[nabs-l] mac books

[Corbb O'Connor]

As a MacBook Pro user, I agree with Christopher: VoiceOver is very  
much still a work in progress. The Internet works pretty well, if  
you're using Safari, but Firefox is not accessible at all. Email is  
great, and Mac OS X Mail is 100 percent accessible. iTunes is getting  
there. And moving around files and folders works. But Microsoft Office  
2004 isn't accessible -- I'm not sure about the latest version, as I  
don't have the money for that right now!

Here's my short review: if you have some residual vision and use that  
to navigate your computer, a Mac is far better with its equivalent of  
Zoom Text (they call it Screen Magnification and its available out-of- 
the-box on all machines in System Preferences, Accessibility).  
However, if you're somebody who relies more on a screen reader than  
upon magnification, you're better off with a PC, for JAWS is far  
superior. Maybe in a few years that will change, but we can only hope!  
Oh, and one more thing: emulating a PC is possible on the Mac, but  
don't expect it to be like having a PC -- most programs are still  
comparatively slower, especially if you try to run access technology  
on them. I use Parallels to run Kurzweil and it works -- most of the  
time -- but it's also sometimes very buggy and slow.

Best wishes--
Corbb

-----
Corbb O'Connor
studying at the National University of Ireland, Galway

On Dec 15, 2008, at 5:12 PM, Christopher Kchao wrote:

For now, voiceover is the only screen reader that's available for Mac.
Perhaps the most appealing quality about apple computers is that they  
come
talking right out of the box without the need to install third party  
(and
often expensive) software. To my knowledge, accessibility on the mac is
still a work in progress though it has certainly come a long way. Even  
so,
there are many blind people who use apple computers quite extensively in
their daily lives with little to no difficulty. If anything, you  
always have
the option of running windows by dual booting or using VMWare.
If you want more information, I encourage you to check out the
macvisionaries website and associated mailing list at
http://www.macvisionaries.com
Hope this helps
-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On  
Behalf
Of Cindy Bennett
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 11:44 AM
To: National Asociation of Blind Students
Subject: [nabs-l] mac books

Macs are becoming very popular, and from what i have noticed they seem  
to
work a lot better and to be more efficient than pc's. I know this is
personal opinion, but i was curious if anyone has successfully used the
voice over screen reader that is already on mac books when you get  
them, or
if there is another screen reader that works with macs that would be  
better.
Thanks
Cindy




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