I am currently using a MacBook Air M1 and have been using a MacBook for the past ten years. Up until recently, I would have, and , indeed, have, heartily recommended a Mac to blind users. I currently co-facilitate a Mac Users group for blind people in Canada. The reason that I say "until recently" is that the many comments from people experiencing serious issues with their Macs have given me some pause for thought. Personally, I have not encountered the "Safari Not Responding" issue in a serious way. In fact, I have tried to replicate it by visiting various complex websites but my Mac remained fast and responsive. I think Apple should make its top accessibility priority to diagnose and fix this problem as soon as possible.
In my experience, the Mac has become even more accessible with the continued updates to the native apps and Voiceover. For example, when I started using my Mac in 2013, Pages and Numbers were not accessible. Now, I regularly use these apps instead of the Microsoft equivalents. Voiceover has also added new features over the past ten years such as a wider selection of voices, the ability to read image descriptions including OCR for the text in the image, increased customization etc. In addition, the Mac works well within my Apple eco-system. I can answer phone calls, send and read SMS text messages on my computer, and copy text from one device to another. I am not saying that Voiceover does not have its share of bugs, but they have not been show stoppers for me. Whenever I go back to my Windows machine, I also encounter some annoying issues.
Another reason that I have recommended the Mac is the quality of the hardware. I had my first Mac for more than seven years, and it was still functioning well with the latest OS when I traded it for my current M1 Mac.
In conclusion, based on my experience with the Mac, I would still recommend it, but the serious issues encountered by numerous Mac users gives me some hesitation. I really wish that Apple would solve the "Safari Not Responding" issue so that everyone can have a positive and productive experience using the Mac.
Just my 2 cents worth. .
By Wayne A, 19 October, 2023
Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories
Comments
M-chip
It really sounds like one needs a newer Mac to really enjoy it. I have the 2019 MacBook Pro, and am not rich enough to buy a newer Mac. Although I guess I could do monthly installments. I'll have to look into that. Anway, the showstopper for me is Google Docs and Salesforce, and video and audio games only on Windows.
Google Docs a showstopper
The previous comment mentioned Google Docs was a showstopper, but it wasn't clear what show it was stopping.
I routinely use Google Docs on Mac with Safari. While Docs works fine, the most serious issue is with Google Drive, and it's a Safari issue. New hardware would make no difference. I'm on a 2018 Mac Mini.
new macs seem to be the difference
It is very possible the the m1 chip is making a difference. There may not be as many issues if you have a new mac.
Safari on my ancient 2012 macbook air still runs well.
I'm not so sure it's a thing with only the newer macs working well, because I have a super old 2012 macbook air, upgraded to Ventura using Opencore, and Safari still handles as well as one would expect with only 4 gb of ram. It's not snappy, but then neither is finder or any other part of that system with those specks. Not fast, but also not busy busy busy. Rarely do I ever see that. Now when I tried to upgrade to Sonoma, that was another story. I have a 2018 Air with 16 gb ram, 512 gb ssd, and still a core i5, but expect much better performance. I really wonder if it's a matter of settings, or number of open tabs. I never have more than 3 tabs open at a time. Even when I had the m1 air, I still did the same.
Does mac have the same OCR thing as IOS?
If so,, that's awesome!
I mean the thing where you can flick to a picture and it will read the text in it.
NVDA can do this but I do prefer voiceovers way of handleing it, although as far as I know; you can't actually review the text in the image.
Image description, including OCR on Mac
The Mac can generate image, descriptions, including OCR for text, similar to iOS. When focus is on an image, press VO plus shift plus L and your Mac will give an image description, including reading the text that is embedded in the image. After voiceover speaks the text in the image, you can copy it to the clipboard by pressing VO plus shift plus C and pasting it into textedit or Pages. This is very helpful, for example, when the image is a menu for a restaurant.
Hope this helps.
My thoughts
It's interesting that Pages and Numbers were inaccessible back in 2013. I have friends who used Pages and Numbers with VoiceOver back then.
I have a love-hate relationship with my Mac. I also have the MacBook Air M1. It does work rather nicely. But from an accessibility standpoint, I still find Windows and NVDA or JAWS more efficient. And Excel still reads out my Dungeons and Dragons character sheets, even when I'm quickly tabbing through sheets :P
I'm also not a fan of the text editing experience with VoiceOver and Google Suite is a frustrating experience, to say the least. But I want to love my Mac - it's stylish, lightweight, and I do misss the integration. I also found VoiceOver complicated to learn, while I simply understood it when I was self-teaching myself NVDA. Most of that did translate to JAWS.
Oh that's cool.
That's it :P
Agree with Chamomile
Macs are stylish, elegant machines. And Windows & NVDA are an amazing software combo.
This is why I run Windows 10 on a Bootcamp partition on my old Intel-based MBP. 😜