So I am switching to a Mac, unless something terrible happens. This is where everybody comes in. I have another week to decide whether I'll return it or not.
Things I've heard about which haven't affected mesofar:
1. SNR: This seems to be the big one, but I'm using Firefox, and it seems to be fine so far.
2. Text editing weirdness: I haven't done a ton of this, except posting here.Other than end sometimes staying within the text area when interacting and sometimes jumping out of it to the preview button, still interacting with the edit field, I haven't really noticed anything particularly problematic.
3. More text editing, specifically code: I haven't tried this yet. I might, but I'm also old school, i edit with a text editor, since I've never found an IDE that really works anyway.
That's what I'm seeing on the forums so far. So what I'd like are issues you're having, *but* they have to be reproduceable, within reason. So as an example, I think somebody mentioned words getting cut off in TextEdit. In theory, I can just write a long paragraph and see that happen.
So far I've mostly done web stuff and mail, installed some apps, played some games, connected to my NAS and made it mount directories from it on boot. So I'm sure there's a *lot* of stuff I haven't gotten to yet. Also feel free to point me at forum posts, I'll do my own reading homework.
Also note however, I don't find using VO particularly slow or problematic compared to Windows so far. So if your gripe is about that, again, I'd like something specific, e.g. you're using Pages and adding footnotes/endnotes and it's horrifying compared to Windows, although there, I've used LibreOffice, not Microsoft, and I'm unlikely to do so, I just don't do enough writing. If I do, I've heard great things about Ulysses and Scrivener for both Mac and iOS.
I know, I'm giving a lot of restrictions. But I feel like a lot of the Mac negativity here is really vague, e.g. less productive, not "professional", stuff like that. That won't help me decide if the Mac doesn't work for me, unless you've got a specific example of something you're doing that seems less productive to you. It might not to me, but the point is, then I can try it and find out for myself.
I am largely switching because of access to more music recording options. But let's be honest, if I switch, I'll be doing a lot more with it than recording music most of the time. Because if I switch, I'm planning on only using Windows where necessary, e.g. games that just don't exist on Mac.
Obviously I can't think of every scenario, Esp. within the fifteen day return window, half of which has passed. So I want to know, from the people who've used the Mac fairly extensively, but gave it up for Windows, whether you started with Mac and switched, or switched back to Windows. What might I be frustrated by in six months?
To be clear, I'm not asking everybody to think up every scenario for me. Nobody can. But you've used the Mac more than a week, I'm assuming anyway, LOL! So you've got way more experience than I do. I haven't even used the item chooser yet, and some people seem to love that thing.
Let me end with an example I'm going to try. I've got some books in text format and PDF,maybe some other things. Maybe I'll bring in text from the web too. I'm going to try to write something where I need to select and copy quotes from them. I don't even know how to select text yet, so it's an adventure! Also this might differ between apps, e.g. I can select text from a text file, but not a PDF.
On Windows, I'd probably open everything in QRead, ctrl-tab between documents,and do a find for whatever I want. On the Mac, I'm assuming I'll at least be opening those documents in various programs, something for txt, something else for PDF, something else for epub.
I'll be keeping it simple and just writing in a text file or email, not Pages or something like Scrivener, even though it's supposed to be great for the kind of thing I'll be doing. I'm more interested in the basic mechanics of dealing with text, because that will be the same, even if I'm using Pages or whatever.
I've been having a pretty good experience with the Mac so far. But I don't want to assume that will always be the case and rush into switching. So hit me with some horror stories I can try and experience for myself. It's OK, I read Lovecraft and King regularly. i can handle it!
Comments
I don't wanna feeling guilty…
I don't wanna feeling guilty if you run into problems afterwards, but to be really honest sequoia is that version that prevented me to put my mac on sale and since a month or two I'm truly leveraging my mac to the point of recommending it to friends who I said no to in the past. I don't have time unfortunately this week to give a detailed answer as new switchers deserve, but read most posts on mac thread especially the one with sequoia update, another mac vs windows one about 2 months ago, and honestly you will have a great idea of what I ran into in the past especially with iwork suite. Most users who use daw love the mac more than most even if they are blind so it's another plus for you. I can only say good luck. As long as you are not pressured to learn using mac in production and you don't encounter random bugs in prod, your transition should be smoother.
Just one thing, text scrolling is still a mess you can't use page up page down and VO scrolling feature seems to be broken.
Voiceover
Heard many people talk about the many issues with VO, safari, and so many. If you were using windows for a long time why would you want. You would had to learn how to move around the Mac. Find discussions about people and issues with the Mac or other people asking about the same topic. I love my iPhone and I am OK with my iPad but windows is the thing for me.
Nobody needs to feel guilty at all.
I'm just trying to get some ideas of what to try to run into issues,or differences between Windows that might be great enough that I need to consider more. At this point I'm probably switching. But I also know that a week isn't really enough time to evaluate things.
So my strategy is, let's try and hit problems other people have had, and see how they work out for me. I already know not everybody will have the same problems, e.g. in another thread, though it was older, somebody mentioned FIrefox locking up pretty
dramatically. I haven't had that happen. Doesn't mean it won't and it's probably not something you can reproduce on a whim.
So I know there are no guarantees. If somebody says, here's an issue when editing text, for instance,I know it might not happen to me now, but could later. I know things could change with apps or the operating system itself.
So I'm not going to come back and go, oh somebody led me astray and I kept the Mac when I shouldn't have! I'm just looking for potential pain points to investigate. I mean even with programs that work on both systems, like Firefox, there are differences. On this site, I don't know why there's a subject group that I have to scroll or jump past before I get to the subject edit field.
The group seems to do nothing. But it doesn't really bother me, I just get past it. But that's one of those differences from how stuff works on Windows that some people complain about, you know? So that stuff will hit differently for different people,, for me it's extra and probably unnecessary stuff sure, but I don't feel like it's slowing me down any, so I just accept it for what it is and get on with stuff.
But honestly I'm surprised how well I'm taking to it. This is particularly true because I did try it before, but it was super old, 10.6 maybe? I gave up, it was just too different. Now I'm having a great experience, no problems. That makes me wary. What could I be missing? A lot, it's only been a week, after all.
But to be clear, I'm the one responsible for my decision, not anybody else. I'll go look for those threads, thanks!
From what I can tell it
Having owned Max for more than 10 years at this point, from what I can tell, in Intel Max, you’re more likely to get more of these issues, I.e, Safari not responding, etc., not so much on m series Max. At least, this has been my experience.
I'm in a similar situation
I'm using a 2020 intel macbook pro, running macOS 15.1 and windows 11, and what I can say is that: web browsing has a clear winner and it's windows. on mac it's slower because it's not as simple as navigating with the up and down, left and right keys, you can't press a key like f6 to go to the address bar, and in my case, if I press 3 to go to header 3 it does it, but if I want to go back with shift 3, it just doesn't go back so you have to change a lot of key combinations every time. not to mention that, for example, publishing on this site is much better from windows because on mac when writing it happens that, you can make a lot of mistakes because of the way voiceOver processes text. on mac I'm using reaper and to say, the plugins that I've been able to test have better accessibility than on windows, especially if we use VOCR which is really great! for music I'm trying to adapt to changing ctrl for cmd on mac, and certain commands like context menu. I'm still investigating because if you can create shortcuts to click with VOCr it's just awesome, but I haven't managed to do it. I like a lot of things about Mac, and a lot about Windows. So if possible, stick with both! To be honest, I tried macOS on a laptop that wasn't from the brand, and it had a much better CPU than the one Macs come with by default (speaking of Intel) and it works super well, and that's what made me stay on Mac for music. Although I'm in the process, I'm determined to stay there.
and windows
Jonathan Mosen said something in one of his podcasts you could change something to make it behave like windows what that is is escaping me at the moment.
adjusting curser to behave like on windows
I think that is what is that I was thinking of. I can't find it yet but looking.
Browsing.
Personally, I just use VO and the arrows a lot. I know, that's one of the things that drives Windows people nuts. But it seems to be faster, even where you can use just the arrows, and it means you have fewer things to pay attention to. I'm even fairly used to the editing.
I think two big things that helped me this time, aside from the way better experience of an M2 Mac vs. an Intel one back in 2012 or whenever it was, Are using my iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard, not exactly the same but a fairly similar experience, and just accepting that things are going to be different from Windows. I don't feel a real huge difference between arrows alone and VO and arrows, but that's me.
Sticking with both is my…
Sticking with both is my current advice as I have been doing exactly that since an year and it's awesome honestly.
Google
I don’t have a Mac to confirm this, but from what I have read, Google is the main problem in MacBooks
I am a user of the mac since 2014, and I have not regret it once
Yes I feel I want to bash it to the wall sometimes, but it is about an experience that Windows laptops do not offer. No laptops with Windows offering the same build quality, battery life, heat management, keyboard and audio quality, ecosystem experience, and stability of the MacOS. A friend sent her laptop to me to reinstall Windows, and I am stuck forever on the account creation screen just before the installation was done. I had to install all drivers for things to work properly, then there was a bulky update from Microsoft, then NVDA kept muting for no reason, I had to buy her Microsoft Office pack for a hefty price, I had to bring her a cooling pad etc etc.
Each time I think of going back to Windows I stop and remember how bad it feels when you need sighted assistance to see what keeps crashing NVDA.
On my Mac Air M2 believe it or not I lose 3% of battery each hour, you do your math and tell me how long it stays without having to plug in to charge. I need a machine that is quiet, responsive, compatible with what I have of other devices, frugal in battery and of very good keyboard and audio, that's mac for me. I myself post about bugs on MacOS, but nothing show stopper for me.
Nothing perfect, go with what makes you productive and less independent on others.
macOS
Use the computer for all the tasks you want to do, and evaluate for yourself if it meets your needs. Apple appears to be taking VoiceOver seriously once again starting with Ventura and newer, so we'll see what the future holds. Remember you can always keep Windows around for anything you find difficult and/or impossible on the Mac, and there's nothing wrong with that. Now that Microsoft appears to be taking accessibility far more seriously than they used to, I love the fact we have access to all kinds of different technologies. Try to get your hands on as much of it as you can, and use the tool that works best for a particular task.
This is why I'm seriously thinking about getting a modern Mac Mini. I want to find out what Apple will do next, learn how Apple Silicon works with Linux, as well as experience the awesome performance everyone keeps raving about. Time will tell if this is a mistake, but everything I hear from people using Sequoia makes me think maybe not. Your M2 Mini should get macOS updates until at least 2028 to 2030, so you've got plenty of time to evaluate as the OS and VoiceOver change. If you like the experience thus far, keep using it. If you eventually find you don't, that's okay too. It just means your next computer won't be a Mac.
I think your use case sounds…
I think your use case sounds within the mac's capibilities with voiceover. I think the main issue, SNR, which if you're using firefox you've sidestepped the S aspect of that acronym, doesn't apply.
For coding, and general text I highly suggest textmate, you can link it through to libraries and all sorts of magic I don't really understand.
Avoid scrivener, not only because it is convoluted, but the developer hasn't engaged well with requests for accessibility updates. If you do want to work with large bodies of text use ulysses. It's excellent and support are wonderful.
As a music machine, you'll not get better than the mac.
I think most of the frustrations, aside from SNR, are from 'power users', niche within a niche. Heading pretty much down the centre of usage, the norm of usage if you like, mac is okay with voiceover. I still think voiceover is overly convoluted, performs poorly in apples own applications and doesn't have enough parity between operation between applications, some apps needing VO to be held down all the time... Other things...
Avoid word, as I don't think it provides you with anything but a headache, rather, write stuff in markdown and export into word files.
The mac is an okay platform as long as you don't expect too much from it. It's questionable if it is a professional platform, I believe there are too many limitations, which isn't to say you can't get work done on it, but mac, on the whole, isn't what most of the professional world use outside graphic design and music production.
If you have a windows machine too, then you have best of both worlds.
O
Khomus could you give more details?
when you say: Personally, I use voiceover and arrows a lot. I know it's one of the things that drives Windows users crazy, but it seems to be faster, even when you can only use the arrows, and that means there are fewer things to pay attention to. I'm even quite used to editing. What do you really mean? Do you think voiceover is faster even because you have to press 800 keys to do one thing? Or have I misinterpreted your message?
Anyway, my final opinion is that, if you can use windows and mac, and if you can only use one, it depends on what you want it for, but if it's just for occasional things I'd say windows is better, even for the price of a mac you buy a computer with better specs than the ones that a mac comes with. About the battery, it also depends on the use, but if as I said before, the use is occasional, it shouldn't affect you. About the fan noise, on current computers it's almost imperceptible, although many will have super hearing but in my case it doesn't get in the way. . Currently I only use Mac for music production, I don't use it for anything else.
Computers are computers
It sounds like you're a programmer, so I'm sure you already know that.
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a blog post covering my thoughts about MacOS versus Windows and see no need to repeat those views here. The only thing I might add is that I plan to place an order for a new M4 Mac Mini any day now, something I wouldn't do if I had any reservations.
Re: Voiceover and keyboard.
You have a fanciful interpretation of numbers, my dude. Holding down VO and an arrow key would be two keys at a time, not 800.
But let me explain what I mean. Say you're on this site. You turn quick nav on, so you can just hit the arrows. My argument is that even when that's the case, it's faster to just use VO, (capslock in my case), and the arrows. This also gets rid of a lot of the complaints people have, e.g. quick nav sometimes not working.
One issue I've had lately, because I'm trying to be honest and not hype the Mac here, is that sometimes I have to toggle quick nav off and on to get navigation by headings. However, if this becomes an issue, I could just use the VO command cmd-VO-h. That would be three keys, in case you're counting.
This would work for me, on Windows I rarely used numbered headings unless I was familiar with the site, because they seem fairly unreliable, due to the ways various sites are set up. 'h' always works, unless they use no headings at all, which also happens.
To be clear, I can absolutely see how these would be annoying issues for people. That's why I said in my initial post that some of the things people complain about don't seem to be slowing me down, in terms of productivity. If it's slowing you down, cool, don't switch, why would you?
Here's another one, within this text I can move by word and line and edit and all with the standard keys, arrows, option-left/right for words, and so on. However, in order to do that, I had to hit shift-VO-down arrow to interact with the edit field. Again, this is not slowing me down in the slightest.
And, to return to the beginning, I think it's because I'm trying to do things the Mac way, and not trying to force it into my Windows experience. SO because I'm around capslock most of the time, because that's my VO key, I'm ready to hit those keys and get right into typing or editing or whatever.
Again, if you use a Bluetooth keyboard with an iPhone, this is the experience you're going to get, with the possible exception of less interacting. There are absolutely places where a keyboard helps on the phone, notably with larger amounts of text, naturally enough. But often the equivalent of interacting would be VO-space to double tap in an edit field to start typing.
I also don't have to interact in order to start typing in an edit field on the web. I do it in comments like this so I'm ready for editing, but if I'm entering search terms into Google, I just type. I totally get that this is different than Windows. I totally get how it might not be for some people. That's why I'm saying, *for me*, I'm not noticing any of this slowing me down.
It's extra key presses that…
It's extra key presses that feel unneeded but also act as a barrier for new users. I understand the issue with Mac OS is it is designed for point and click whereas windows is more designed for keyboard and mouse, therefore things have to be done a little differently on mac. still, It's a pickle to do simple tasks. Going to windows it's so nice to have one handed operation too. There is something so intense about having two hands always on the keyboard like some hacker from an 80s movie.
Ye olde Mac versus PC
The problem with these types of threads, is that the initial poster has typically already made up their mind, and are just seeking validation. Bottom line, if you want to use Matt, then use Mac already. If you want to use windows, then use windows.
Regardless of what anybody on here says, myself included, The only system that is the absolute best, is a system that best suits “your” needs.
The end.
However, if you are still seeking validation, then may I direct you to this post?
https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/should-i-switch-macbook-after-10-years-using-windows
Brian
Yep. Yes. What is the point.
What I'm Picking Up
Hi Khomus,
What I'm picking up from reading your posts is that you've been having a great initial experience on the Mac so far (yay!). This is good and, based on my experience, is the best indicator of whether or not someone will get on well with making the switch to macOS permanently.
I have a friend from childhood who I have known for over 20 years who recently made the switch to Mac. She gave me permission to tell this story.
Earlier this year, she reached out to me about switching to the Mac. Like me, she grew up using Windows. She had heard about VoiceOver being built into the Mac and wanted to try it.
Despite my own relatively positive experience using macOS, I discouraged her from buying a Mac quite strongly. I did not think she would have a good experience because the learning curve for VoiceOver on macOS can be quite steep.
She thankfully did not listen to me, got a MacBook Air, and learned VoiceOver in a weekend through watching YouTube tutorials.
The point I'm trying to get at in sharing this story is that you are going to be the best one to assess if you should make the switch to a Mac. I can tell you what I think (that you probably will be able to make the switch successfully, based on what I have read here about your experience in the last several days). What may be a dealbreaker for some is no big deal for others, and I think that's what you're seeing here in some of the replies. If you are able to keep the computer, great. And if you are able to keep both your previous Windows machine and the new Mac, even better. Whatever you decide is okay, and there is no right or wrong answer.
Numpad
For those of you having issues with keyboard commands, give the Numpad Commander a try. It makes VoiceOver usage significantly easier, and you can do many things using a single hand. I know it may not be as convenient on a laptop, but trust me, it's worth it.
Any way to have a numpad…
Any way to have a numpad setup with macbook on the go and the conveniance making it worth it with voiceover?
Portable USB NumPad versus Legacy style keyboard
Whether you use a portable USB NumPad, or a legacy keyboard with a built-in NumPad, I agree with the above poster, that NumPad Commander makes a world of difference with macOS.
Selecting text in a pdf
So, since you mentioned text editing, and specifically selecting text, I will say that I have found selecting text in a text document, or even in Pages, to be no problem. Even selecting text in Safari can be done. But, selecting text in a pdf... that's a no go. I would love to be wrong on that btw, because it would be quite helpful to be able to do that, but hard as I've tried, I just can't get it to work.
Otherwise, I am also quite a happy mac user, but also find myself jumping back and forth between mac and Windows, as a lot of stuff I do with online radio is Windows specific.
@Justin Harris
You can use a script to quickly convert a PDF to TXT or RTF. This will allow you to select content to copy. Not the best solution in the world I know, but it may save you sometime and effort.
Voiceover selection.
1. Get to the beginning of the text you want to select.
2. Hit VO enter/return.
3. With VO commands, so not shift and regular arrows or whatever, but with the VO modifier, move to the other end of the text you want to select.
4. Hit VO enter.
5. Cmd-c to copy.
https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/select-text-mchlp2741/mac
You don't even have to interact. I've been using it in the terminal where I'm running a BBS client. Since you're already interacting with the terminal, I don't think there's a deeper level to go to.
If you're familiar with NVDA on Windows, this is like getting the review cursor where you want it with the numpad, hitting f9, getting the review cursor to the other end of the text, and hitting f10 twice quickly.
Yeah selection in terminal…
Yeah selection in terminal works well but for pdfs and paragraph in web you have to interact in the paragraph first. Multiple paragraph selection is hard in web and pdf compared to windows, you basically must do one by one.
loving mac
I can't speak personally to music creation apps and the like, as i have very little experience with such things on either OS. how ever, i purchased a MacBook air m3 back in march, and i've never looked back. i honestly haven't booted my hp spectre again for months. i have windows 11 arm running in a vm for when i need to use windows, and that runs faster than any of my actual windows pcs. lol. it's insanely fast. voiceover has been taking me a while to learn, but i'm getting to the point now where in most cases i can navigate the OS and browse the internet as fast if not sometimes faster now, than on windows. i do how ever, use an external keyboard at home, with a numpad. a numpad changes everything people! if there are those of you who have used voiceover for a long time, and haven't tested using a numpad, trust me, it makes life so much easier. one key press to navigate left or right. one key press to interact or uninteract. and so, so much more. and you can use any modifier, shift, command, option, control, to add so many more abilities. including opening / focusing on any apps you use regularly. that, and the trackpad of course, when i am using the laptop itself. slightly less versatile, but it's still awesome to use. i'd have to say, that for the first time ever since they fixed the issues with voiceover not responding back in 14.2, i can safely say, that i don't think i'll be purchasing a windows machine again.
Yeah numpad seems to be this…
Yeah numpad seems to be this great miracle for voiceover. I might spend on one, any idea for a decent ergonomic bluetooth one? I couldn't use it in college though. I had levereaged the trackpad 4 months ago but never got used to it, maybe giving it a second try would help?
What drives me crazy is that we have the 4 fingers swipe empty for all 4 directions and there is no way to assign something useful. What's the interest of the tracpad if I need to have one hand on the keyboard anyway and another on the trackpad? Might as well use the full keyboard with both hands then.