Huge chunks of text (unzipping a big tarball for example) will actually lock voiceover up tighter than a duck's asshole and good luck getting it back. you have to disable voiceover, wait a bit and then bring it back.
Again, I'd love to know how this is user error. Unless one should anticipate large blocks of text and get out of the window, but you have to be pretty quick to make that work.
4) There are a lot of sites voiceover just refuses to play with. I've seen it get stuck in a loop and only read the top half of apple.com, for
example.
Is there a workaround to this? Some special way of getting past it? I can tab sometimes and it moves me out of the loop, but there's content I actually miss.
5) If an application is unaccessible, it's unaccessible. You're not going to use the jaws cursor or NVDA object nav to get anywhere.
No way around this...
6) Ask all the people who love their Mac about their copy of VMware fusion where they run windows. If I need another OS to complete my daily tasks, it probably isn't the system for me.
You're probably a small percentage. A lot of people use it for sites that just refuse to work on OSX, mudding, etc.