Which one is better: Windows or Mac?

This is going to kick off!!

As far as I understand it, voiceover isn't as robust as options on windows. Microsoft word, though kinda usable on mac, isn't great and I, as an author, avoid it. The take away from most conversations on here is, if you want to get work done as a blind person, get windows . It's an uphill struggle on mac to find professional grade software, barring music software, that works well with voiceover.

I will say, both has it's share of strenth and weekness. if you want to Browse the internet or watch the cat vidios, the mac will do the job. but the windows is domanating the gaming market. so, it is up to the user.

I was using Mac for 15 years but moved back to windows 2 years ago. Mac just isn’t a serious solution anymore IMHO. Everything is an uphill fight against a UI that has too many bugs to be useful for serious work. I think the problem is that Windows isn’t that great either so it’s not easy to pick the hassle free everything just works like it’s meant to OS. In the highly imperfect basically unacceptably broken world of accessible OS’s, Windows is just more usable for more tasks. Again very much IMHO.

MacOS is reputed to have superior security and reliability. My experience is consistent with this claim: I've run into more operating system reliability issues under Windows, even with high-quality hardware. I also use UNIX tools extensively, for which MacOS is better.

I think VoiceOver for Mac would benefit from better maintenance, and that's probably true of the underlying accessibility services too. However, it works well enough to make the Mac a viable solution for a variety of purposes. Accessibility is important, but as long as it works well enough, I'm willing to give weight to other criteria in choosing an operating system.

post this comment as much as I want. Macos with all its accessibility bugs might be the most accessible linux based system with gui for us, but if the terminal can't properly communicate with voiceover then the linux backend become less attractive. You can't reliably page through manpage or less for example. Ncursus interfaces don't work at all with voiceover while apple claim black on white that terminal is accessible. The built-in calculator (at least we do have one on macos unlike ipados) is a hell to use, again only with voiceover. Safari does not respond, voiceover utility does not respond, notification center does not respond, finder does not respond, and the most recent after total reboot login window does not respond... All this is not even a voiceover issue at this point but an issue at the core of the accessibility api/components built in the os... Issues with the iwork suite also, not to mention text editing. I have both windows and mac . A major plus of the mac is how reliable and stable the actual os (not voiceover and accessibility) is. Great hardware although 0 upgrade possible, so never buy 8gb or ram if your money allow for more, e waste in the era of ai especially and much less future proof in general. Privacy for who that matters is greater with apple, at least that's the claim. But in term of usability, unless you are a geek and ready to deal with worst accessibility bug, windows will allow you to do a lot more smoothly than a mac because of screen reader. Again this is debatable as popular braille displaies work almost out of the box with mac. ... But what is true that when I bought my mac I was expecting an experience close to ios in term of reliability and usability, not in terms of how things work with vo, and I've been disappointed on this with the piles of bug becoming bigger and bigger.

Reading these comments I'm reminded we can't take accessibility as the only part of the equation. I'm really down on mac, as everyone knows, based on frustrations and a general rage at the fact voiceover is so poor. Saying that, I've got two of them... So just goes to show. I love the build of my macbook air, it sounds great, it's slim and neat. With a mac you know what you're buying whereas with windows there is just too much to look at when buying. Support for mac is second to none and features like handoff are really useful.

I think the ideal is to have both, if you can. I'd love it if we had bootcamp back, but I don't think that is coming but I'm certain that, when I jump to windows, I'm going to miss my mac. Mac, on the whole, feels tidy. Voiceover just lets it down. Windows, as I understand it, can get a bit messy, but has more robust screen readers that work with industry leading applications.

I think that, in the future, I may get an iPad as my apple device/typing, browsing and chilling, then have a windows machine for work. Mac, in terms of accessibility, is by far apple's weakest product.

A question flies through my head as I write this. What are you gunna use the thing for? If you're a gamer, Windows, hands down! If you're wanting to use it for music production then both are fine but mac hardware and its audio drivers are superior to windows by far! If you're using it for work relative stuff, windows has better office accessibility support. Mac not so much. Browsing and emails? Both but at least for me, windows does the job. With that being said, it's all in what you want to use. I use both Os for different things so do with this info what you will.

what works for you works for you, what does not does not. Being bored of Windows is not enough to switch to another OS. Boredom is boring word. I know Windows has much usability in comparison to Mac, I know NVDA has many features that VO on Mac does not, I know JAWS is way superior to VO, yet everytime I convince myself to switch back to Windows I go back to Mac.
Macs batteries are superb, macs are quiet, macs are cool, macs are faster, macs integrate so well to my Apple ecosystem. I recently bought a premium Windows laptop with a hefty price, I keep biting my fingers for wasting my money on something that can not stay cool to the touch for ten consecutive minutes. I lower the CPU max performance, I dim the screen to 0%, I switch off BT and Wi-Fi, and I only get 10 hrs max on the battery, for someone like me who is a translator, interpreter and university lecturer the battery is a showstopper to decide that an OS or a machine works for me or not.
Again, boredom is not enough to switch to another software and hardware, try Linnux on your Windows it may bring you a bit of fun.
For me it is mac with all of its bugs, for one simple reasn; I can live with all of its frustrations.

Disclaimer: This is not about which is "better", but rather about usability and future proofability.

Mac --

The hardware and software of a Mac computer is designed with video/audio engineering in mind. This can be investigated by doing some simple research into the trends of Mac usability. Note that I am not talking about accessibility in any form, read further down for that, however in terms of what the professional world uses a Mac for; if you are a photographer, if you are a sound engineer, if you are a film producer, then a Mac will serve you well.

Windows --

PCs running the Windows OS have a lot going for them; gamers prefer Windows over any other OS due to the compatibility with modern, high-end video games. The business world prefers Windows because it has, hands down, the most versatile Office suite of applications currently on the market. Professional institutions also prefer Windows because custom GUI interfaces, whether for the entire OS environment or just specific applications, are not only permitable, but are also readily available. Good luck getting a custom desktop GUI on a Mac. Developers also prefer Windows if they are designing anything outside of Apple's ecosystem. Visual Basic and C++ are still a thing, as is Java, and the programs that are used to interpret and compile code are readily available on Windows. Note I am not suggesting they are non-existent on Mac, just more readily available on PC.

Security --

Everybody likes to claim that Macs have the best, most secure system. Hands down. This was true once upon a time. Once. Not so much anymore. Threat actors, a. k. a. hackers, or black hats, have learned how to easily hack into Apple's built-in security firmware/software. Which is why there are so many 3rd party options for antivirus software now for Mac OS. On the flipside Windows Defender has become so powerful and reliable that 3rd party antivirus/security software developers are offering everything under the sun to get people to buy their proprietary software; and before anyone makes a foolish claim to the contrary, please know this info comes from one of my professors. Someone who has many, many years of experience (both in government and the private sector) in Cybersecurity.

Accessibility --

Now we come to the meat of the matter. For years Apple dominated the mainstream market with their Mac operating system, macOS (formerly OS X). Microsoft, though late to the game, has been steadily building upon their success of their "Ease of Access" suite since about 2009. Much like Apple's accessibility, Ease of Access covers a wide range of accessible software features such as high contrast, "dark mode", a (admittedly simple) screen reader, magnification and more. Apple for the longest time had superiority here, as their accessibility was (and still is) robust, with tons of customization options for a plethora of situations. Windows on the other hand will always have one thing over Apple's ecosystem; 3rd party support. With Apple you get VoiceOver for the visually impaired, and while it is quite impressive, it has degraded quite a bit over the years with the latest reiterations of macOS. Windows, however, has several screen reading options to choose from, and that is only touching on one of the many accessibility options for Windows. As has been stated here in several threads, the 2 most prominent screen readers for PC are JAWS, and NVDA. Both are 3rd party options, both are updated frequently as opposed to Apple's once a year policy, and both are customizable with scripts/add-ons.

In closing --

Unless you have a very specific use case, you may want to consider a PC running the latest Windows OS, currently version 11. If you have simple needs outside the scope of the points I mentioned in my first paragraph, then a Mac will likely suit your needs. A Mac is really great for the usual suspects; web surfing, email & texting, Video Conferencing, Music and movies, news and podcasts. Here, macOS is still going strong. However if you have more impressing needs such as work or school requirements, are into gaming (yes blind gamers exist waves), then Windows would better suit your needs and interest.

One final thought. Someone mentioned running Unix commands via the macOS above. You can do similar with Windows 11's linux subsystem. You can also run Android apps on a Windows-based PC.

Just food for thought. 🙂

I have found Microsoft Outlook for Mac to be relatively accessible with VoiceOver. Microsoft Word for Mac is also relatively accessible, with some annoying bugs, including the performance problem with loading large documents, and issues with comment entry. However, I was able to create and edit a document without much difficulty - including tables, lists, footnotes, headings, etc. Ctrl-Option-T needs to be used to obtain formatting and style information, which is not presented by default.

I haven't used Microsoft Excel for Mac significantly, so I can't comment.
It's generally true, in my experience, that each Office application is more accessible on its creator's operating system. For Mac, this implies that iWorks is more accessible, whereas Microsoft Office/Microsoft 365 is more accessible in a Windows environment. However, Microsoft 365 for Mac has definitely undergone accessibility improvements in recent years. I'm using the Microsoft 365, subscription version, not one of the perpetually licenced versions.

May be use Apple's return window and try to see if you like it, but I am sure you will come back to Windows at the end.
Now only if Apple natively allowed Windows arm to run on Mackbooks with M series of chips, that would be interesting. Until then, Staying away from Apple products, accept may be IPhone and that damn expensive watch. I have my hart set upon that watch for unsensible reasons for years. Not gonna do it. 😂

As the old saying goes. To each their own. Will stay with my Windows PC. Never tried Apple Mac but from what I heard, will not. I am sure the Mac people will say about Windows.

I have been using a Mac for years and I absolutely love it. Voiceover works excellently.
I have had only horrible experiences with Windows. Windows was something that stopped me switching to computer in the school so I only used braille typewriter. but when I got my first Mac then everything changed and I felt comfortable studying with my MacBook in high school.

I do wonder if, as there is a big push on arm over on the windows side of things, if bootcamp might not return. The sad fact is that I think apple is more a service business now than when bootcamp first came on the scene. Now they want people on their OS paying for subscriptions. I guess we can hope. Winows on mac hardware would be the dream. I know there are VMs, I just find them awkward.

My prediction is that Bootcamp is dead. Apple's position is that those who want to run Windows applications should virtualize them.
I can't remember the source, but, as I recall, a survey was done, and most Mac users don't want to run Windows or Windows applications on the Mac. Perhaps the increasing availability of software for MacOS (much of it cross-platform) and the rise of Web-based applications that can run on any major operating system are the main factors reducing the demand for Windows compatibility.
I'm sure there are places with old, Windows-only software around, and for compatibility with that, there's virtualization.

While all are good choices, it really depends on what you’re doing. As an example, I got a PC for work, and it Isn’t cutting it whatsoever. Many of the websites at work I need to access, I cannot do it on the PC, no matter the screenreader with whether that be narrator, NVDA or Jaws, they don't work on pc, where I have 0 problems with mac on these. I got a m3 mac and so far no problems, safari not responding doesn't seem to be cropping up any more. Regarding text editing, I've have good experiences with doing that on mac via the iwork sweet in mac, pages, etc. But yeah. Both are good, however I don't really believe that windows is better for text edit etc than the mac, both work well in this regard, from my experiense doing this in both systems. Also, mac does seem to have a, imn my opinion, way smoother feel as far as email etc, on the pc outlook and mail are just... The native mail app wasn't that bad but outlook is just... Not a good user experience, but again, just my 2 sents on this.

But macos terminal feels and technically is native to the os which makes a huge difference. I don't regret having bought my mac in 2023. I regret not clearly being informed about the less than decent experience with voiceover on the web especially. Poor web accessibility ui = being behind as a blind user from 90-99% of our digital life in 2024. Coding should have been easier on the mac because of the linux backend but voiceover being voiceover makes it, doable but less than a pleasent experience as coding at the end is generally typing text, and no matter your ide/editor voiceover will unconsciously block you at every step between wanting to do something and actualy doing it *from my experience feel free and welcomed to contradict*.
I especially would love to hear feedback from hardcore mac fan blind/visually impaired users who claim that mac work very well for them, sincerely. It's true that most posts on applevis put mac accessibility in a bad light and although from a personal perspective I am with those people myself just for the sake of fairness and hearing the other side I'd like to know how people only with mac are able to survive, and what they do considered as advanced / productive tasks (music acceptable but especially outside of music) and beyond the basics of browsing the web and emails.
PS: don't wanna create another too specific subtopic for this but in iwork is there a way to know by any way possible when a text is subscript or superscript as voiceover doesn't seem to give any vocal auditory or braille feedback for this? And how math content is not browsable inside pages like on the web when interacting.

I would love it if macOS was, functionally speaking, the way it was pre-Sierra. Back in my college days macOS X was amazing for academia. I absolutely loved Xcode and Xcode Tools for Terminal. Not to mention being able to code natively within the builtin Apache server, and let us not forget the wonderful world of Homebrew.

that was then, however. Something fundamentally changed between 2015 and now, in terms of Apple's goals and innovation.

Regardless of my previous post, I used to absolutely love everything Apple. now, I find myself slowly pulling away from their ecosystem. i got rid of my Apple TV device in 2020, have pretty much stopped using my MacBook Pro as of earlier this year, and am now asking myself if iPhone is still a viable device for me.

I do not hate Apple, just hate the direction the company has been travelling the past several years. 🤷

Side note, I have no idea how to get VO to announce super or sub script text. ☹

I could be wrong on this, it has happened before believe it or not.
Based off of everything that I’ve read, it seems like those who’ve upgraded to the M3 chip are the ones not having as many issues but again, I could be wrong.

Apple has stated the M-series chips are capable of booting Windows, but the decision is ultimately up to Microsoft. As far as I know, Microsoft and Qualcomm are still exclusively working together, and the ARM version of Windows isn't officially available for download. My guess is Apple has no interest in writing drivers, so if it's going to happen, it has to come from Microsoft or the enthusiast community.
I don't own a modern Mac and don't want Apple products after the asinine stunt they pulled in the EU, but I've read it's possible to disable all the Secure Boot features, so the machines will boot anything you want.

As others have said, it depends on which tasks you would like to accomplish on a Mac. I, myself, have been a Mac user for many years and only recently switched back to Windows. In my experience, Voiceover has become unstable, particularly when it came to composing email messages, as it would jump all over the place. One of my hobbies is gaming, and sadly, the amount of accessible games for the Mac is lacking. I vowed I would never switch back to Windows, but I don't regret it in the least. If you do choose to purchase a Mac, I wish you the best of luck.

The new qualcom based laptops from Microsoft and alike will most likely address the battery issues and issues with jaws. As I understand it, mac is pretty good for brail, though I can't say how well it compares.

Maybe an upgrade to a more modern next gen windows machine will be a better choice. I do understand the pull of something shiny and new though. Sometimes we have to see if the grass is actually greener, or dead scrub shouting Safari Not Responding.

I've never used a MAC so can't speak to voiceover there at all. What I can say though is I love the flexibility of running both Jaws and NVDA on windows. If a web site or program kind of works with Jaws but is really clunky there's a really good chance it's better with NVDA, the reverse is also true. It's just really nice to have multiple options when one often works better for a particular task.

It is not good, it gets the job done with roblems.

While Windows might reign supreme in the gaming world and offer more customization options, Macs excel in other areas. If you prioritize user-friendliness, top-notch build quality, a seamless ecosystem, strong security, and excellent accessibility features with VoiceOver, then a Mac could be the perfect switch for you

I'm curious in what way you would say the Mac is user friendly?
Granted, I've been using Windows for at least 13 years. But every time I try to pick up a Mac to learn how to use it, something always seems to block me and the layout doesn't feel intuitive in the least. I can't seem to get past this block and I don't know why.

Hi there,
As a lifelong Windows user, my desire to switch to a Mac has only grown stronger, and I've been considering it for about 4 years now. The thing is, back then, I intended to pursue programming and was quite apprehensive about tools because my school used Windows. However, seeing that my career plans went down the drain, I figure I can become a regular user with fewer demands.
The reasons driving me to migrate include the fact that I have a mid-range laptop with 16GB of RAM, an i7-1800h, 1TB SSD, and it simply burns my lap and takes off when plugged in, not to mention the senseless lags my NVDA experiences. The new Microsoft Outlook could be much better, the battery is what it is, and so on. Since it's only a year old, I won't be migrating just yet.
So, for those who have recently switched from Windows to Mac, what challenges did you face?
P.S. Yes, I do maintain my computer in terms of software to optimize it as much as possible.

Little incremental bugs are there everywhere
Safari, and other apps does not respond when user is too ... demanding with voiceover, a lot of thread on this site talk about this
Text editing is terrible
Web browsing could be better
Terminal unusable for real programming stuff despite what apple clearly says, voiceover randomly jumps through portion of big (and small) text, ncursus interfaces unsuported, just scroll through manpage five times and you understand how bad this is.
Iwork has very little details with makes me hate is and word is not the best option, I do really want to use apple things but
Little navigation mechanism broken all over the place and the accessibility team is left doing case by case bug correction (when they do) which is terrible for a screen reader
Overall unstability with the accessibility infrastructure

On the positive side now that they are doing ai with everything (again I love macos but hate voiceover) and big change coming to swift this year from what they heard maybe there will be deep change into the code which will oin turn improve voiceover.
The boot and pre boot (and dual boot) thing is very accessible, basically voiceover. No way to get this on windows.
Macos is bsd based for those who like and understand that.

As you noticed the positives things are all about macos. I never said I don't like mac, just ... Like more and more people I clearly feel that intentionally or not macos accessibility is becoming more terrible over time. Let me put that way, apple adds these so little details that make the overall experience so enjoyable. And still always sweer by my iphone! But the accessibility experience on mac is the opposite with incremental frustrations all over the place.
Let me be very clear, your choice is yours at the end. But I wrote on many thread. I currently despite all the new things cannot recommend macos for blind people unless big change are to come. I've been learning programming since awhile now, and macos with its linux backend was a dream becoming reality for me, a linux system with a pretty, maintained, up to date, modern, (and) gui. I have barely written any serious code since 2023 when I bought my mac because of the experience. And I am a college student and despite having mbp the only thing that seems to work for basic editing and reading is text edit. Okay I was able to get llama3 run on my machine, which is cool and is one of these rare moments I enjoyed having bought this :) Homebrew is nice too.
Here are some links to give you an idea.
https://www.applevis.com/blog/we-deserve-better-apple-why-i-can-no-longer-recommend-mac-fellow-blind-computer-users
https://www.applevis.com/bugs/mac/updown-arrows-sometimes-move-character
https://www.applevis.com/bugs/mac/single-key-quick-nav-arrow-key-quick-nav-spontaneously-stop-working
https://www.applevis.com/bugs/mac/safari-webkit-applications-can-become-unresponsive-when-using-voiceover
https://www.applevis.com/bugs/mac/cannot-use-first-letter-navigation-tables-lists-single-key-quick-nav-when-always-allow
https://www.applevis.com/blog/apple-releases-macos-sonoma-145-watchos-105-tvos-175
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/question-about-paging-scrolling-through-large-portion-text-voiceover
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/im-done-safari-macos
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/impossible-read-message-edit-text-whatsapp
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/safari-vs-google-chrome-which-better-turms-accessibility-mac-right-now
https://www.applevis.com/forum/app-development-programming/best-text-editor-coding
https://www.applevis.com/forum/app-development-programming/warningquestion-developers-microsofts-monaco-editor-no-longer
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/quite-frustrating-bug-pages-macos-voiceover-text-navigation
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/text-editing-mac-total-disaster-discuss
PS: how can you have difficulty with nvda? I know that it depends on your hardware but we have a 500$ family laptop very neglected when we bought it and nvda works perfectly there. It's true though that windows battery on x86 x64 is terrible and there will be power throttling and nvda will be laggy if you wanna something decent.

I think, more and more, the question isn't windows or mac, but it becomes windows or iPad.

I'd rather see me doing all the light task on an ipad and just have a windows or linux thing next to me for coding stuff.
PS: some people say that applevis is too negative about macos. With the admin doing nothing to delete all the negative reviews, I clearly see that they share the same frustrations and set of bugs and do a passive agressive thing for when apple people see this site :)

Hi.
I read all the posts and noticed that the situation is much worse than I thought. All we can do is pray that with the huge number of updates to Swift, things will improve in the near future.
As for the NVDA problem, I really have no idea how it happens, but from time to time my browser (Microsoft Edge) simply crashes, NVDA crashes with it, and I have to restart it. It has crashed in Microsoft Word, when doing a simple F6 to go to the status bar to go to the editor, not to mention that when working with large documents, its focus gets lost between lines and starts reading the line above as the line below, repeats a line twice, ignoring the text of the new line where the cursor is, and a few other small things.
Regarding using an iPad instead of a Mac, it seems more... stable, but @TheBllindGuy07, what kind of light tasks do you do on the iPad that you don't do on the computer? I mean, assuming it would be a laptop, what advantages does it bring, and how did you get used to it? I'm very curious.

I really don’t get all the hate towards Macs. In my experience, navigating Windows is less intuitive, and Macs are just faster overall. Sure, VoiceOver isn’t perfect, but neither is NVDA, and let’s not even get started on how expensive Jaws is.

Also, Apple Mail is the best client across all platforms. My Mac wakes up from sleep without any issues, and I can access the recovery partition and all the tools needed to manage the entire system. I’d much rather deal with a few manageable VoiceOver bugs than put up with Windows.

As for ARM PCs, they are far from ready because many applications are not developed for ARM. NVDA is emulated, making it even less stable. We must also remember that it is still written in 32-bit, which is a disgrace in this day and age!

The connection with other Apple products is a huge plus too. I can’t imagine ever giving up my Mac!

I totally agree with Mathieu.
VoiceOver is built into Mac and MacBooks are accessible right from the box but Windows is not.
VoiceOver is free but Jaws is damn expensive and everything has some bugs. NVDA is free but it’s not great alone.
Macs also have built in braille display support while in Windows you need to install some kind of software in order to use braille display.
MacBook works excellently with other Apple products.
I have finished high school with my MacBook. I have studied natural medicine in an online USA college with my MacBook and now I will be attending the Blind Institute of Technology with my MacBook. I use Safari, Mail and other built in apps a lot without issues. I also don’t have any serious bugs with VoiceOver either and I have been using MacBook around eight years for now. I would never go back to Windows. Also, my blind friend is studying music in university and she uses Mac as well without any issues.

I am not arguing against you, if you enjoy your mac then I am sincerely happy for you :)
But for all the bugs voiceover is currently having, okay most are minor bug, but the incremental experience is horrible for the end user. I am curious, what is the most advanced task you do on your mac?
I am sorry but the terminal total lack of ... vision and support, from apple, is nothing but criminally bad and for developers it is just horrible. Okay you can do vm for linux, but then on windows I can already do a lot in windows cmd and powershell when nvda is properly configured, plus I have wsl1 and wsl2 plus oracle and vmware for real linux.
See my post about pages bug I constently have even after a hard install and wiping of the ssd, no matter the version of mac I've been on (13 and 14). I would add to that here.
When you are in the level of navigation above the lowest body text, the hierarchy and order of how voiceover displays items is often completly illogical in contrast to how they really are in the text. Like for this, I'll try live on 14.5. So say that I have, 1 page, blank template, headers and footers shown.
Some text1
A table1
Some text2
A table2
A table4 (this is not a bug since I just created it after table 3, so okay)
Some text3
Another line of some text4
A table3
If I am at the lowest level of interaction in the body text, everything (one page only) will be displaied as normaly as I expect it, and I can just interact in whatever table. But If I move one level above, at the body, things start getting weird. Despite the clear order I mentioned above:
Header, grouped
Table 1
Body: some text1
Table 2
Table 4
Table 3
Footer, grouped

You see? Okay granted this is just few words, but the larger the content get the worst this behaviour is. Not to mention that with multiple pages the mechanism they have added to try streamlining the navigation is flawed and we are randomly transported in the middle of some page body test while we just want to cross all pages in order below the document layout.
Impossible after whatever threshold for voiceover to navigate by bold italic text or any pother find command. It works perfectly fine with native pages document created at the begining but then it stops. Superscript and subscript *as far as I know* don't have any feedback by voiceover whatsoever. Impossible or very complicated to navigate by headings with either of the 4 ways, rotor, vo u rotor, vo cmd h, or quick nav h or whatever you have assigned. Depending on the cursor position when we look for non textual element (links, etc) voiceover would do a partial half restart and the cursor won't move. With large document I often pages does not respond.
Worst, in Numbers after writing something in a cell it's not possible to do enter or vo space to edit so we must do vo fn 5 then vo shift space.
And the list goes on and on, with all weird bug heavily intertwined between so much system, voiceover, accessibility infrastructure components...
I do like that people enjoy their macs. If I were to get banned from applevis at this point I don't even care. I just want to have actual constructive debate with facts and user experience/feedback here. As I said I do really love to like my macbook. In fact I do really like the os, it has everything I like, except for the user accessibility experience (uax). Those who complain here often tell exactly what they dislike. Those who like mac they say all the points that I too agree with, but which are often only os related. Put differently, macos voiceover users have a very bad vision of web accessibility among other things compared to windows, or even linux user as orca and nvda are somehow similar.
Don't talk about it depends on your usecase. If I have difficulty writing properly in any of apple stock apps, if voiceover reads symbols so poorly, if coding is such a nightmare because of both reasons mentioned above, if I randomly get snr when doing light to heavy web browsing, if google docs and most progressive webapps (safari, electron and all other chromium flavor including browsers) are at best ... delicate, and slow, to use on the mac... If I feel more productive on a simple ipod 7 because it's ios, if terminal.... everything that has been said on this website, if each time I navigate by quicknav or otherwise I have to remember a mental set of rules for virtually every control swift ui or any trace of objective c apps can have and know what thing to do so voiceover acts as friendly as it can still manage to do... If I have to use my mbp just as a glorified 3000$ for Textedit basic note taking and do any serious task on my windows machine, and I am not doing anything daw related (even then people agree to say that it's been degradating), then what is macos for blind user any good at?
Again, I am willing and open to learn new things so I can do something really useful of my expensive device, but I really tend to think that except for few daw persons, people can't be as productive on the mac than they can on windows for modern 2020 computing which relies heavily on web.
In short, I do want to love my mac but have found it very difficult, even when consciously trying to virtually forget idea of windows navigation and screen reader for everything, reading apple full documentation of voiceover and apps. Just when I was learning to integrate vo-j on my workflow macos 14 came and now from what I understands html landmarks are included in the cycle. Monaco editor no longer work with voiceover on safari and on chrome it's delicate, and I am further convinced that this is a purely voiceover/webkit problem because the behaviour has slightly change for the better on the beta of sequoia, and a similar problem with another local educational website which was working fine before. I have also heard of wordpress block editor here. ...
Convince me! I am open to it.
Edit a couple of minutes after: I know that voiceover on mac was generally better 5-7 years ago and beyond, as I know a handful of people who left mac around 2015-2016 and after.

Quick correction, windows machines are accessible out of the box. narrator, the few times I've used it, and built in to windows, is better at many tasks than voiceover. text editing in microsoft word, for example. I've also found outlook very nice to use as well as whatsapp.

Navigating any mail app on mac, for me, is a struggle and loses focus a lot in lists requiring a restart. Now, I've not had nearly as much time on windows as I have on mac so it's obvious I'm going to have had more issues with a platform I've used for the last 17 years but I do think it's back to getting the right windows machine. It's a wild west and sounds easy to get a dud. The fact you can get windows machines dirt cheap is good in some ways, but in others, it means buying jumk is easier too. A windows machine the same price as a mac will, as far as I understand it, be a very solid machine.

I am thinking iPad and windows as my new config. I'll have to see if I can get the 3d slicing software working with accessible solutions over on windows.

I could also just wait for apple to fix the bugs... Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh

I crack myself up.

I've thought about switching to Mac.

I will just refer to my reply above with regards to this thread, with a few additional caveats:
- Windows, is, accessible out of the box.
- Windows is the single most compatible OS on the market.

Had a Mac as my primary computer for 8 years now, and though they might not agree, many of the complaints on here are likely down to user error or old hardware. I find windows overly complex with the range of commands, and different screen readers, but then again I have mastered the Mac so won’t let this bias my advise.
Another advantage is iOS VoiceOver gestures are transferable and therefor reduce the learning curve.
To those that talk about software compatibility, I urge you to research cloud computing.
Lastly, the ai features coming to Mac this September are likely going to devalue any of Microsoft’s offerings, not to mention privacy.
Gaming is undeniably better on windows though, but that has nothing to do with accessibility. Battery life also tends to be worse on windows machines.

I use both, however I use mac as my primary. Windows is accessible out of the box but... narrator is just... bad, tbh. But yeah, both are good. As far as compatibility... Tbh I've found that on the mac most apps are fully accessible without need for tweeking, i.e, addons etc, to make something accessible, where as, at least from personal experience, windows seems to be the opposite, with most apps... requiring you to install a addon or something in order to make it accessible do to... I'm really not sure, maybe the fact that you've got more than one screen reader and accessibility doesn't have a standard to insure things are accessible across the board, maybe, but yeah, those are my 2 sents.

OK I'm not much of a Windows user so this is very much a Mac focused comment.

Mac with VoiceOver has all the potential to be absolutely amazing. When it works it is really nice. I have it setup with the num pad and I can control all of VoiceOver with one hand and it is great. The Mac has some nice things in it - most apps use proper application menus which makes them much easier to get started with than Windows. I find jumping to the menu, to extras and to the dock or using spotlight all very nice. And I have keyboard commander setup so I can just open the apps I use most with just a keyboard shortcut.

Also VoiceOver is very, very customisable, probably to its detriment (because it makes bugs much harder to pinpoint).

And let's not forget that the integration with the iPhone is actually pretty great. Being able to copy/paste between the two is incredibly useful.

But the bugs cannot be ignored.

I'm not sure I agree that if you were just web browsing a Mac would be a good option. Firstly, it's an expensive option for that. But also there really are no good web browsers. Safari is a horrible mess and the only real alternative is Chrome which has an equal volume of problems. The browser will just lock up and become unusable on a regular basis even with a really powerful machine. And the focus is all over the place.

Text editing is a bad joke. VoiceOver lies about the text that's there, talks total rubbish at times and makes navigating and reading what is there so much harder than it should be.

The apps I use on a regula basis are otherwise mostly OK, however I do feel that there are a load of built-in apps that are quite unintuitive. Basically anything that just throws you into "Collection" or something and then you have to drill-down and try to figure out what the hell is going on. Probably fine if you use those apps a lot but I have had a few apps where I've just given up in frustration and got the phone out. (Contacts, Home immediately come to mind). I also don't have to interact with notifications much but I always get confused when I do. And the app store is a miserable experience.

But I think one of the biggest problems with the Mac is that it appears to be on a downwards trajectory where each release seems to contain even more bugs than the last and nothing is getting fixed. I am genuinely very concerned about the next version after my experience with Sonoma.

I think Apple are to busy cramming in new features that no one needs to really worry about all the major issues getting stacked up.

There is an argument that the Mac suffers because it is not designed with the keyboard in mind, so when you use VoiceOver it's a very, very different experience to what you would do without it. I'm not sure this needs to be a problem, but you end up in situations where tabbing and arrowing works but using VO keys doesn't and vice versa. So you often have to almost shift the way you work all the time to try to find the magic formula for the thing you happen to be using. But when you use the Mac you almost find yourself with constant little tics as you try to fudge it to do what you want.

I bought my Mac last year and it cost more than I am prepared to admit to. It's an M2 Pro Max I think with 32gb. It should absolutely destroy anything I throw at it. Honestly I've never felt more let down by a new computer.

My experience with Windows has not been great - I honestly don't find it very intuitive coming as I am from the Mac. But I won't go there. If you are already familiar with WIndows and feel comfortable getting around then I'd really struggle to recommend a Mac.

Windows appears to be on the cusp of its Apple Silicon moment. I'd be nervous about getting one right now because of how new they are. If you can wait I'd let the dust settle and see how things look in a few months or next year.

An argument where macbooks are clear winner is battery life. I said in several threads and probably here too but I bought a mac because I couldn't trust windows with battery life anymore. Time will tell how good the arm versions are.
My biggest grudges?? against mac is everything mr grieves said. I am sorry, but it's very hard to forgive apple when for a 100k characters thread in chatgpt web I constently get safari does not respond. And I have an m2 pro, base model but still a pro. And everyone knows it's clearly a software problem going from all the layers of webkit to voiceover's backend accessibility apis... And since it also happens similarely in chrome I am not even sure it's a webkit specific or rather with the accessibility infrastructure getting frozen for... unknown reasons.
When I newly configured my shining mac just 10 minutes after the initial setup when reading apple documentation online I got my first snr in ventura...
The most irritating is how voiceover handels anything that is text, from terminal to editing. I could forgive how the calculator app is a mess to use with VO, but text editing is such a basic need and voiceover is able to make not accessibility or irritating what is accessible for blind people by design on any digital device. And as mentioned it doesn't seem to get better. If text editing and terminal were fine (and I know from previous posts and nostalgic people here that this was once the case and with the drama of windows 8 in the old days a lot of people were getting macs) I could even forgive SNR.
Voiceover has the potential to not just be among the best but to be the best screen reader of all time. Its documentation is very empowering. And this is very sad. My guess is that most of the current problem are because of the transition from old code to new.
And why aren't there more people concerned by the fact that applescript is a virtually dying/dead language and when most things will be catalyst then it'll be completely broken?
I *do*, really want to emancipate from windows, but it feels like 2023-2024 is not the best time at least as far accessibility is concerned for blind people to switch properly unless they are very tech savy. I'll pay to say once I am able to do everything with the same (if not more) level of comfort on mac than on windows.

Have those with issues done the following.
1 joined betas?
2 filed bug reports complete with screen shots?
3 filled out the applevis report card with clear and concise steps to reproduce problems or sites where the problems happen?

I write poems and work with texts a lot and I don’t have any issues. I use native apps and find them very accessible. I also use Safari quite a lot and no problems there either.

The problem with WSL is that it does add another big complicated abstraction layer. I've not used it much for a couple of years but it always worked quite well for me. But I've had colleagues that constantly struggle with getting things to work properly. In PyCharm, there are at least three ways of loading a WSL project. One of my colleagues keeps setting everything up again trying to find the way that will work properly. I do appreciate not having to deal with any of that nonsense on the Mac.

I also don't understand why some people don't have problems with text editing on the Mac. I can't write a comment on here without coming across some oddity. I'd love to spend some time trying to figure out what's different although maybe that's a tangent too far for this particular topic.

I use macOS for music, texting, listening to YouTube, because, for some reason, Windows kind of broke it with NVDA, and I have no idea how to fix it, and FaceTime, and listening to Spotify. Windows everything else, or I just use my iPhone.

I want to like Mac. I was heavily involved in the Apple ecosystem as a low vision user, and I miss being able to send texts from my laptop. But using VoiceOver on a Mac was a very, very frustrating experience when I lost my eyesight. It's unintuitive, clunky, buggy and frustrating. Even when I tried using my Mac for a month last year to see if I could tolerate it, it still was rather frustrating.

I switched to Windows in April or May 2021. The Mac wasn't efficient enough for my studies, wouldn't load my D&D character sheet, and I knew I needed to learn Windows for employment. But I found learning NVDA very intuitive and simple. I did get further training to be more efficient on Windows and using JAWS (though it's fairly similar to NVDA). I haven't looked back.

I will say, it depends on what you do on your computer. For me, things like Kindle, Microsoft Office, and Google Suite are accessible on Windows whereas they aren't on Mac. Discord is easier to use, web browsing is so much easier, and so is text editing.

I would use windows fully, if there was something comparatively close to GarageBand but there isn’t, and I don’t want to learn windows 11. I tried, but the start menu is just not intuitive. For one, they redesigned the start apps list and the All apps list, where All apps list would have other Random stuff on it., Random ads, apps and services. That I didn’t need. Also, windows is getting just way too overloaded with bloatware now at this point, thanks to Microsoft, and other companies, and I just like the clean macOS interface. . I do prefer Windows 10 over Windows 11, but with Windows 10 ending support next year, I’m not sure if Windows is a permanent solution. Because macOS, essentially allows me to do more of what I want and provides accessible solutions for my needs. I can navigate outlook and Word on macOS, Outlook for windows has just fallen off a cliff with accessibility after that update a few months ago. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know what Microsoft were thinking when they made it more of a web UI interface. I do have Safari not responding now, in fact if not all of my apps have the “app not responding” issue, But I just slowly began to deal with it, I hate the fact that there is less games on Mac compared to windows, but at the end of the day, that’s just a small compromise that I might have to deal with. And yes, I have tried Linux but I find the interface too difficult for me to access. Granted, I was using youbunto16.04 in a virtual machine but regardless. I also would give windows 11 another shot, if it wasn’t for the fact that my hardware is unsupported, and I’ve already installed it and uninstalled it, once on that machine.

Run windows (windows+r) is the way to go it can run 99% of commands/app like www.google.com opening browser and cmd, nvda, chrome, notepad... opening their respective applications. Plus the desktop is where most of my apps and folders icons are. You can even by a registry hack enable auto complete in Run so when I open it it keeps the last item open or when I'd write "no" it will automatically autocomplete notepad or notepad++ depending on which was opened last.
Everything you said is fully true for me, google suite, discord, web browsing, text editing with either notepad, notepad++ or word (where the single leter navigation commands actually work) work so much better than on mac. Oh just having page up and page down keys actually useful is so cool. Trackpad on mac will interpret 3 fingers swipe in either of the 4 direction like a single 3 fingers tap or worst mute the speech.
Reaper has almost equivalent accessibility on windows and on mac with osara.
Moreover with nvda (not so with jaws) you can tweek windows like windows 10 or 7 with most things like start menu or Explorer.
Don't forget that while tab will place cursor on most controls/buttons, with nvda you can use object navigation which is more or less the exact same thing as voiceover to read text around controls and others in most apps like Settings.
Most qt apps will at least decently work on windows with nvda or jaws, and terminal is 100% accessible even ncursus interfaces.
For excel I even use narrator over nvda which is just so wild :) because it works slightly better.
The biggest downside is battery life which... hopefully gets better on arm, and uefi and boot menu not accessible at all.

Actually, the boot menu, leading to the windows recovery environment, is at least accessible for me. The bios? Not so accessible, which is an absolute pain. But the boot menu?Accessible, you just need to wait for like a minute, and then activate narrator. Then you can access things such as troubleshoot, boot to USB, etc. But the bios/uefi not accessible. I will be assuming, because the bios isn’t totally linked to windows, maybe it is but not entirely, so it probably doesn’t use the same speech controller that is built into windows that allows you to use narrator essentially anywhere else..

I use the start money on Windows because it’s easier for me to use, instead of always activating run, because sometimes I just don’t know how to type some of the words or know how to spell some of the stuff there. Most stuff like Chrome or whatever, I can decently find,

I do understand that there is a thing on the Internet a little installer of windows 11, that is essentially a strip down version of Windows 11. No Microsoft apps no essentially Little to know Microsoft apps or services, which minimises storage and bloatware. I might experiment with that in the future.

but right now, macOS does what I need to do, with minimal annoyance.

The Safari not responding, especially after the updates go is definitely more prevalent on my Mac, I didn’t really notice it before,

I’m not saying entirely that Mak is good. There’s really no customisation, of the actual operating system, like for advanced uses, like what sided people can do in the bios on windows. I truly don’t even know if macOS has like a bios where you can like control whatever the hell happens. I would be decently interested to see, and if there is one, if Apple locks you out of it so you don’t screw up your Mac. Then again, seeing as Apple makes it really hard to downgrade macOS versions, say like I tried to downgrade from macOS 14 to macOS 13, it gets software update. It’s downloaded but it won’t install, no matter what settings i chose in the start-up security, hell even chose no security, that still didn’t work. Now what I wish? Boot Camp for Apple Silicon, even if it’s just using windows on arm or windows and S mode, I don’t care.