Considering converting to Mac, any advice/pointers please

Hi. You can absolutely set up voice over on a mac by yourself. No problem. If you can work an iPhone or iPod, you're halfway to using a Mac. You'll need to hold down the caps lock and arrows, ro control option, or in your case control and windows I'm thining, to move around the screen. If you're curious go to an apple store to test before you buy. Hope this helps.

Let me first say I don’t want to discourage anyone from the mac. Technology is all about personal preference. I will say, however, that I believe anyone considering mac OS should make sure they have good reasons to move to the platform, since you give up a lot with it. For more info about this topic I would suggest this great article.
http://mosen.org/saying-goodbye-to-the-mac/
The bottom line is if you want the best experience with word processing, pdfs, spread sheets, and arguably web browsing, you might want to run windows on your mac, with bootcamp or fusion. I just bought the new 2016 mac book pro, and I love it; I’m writing this on it, in windows 10.

Just to respond to your question, one great thing about the mac is that when dealing with installing OS updates everything is accessible.

With that rather lengthy post on the inherent accessibility problemsand more often than not negativity of mac os, what's the point of then getting a mac? Apple seems to not listen to and/or fix bugs reported to them via developers, that's rather sad! I have, and love my mac and it meets my needs. Maybe that's all that post was trying to say?

Hi! Having read jonathan Mosen's article about giving up the Mac, I agree it seems negative, because over the years he has discovered a lot of ways in which the Mac wasn't really the right thing for him, but, above all, that blog post is a good reminder that we all must consider exactly what we want to use a computer for when deciding whether to have a PC or a Mac for our next computer. No operating system is perfect, but each has its advantages, and those should be weighed up before any big purchase like a new computer. I admit I catch myself wondering why some people have Macs who use Windows on them a huge percentage of the time, although of course there's no denying that having two operating systems on one computer can also have its advantages. If you're sure a Mac will meet yor needs, go ahead and buy one, whether you decide to install Windows on it afterwards or not.

As with anything else, the choice of whether to use a MAC or PC depends on personal choice and your specific requirements. If you are a real power user like Jonathan Mosen or have some special needs, the Windows PC is probably the way to go.

On the other hand, if you are just a plain vanilla user who mostly wants to use e-mail, browse the web, create simple documents, etc. the MAC will probably do fine.

Look at what specific programs and/or hardware you are likely to want to use. If NoiceOver doesn't support some third party program you'll be out of luck, but if you s stick to Apple programs you'll probably be okay.

At least we have choices, but one solution won't do everything.

--Pete (a happy JAWS and PC user for many years)

I buy macs because I need pro tools and amadious pro. I also find Mac OS more intuitive, and thanks to my many years with OS 10, I am very adept with the operating system. I have spent most of my time out of windows, however, because I'm enjoying windows 10 on my new mac book pro so much, that might change. Keep in mind, it might be beyond the abilities of some users to be comfortable in both mac and windows. It's amazing to me how many blind people are not Proficient in either.

Do you really need a mac? That's the question I think each person needs to answer when choosing a computer. Mac hardware is more expensive than equivalent hardware for Windows. I saw a Toshiba laptop with an I7 processor, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD with dedicated graphics and an UltraHD 4K touch display for $1100. If you just need your computer for mail, social networking and browsing, you could get a suitable computer for under $500.

For some people, they need to perform tasks that are more easily or efficiently done on a mac or cannot be done at all on Windows. In this case, purchasing a mac makes sense. But if all you do on a computer can be done as easily under Windows, then it makes sense to save your money and buy a Windows computer.

If you use programs that work better or only run on Windows, then it makes even less sense to buy a mac unless you really need to. Sure, you can run Windows on a mac, but then you will need to purchase Windows and the virtual software to run it which adds even more cost to the already expensive hardware. So, think about how you will be using your computer and decide which OS best meets your needs.

Agree, everyone should consider their needs. After reading the blog post linked to above, I'm thinking maybe mine have changed. I completely agree with one thing Jonathan said in his post. Almost everything I use my Mac for, I can do faster on my iPhone thanks to Braille screen input. I opened launchpad on my MBP the other day and realized I only have 3 or 4 apps on it that I wouldn't rather just use my phone for, and for those, I'd probably be better served using Windows.

That's just me though. I don't do any audio editing, except for messing around a little bit with Garage Band. I don't think I'd miss that much, though. So I I'm considering seeing if my parents will put a Microsoft Surface under the Christmas tree for me.

There's one other consideration, and it's the one that made me switch to macos in the first place — the ability to reinstall the OS independently. I had a bad experience with my last desktop and I decided to try a Mac to see why people raved about it. I've never had to reinstall macos on either of my MacBooks, but it's nice to know I could if I had to. MS really needs to figure out a way to do this in Windows. It's 2016.

Just thought I'd chime in here regarding Safari and Google Chrome, both of which I have on my mid-2013 MacBook Air. I use these interchangeably, and have found the combination of these 2 browsers to be quite good. One advantage I've found in Chrome is that Adobe Flash seems to be built in. At least I think this is the case, because I can watch YouTube videos and other ones without having to update flash constantly. In addition, I have the latest version of Chromevox on here. So whenever I am going to use Chrome I switch off VoiceOver and activate Chromevox Classic. I've used VO with Chrome before and while support is getting better, it isn't quite what it probably should be. But as others have said personal choice is what it's all about.