OS X Mavericks... is it worth the upgrade?

By Greg T Kelchner, 30 October, 2013

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Hello all, I am using a Macbook Pro running OS X version 10.8.5. I have been browsing this forum trying to decide if upgrading is worth it. Many people say using Mavericks is a smooth experience. Sure there are bugs here and there but over all it seams to run fine. One issue that is concerning me however is the fact that vo is having issues navigating large directories in the finder. What if I want to navigate my iTunes folders when in the finder? Would anyone care to comment on this, as well as comment on why they upgraded or didn't upgrade? Just to give you an idea as to how I use my Mac, I mainly Browse the web, check email, listen to music, and am interested in doing more word processing so am intrigued by the fact that iWork has seen some accessibility improvements. I am also interested in giving the iText Express app a shot. I also plan to start recording music on the Mac but I am very new to this... although I would like to become proficient. I would be interested in any thoughts regarding Mavericks's accessibility in terms of garage band and or third party digital audio workstations. Thank you for any input, Greg

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Comments

By Siobhan on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 23:52

Hi. I upgraded for a number of reasons. I don't have to have the latest and greatest, especially when it comes to hardware. Software, I dotend to get it when it's out, although with windows vista I think, I waitied knowing how buggy it was. Sorry windows refference. Anyway the pricetag of free, really got me. I'm a bit money tight at the moment, so I expected a 20 dollar price preparing to wait. When it was free I installed. I haven't had issues with browsing directories, but I don't have as large a library as you're saying you do. Pages is very accessible, and at 20 dollars, it's worth it. Although it's free if you already bought it, or ave a new Mac. There are bugs like you mentioned, the iBooks app has unlabeled buttons, and apparently it's giving people trouble syncing to other devices. It's booting quite a bit faster then Mountain Lion did. Someone on here doesn't care for safari, so if you want to talk to them about some acessibility they dont' like, it might be a good idea. They weren't specific about why that browser didn't work for them. All in all, I'm happy I upgraded. Keyboard responsiveness on things like editing this post, as i've screwed up royally ;) is fantastic. Siobhan

By Greg T Kelchner on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 23:52

Hi Siobhan, What have your experiences been with Safari? I know you said someone else didn't like it but what about you? If you don't use Safari what browser do you use? If you are using the latest version of Safari what are your thoughts on it? Thank you, Greg

Hi; Wanted to throw my two cents in. Safari seems to read the pages okay when you are flicking through them, but if you get to a large block of text, such as an article, then when you do the two finger flick down to read from cursor to end of document, I have had problems with Voiceover skipping around in the text, mainly missing some sections. That is my main problem with Safari in Mavericks. I don't know a workaround other than flicking through the article which can be annoying since it should be unnecessary.

By Piotr Machacz on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 23:52

I have upgraded to mavericks and overall like the update a lot. I don't have any issues with the finder in big directories, and over all safari word a lot better apaer from some very broken behaviour in lists during a say all. also the speech order in mail is a bit different and I personally liked it the old way better, and iBooks is a bit disappointing. Apart from that, though, I like it a lot.

I have posted my fairly significant problems with mail in another post. In short, I agree with Peter above that navigation isn't as smooth and it actually takes longer (because of needing several keystrokes) to read a long message. Also, I'm personally struggling with attachments. The accessibility of Pages is a huge step forward and I can now read much of my office's work that is produced in Word by using Pages. Safari works well for me. So, in short, depends on how much you value different factors.

So because I'm not as familiar with the mac as I should be, is this an upgrade where you just go into softwear upgrade, or do I have to get it from the app store? Thanks. :)

Hi rd. Yes you can get it from the ap store, it's a free update. Greg I use safari and I haven't had a problem in long blocks of text. Voice over has skipped around some, but that's always how it's been on my Macbook pro. The only annoying thing for me, is I use voice over keys U to open the rotar to use headings, links etc. It doesn't remember the place you were if you click say the link, Mom's gone. Then you come back and you see home, contact us, write this, etc. In other words it does remember where you are if you tab and press return, but not so much on the rotar setting. I personaly wish this would be fixed as i remember in old windows days you could have it remember that you clicked link four out of 100. Oh and the mail I wish you could stop it from saying so much. I just want rdfreak re: hi. Not rd freak seven p.m. hi. and then the name of the mailbox. Checking the classic layout box doesn't help in my case. so hopefully you'll give it a shot. :) and sorry for picking on you frd freak. ;)

No Siobhan, I'm afraid I'm still not good on the Mac; I keep saying I'm gunna use it more but don't do it. I have learnt a lot about it but there's still a heck of a lot more I don't know at the same time. Thanks for that. Do I need to install it on a flash drive first or can I just go over the top? Thanks :)

By Siobhan on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 23:52

Hi. You're welcome. and yes install over the top. I need to find my thumb drive. It walked away. ;)

By Raul on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 23:52

Hi, I've read about problems with external HDD when updating to 10.9, especially with Western Digital ones, causing the HDD to be erased. Has anyone suffered this? I have a huge 2TB WD Elements, and I don't want to loose my data, including my time machine backups.

By Ekaj on Friday, December 5, 2014 - 23:52

Hi. I realize I'm a bit late in replying to this, but wanted to put in my 2 cents worth as somebody who started on Mavericks. I've had my Mac for just under a year. It is my first Mac computer, and my parents and I purchased it with Mavericks already installed. VoiceOver does have its quirks, but my experience thus far has been that those quirks are far and few. For instance, I was having an issue where my speech would stutter. See a previous thread of mine. But that seems to have somehow resolved itself, or at least partially resolved itself. I use both Safari and Google Chrome to browse the web, and I like both. I don't really notice a difference between these two, other than that Chrome seems to load pages just a bit faster. But even that difference is subtle in my experience. Safari and Chrome both use the same or very similar layouts and keyboard commands. I also like Apple's default email program, although I've been experiencing a problem where a lot of times messages in my inbox don't delete properly. But someone on an email list to which I recently subscribed gave a trick for that, so sometime this weekend I'm going to see if it resolves the issue. I've not done much with Pages at all yet, so can't comment there. TextEdit is very good. I'm slowly but surely learning the other on-board apps, but over all I'm quite impressed with my Mac.