[nabs-l] Basic Questions About Mac versus Pc
Joe Orozco
jsorozco at gmail.com
Sun May 9 01:38:02 UTC 2010
Briley,
Excellent post. Thank you so much for the quick and thorough response. I
too am curious as to how compatible a Mac would be with something like the
Braille Sense Plus or Braille displays in general. What about
documentation? I've heard there is no real manual to explain the
functionality of Voiceover, but is this primarily because the screen reader
is pretty intuitive? Is there a quick start guide of sorts? Thanks
again.--Joe
"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
-----Original Message-----
From: Briley Pollard [mailto:brileyp at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2010 5:18 PM
To: jsorozco at gmail.com; National Association of Blind Students
mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Basic Questions About Mac versus Pc
I can speak to a few of your questions, and will leave the
others who have been using Macs longer than I.
I was always a PC user, but after much frustration with
viruses, computer crashes of doom, etc, I got a Mac. I've used
it exclusively, (gave up Windows cold turkey as it were), since
December. Here are my general impressions.
You have to not expect VoiceOver to be Jaws because Snow
Leopard isn't Windows. The way it interacts with programs gives
me just as much control over everything I need, (internet,
music, word processing, EMail, etc), as Jaws, just in a
different way. I took this out of the box, turned it on, and it
was 100 percent workable. I can't speak to the changes in
Voiceover since I'm a relatively new user, but I know that I
don't miss Jaws at all, and I'd been using it for twelve years.
The Mail client is so easy to use, and a lot easier than
Outlook to me. Of course, I find everything on the Mac very
easy to understand. I think this fits in though with the
general commentary that Macs are really user friendly and self
explanatory. Everything was very intuitive, once I stopped
trying to get things done using windows keyboard shortcuts.
Multiple EMail accounts are easy to manipulate, and the RSS
reader is built right in.
Voiceover is also a very customizable screen reader. For
example, I have my verbosity settings set so that when I'm over
a link in the browser, it beeps instead of saying "link". You
can also change it so that way it says link before the link
text, or link after, if that is what you want. It is easily
tailored to your individual needs. I'm sure there are a lot of
things that it can do which I haven't discovered yet.
Text Edit comes with the Mac, (similar to Note Pad, except I
find it does a lot more than that). It has fulfilled all of my
word processing needs so far, but there are accessible options
for office suite applications. I don't have them, so someone
else might want to expound on IWork, but I've heard great things.
Voiceover fixes usually accompany any system update, and Apple
has been great at responding to accessibility requests. For
example, I EMailed them after the recent ITunes update to
inform them of some issues I was having. I got an EMail
response in 10 minutes asking for more information. Shortly
thereafter, (probably due to the fact they were getting 100
EMails a day like mine), ITunes came out and our issues were
solved. It is an attitude of universal access. I've just grown
to semi expect that an application will work, and I have very
rarely encountered things that are inaccessible to me, (as long
as they don't include flash, but I'm sure you already knew that).
The track pad commander on the MacBook Pros is also brilliant.
It has gestures similar to that of the IPhone OS, and makes
navigating around the system really intuitive. The internet is
a breeze. I just need a few fingers, and I'm set to go.
I've also never had a problem with my Mac freezing etc. I know
computer problems happen on every platform, but I've
experienced none thus far. If Voiceover gets cranky,
(occasionally happens if I haven't restarted in a few weeks), I
just hit command f5 a few times, and it's back to normal.
It was a little overwhelming at first learning a new screen
reader and a new OS, but I found that once I stuck with it, it
all became natural to me. I turned on my roommate's computer
the other day, and kept trying to make Jaws work with Voiceover
commands. I also installed some software for her, and the
process was a lot more arduous on windows than it is for me on
my Mac. I plug something in, and it pretty much works with no
fussing from me. This has taken a lot of the guess work out of
things for me.
I hope this has helped. If I think of anything I forgot, I'll
repost. If you ever want to see Voiceover in action some time,
let me know. I'd be happy to demo it for you.
Briley
On May 8, 2010, at 12:46 PM, Joe Orozco wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I keep hearing about all these wonderful things about Macs.
I was very
> interested in the iPad review on Access World, and my
employer's offer to
> switch out my PC for a Mac just gets more tempting by the
moment. Still, as
> I get older I am less tolerant of drastic changes to my
office assembly, and
> yet, temptations abound.
>
> 1. In the most recent platform upgrade, how has the
accessibility changed in
> terms of the screen reader? Is the screen reader only
updated with system
> upgrades, or are there ever updates between major upgrades?
If you had to
> compare Voiceover to JAWS, how does their functionality break
down? I know
> it's not fair to compare one to the other because the logic is a bit
> different, but I'm hoping you can speak to the level of
manipulation you
> have over the applications in your computer.
>
> 2. How has the compatibility changed in terms of Macs and
software packages?
> I originally hesitated, because it seemed the industry was
more prone to be
> compatible with PC products.
>
> 3. How easy is it to control documents in the word processor?
Do Macs use
> their own version of MS Office, or is there a native word
processor that
> makes Office documents readable?
>
> 4. What can you tell us about their e-mail client? Outlook
has its quirks
> but is almost 100 percent accessible. Sunbird, by contrast,
would be great
> but in my opinion still had some accessibility shortcomings.
I'm wondering
> if the same is true of iCal and Mac-based applications?
>
> 5. How much freedom do you have with Macs to go outside of
iTunes? I don't
> much care for proprietary packages unless it's unavoidable.
>
> 6. Are hardware repairs truly limited to Apple stores?
>
> I know the best thing is to play around with Macs yourself.
I intend to do
> that when I visit our home office in California in a month,
but I'm hoping
> those of you who are daily users of the system can give up-to-date
> information since reviews can quickly become outdated. And,
I'm sure that
> even playing with a Mac for an hour or so would not truly
give me a sense of
> how well they meet my daily task expectations.
>
> Thanks for any information and/or website recommendations.
>
> Best,
>
> Joe
>
> "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up
their sleeves,
> some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
>
>
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