Buying a Mac

I agree with Dave82, Productivity is lacking. Apple is making progress. For Word and Excel type stuff, Windows is better. So keep a Windows computer for that, or run VM software on Mac. Apple builds a sturdier computer. You also don't deal with the crashing of a Windows computer.

Hey all, I have been a mac user for almost 3 years, made the switch from using windows with Zoomtext when I needed a full time screen reader, and the cost of a mac compared to windows plus jaws was about the same. I am interested to know what people use for a screen reader while using a virtual machine, as I thought I heard voiceover wouldn't work when running windows? I am fed up with the lack of accessibility with numbers and have contacted apple accesibility several times and got the standard response. I use spread sheets a great deal and I constantly have to restart numbers as it has a lot of issues with Voiceover. I would be looking to use the VM with excel which I have but cannot use with Voiceover. Thanks

You're correct, VoiceOver does not work on the Windows side, it can't. You are literally running Windows on your Mac, so your screen reader options are the same as a Windows machine.

Me too.

Hey Janet, I can't answer all of your questions about partioning a drive, as I have never done that. To use Microsoft Office you would have to do so. I use Pages Apple's answer to Word, and it works pretty good for me. You can open any word document in it and save all your pages documents as a word document, which I do as everything I email to someone goes out as a word document. Numbers is Apple's answer to Excel, but it has a ton of glitches with Voiceover. Some days it will work pretty good for me, and other days I have tons of problems with it. Overall I am pretty happy with my mac, but it did take me a good 2 months of using it non stop to get use to it. Anyone who tells you there is not a learning curve is dead wrong, but than again I had never used a screen reader, and had to learn all the keyboard shortcuts from scratch, as I used Zoomtext with a mouse until my vision got worst and I needed the full screen reader. There are websites also that are either not properly designed or that safari and voiceover does have trouble with which can sometimes be frustrating. For example safari does not have flash built into it, but you can easily use chrome to open anything with flash. I rarely need to but at least this is an alternative and an option. Hope this helps.

Hi Janet, To partition your hard drive, you will need to use a utility called Boot Camp; it is doable with sighted assistance.

Hi, Janet. If all you need to do is use productivity software like MS Word and Excel on Windows, I'd advise you to run Windows as a virtual machine inside the Mac operating system. In this way, you don't have to worry about partitioning, and you can use Windows and the Mac at the same time. I have a virtual version of Windows 7 that I use with NVDA and Jaws, and it works really well. Also, you can install Windows without help from a sighted person if you use VMWare Fusion as your virtual machine player.

This is an excellent string of advice and I agree with most everything. I bought an 11 inch Air about a month ago and love it! About half the weight of my higher end Thinkpad and boots in about 5 seconds. As far as processor power, memory and storage, it is ample. Browsing works very well, mail is superb, and managing the machine is a true pleasure compared to a Windows machine. However, I find that Office applications on WIndows are far better than the Mac apps. I've purchased Pages for $20 and played quite a bit with it and can't get close to how well Word works in Windows. I'm trying, but sense I will go to VMWare Fusion and Windows for these uses. From the last post by Eirik, I'd appreciate any tips you have for FUsion and running JAWS in the WIndows screen. I'd like to go completely Mac, but I am not there yet with the productivity tools.

Hi, Ray. I use a handy little programme called Sharp Keys to remap various keys on the keyboard while running Windows. Just install Windows as a virtual machine, install Sharp Keys, remap the capslock key, and you should be good to go. Here's a link to the download page for the latest version of Sharp Keys: http://www.randyrants.com/2011/12/sharpkeys_35.html

really useful comments as I'm thinking of getting a MacBook Air as well. Does voiceover on the MacBook Air work well with Skype?

Hi Janet. You don't have to install Bootcamp and Fusion. If you only intend to use windows as a virtual machine, then just install Fusion and forget about Bootcamp.

Hey Carlos, I just wanted to say that you nailed it. Being someone who switched from the PC when it was time for a new computer, I went with the mac, and there is a learning curve. I was using Zoomtext and it took me a little while to get used to learning how to use the screen reader and all the keyboard commands, but once you get it down, wow. One thing that has not been mentioned in this thread, and one of the main reasons I went with a mac, is I wanted a computer with the screen reader built into the operating system. This may not be the case anymore or with Jaws, but three years ago using Zoomtext on an XP slowed my computer to a crawl, so one of my biggest decisions to switch to a mac was the built in Voiceover. Is the mac and Mountain Lion perfect? No, it does have problems and bugs, but I think any computer and assistive technology will. Good luck with your decision.

Hi to all I don't try change your mind, everyone has difference experienced, ideas, comments, using or taking decisions to purchase a Mac. Don't think and go with the idea that VoiceOver on the iOS devices iPhone, iPad, iPod ) works on the same way on Mac, VoiceOver on iOS devices seriously I'm agree that is the best screen reading however I don't share the same respect to VoiceOver on the Mac an other words on iOS devices you can do almost everything but not on Mac. All depend what do you want go and what you want do? I have a MacBook pro running mountain lion and I back to windows PC, I got a windows 8 couple weeks ago and I love it, and my question and may your too! Where is the Mac? I spent $1500 on the Mac machine and is not complain nothing to do with Mac are good machines I'm talking about VoiceOver on the Mac. I have my windows 8 NVDA as screen reading and works amazing, Just make sure before to purchase it

Chris, it'd be great if you could do such a podcast, after researching, it makes more sense for me to run Windows in virtual mode rather than dual-boot - thanks in advance for volunteering... blindgator, good point, having a built-in screen reader was probably the best practical reason for me buying the Mac, I have to still use a Windows laptop at work which I have to bring home with me so when I was considering what to replace my personal desktop with I went with the mini and I got a very solid, sleek and super fast desktop with built in speech, like you say not perfect but I am very pleased with it.

I also was a window PC user and stil am but love the mac air that I just got in August. I experienced that the voiceover some time can read more on the safari than JAWS can on IE. my friend and I were go through this one site and I tell her to look for thing and I do the same on the Mac while she on the window. As it turn out, mac went more smoothly and able to read everything on that site but she had difficulty on the window and can't get JAWS to find some of the button on the site. I love my Mac!!!

Marco makes a good point regarding the reason to buy a Mac, I think all of us who went from zero or clunky smart phone accessibility to the experience of using an iPhone with voiceover were naturally wondering if that kind of accessibility is there in OXX - so one shouldn't make the switch solely based on that expectation, since there are now decent solutions in windows, even free ones like NVDA. Having said that, there is no windows PC that is ready to speak out of the box yet, Narrator in Windows 8 is improved but is no Voiceover. I fairly thoroughly searched forum posts and such before ordering my Mac and understood that 1 - there is a learning curve, 2) if budget is critical you can still get a cheaper solution with a PC and NVDA, 3 - if you have to use spreadsheets you at least initially will have to install windows on your Mac. But I also found that many issues some people complain about are actually things that you can manage by learning to use Voiceover more thoroughly. Even with JAWS not everything is spoken automatically or easily, you sometimes have to rely on the review cursor, virtualizing screens, OCR, scripts etc. So perfect accessibility is not there, anywhere, but when I powered up my new Mac, the speech came on after a few seconds when I didn't click on anything, my wireless keyboard and track pad were already functional and I went through the initial setup in a couple of minutes. And on the first day I was navigating web pages fairly easily, read and wrote email, setup calendar contacts and even sent and received text messages from Mountain Lion in which links to my iPhone through my apple ID. And this Mac mini is super fast and smooth, speech quality is great and very responsive and it's about half the size of my old PC keyboard, that's not just cool, it's very practical! So far I'm a happy camper and next is installing VMWare Fusion and hope not to rely on the Windows crutch too much, I don't think I'll have to...