Hi, well I have to check if the voiceover manual for the mac has been
translated yet to Duthc otherwise it is not accessible to anyone at all.
A lot of Dutch blind people, for some reason are not fluent in English
at all so English podcasts are also difficult. I know the iphone manual
has been translated to dutch but that is a general manual the voiceover
getting started guide is a specefic document.
You are also solely looking at the american situation. In the
Netherlands there are no courses yet for blind vo users nor in the apple
store nor anywhere else.
When i went to a dutch apple store a year ago they did not know anything
at all about voiceover and I was really disappointed. I only found out
what really was going on by mailing apple accessibility in English.
I would like to add though that in general a mac machine is more stable
then a windows one.
Greetings, Anouk,
Op 2-9-2011 9:15, Priscilla Garces schreef:
Hey listers,
I have some opinions concerning the reasons for getting a mac.
the answers to the questions are as follows:
1. Which part of the blind community is best helped with a mac?
A. ther's no specific community who prefers the mac because anyone can buy it
since access is universal for blind or sighted people. Personally i think that
the mac is far more customizable than windows is because the scripts are pretty
straight forward. I know nothing about scripts but i've heard that you can
easily configure things on the mac and even set shortcuts for voiceover. If the
blind person is planning to shell out 1 big buck initially then they should go
for it because it's cheaper in the long run. I did extensive research before i
really decided to take the blunge myself, but the one who really convinced me
the most was my best friend because she knew about the mac having a screen
reader before I did.
2. When is a mac preferable?
A. Not necessarily, there are 1 on 1 training courses at the apple store with
patient staff assuming that they know the mac in and out as far as
accessibility. That entirely depends on the location of an apple store near you
and how well versed the staff are at your prefered location. I think the bigger
the apple store, the more staff they have, thus there are more volunteers who
are trained to help you learn the basics. now, concerning self-study, well you
need to have self- dicipline to do that and that's not for everyone. Some
people just don't process information well either because of learning
disabilities or adhd or some other problem of that nature, but it entirely
depends on many other factors as well such as being afraid of getting out of
there comfort zone. That's a separate topic right there. Well i don't know
wether or not you can work off the harddrive or not because my mac is recently
new and i don't have problems. I personally had a couple training classes where
i did learn the basics of voice over and staff. Also the incredible support
from my best friend who's sighted helped me learn all about the iphone and
voiceover with the mac. She let me practice on some of her friend's computers
so i can get familiar with the gestures and what not. in short, learning the
mac is rather straight forward then it is with jaws. I learned Jaws in 7th
grade and it took me a good year or 2 to really get good at using jaws. believe
it or not but I never got the hang of using aim until i was a senior in high
school because i never figured that out myself, the ironic thing is that i had
an aim account since seventh grade but never used it until years later. I
thought that aim was just a bunch of confusing keystrokes which were too
tedious. While on the other hand, i took a good month or 2 to get the hang of
using voiceover on the mac. i will flat out lie if i said well it's easy, no
folks it takes a bit of guts to discover and explore but all in all it's pretty
intuitive.
3. From a user's perspective, Are there any areas where a mac is really better
for an independent blind user?
A: Not really. You're right on that one. I myself had few if any problems with
my system acting weird. sometimes it's usually me who doesn't get it or presses
the wrong keys on the mac. i think that windows is equal with the mac, but the
mac is better in the accessibility aspect since the blind can use it out of the
box at no additional cost. as with jaws you have to pay every time you have to
upgrade and it costs anywhere around $700 to upgrade, and every year you have
to pay a certain fee just to maintain your SMA which is another reason why
more and more people prefer the alternative such as either a mac or using NVDA
or system access depending on preference. For instance, I decided to get a mac
because i consider the long term cost of getting a PC with the additional price
of jaws and the SMA's each year on top of the cost of the PC.
4. From the buyer's perspective, in this case the fund paying for the mac for a
blind person, is a mac cheaper than a pc?
The mac is expensive as a 1 time purchase. i can aggree with that on that
perspective 100%. do the math, considering a person who is willing to spend
about 600$ for a good PC like an HP if they get one at best buy or PC richard's
which is reasonable but a bit expensive for some. Sometimes you can get a good
HP PC for around $400 at walmart if you're lucky to get A soni or HP for that
price. Add the cost of jaws on top of the price of either $400 at Walmart or
$600 at Best buy which comes out to at least from $1300-1500 assuming that you
get the standard version of jfw which costs about $900. That assumes you got
your computer within the price range of $400-600 whereas you get the mac, you
spend 1199 1 time but you get the screenreader included at no charge. no one
can beatt that. In fact, it's cheaper because if you get a discount you get the
mac for $1099 if you get the macbook pro, but if you can't afford that you can
get the smaller macbook air which is around 800 or even the ipad if you decide
to get something as a supplement for the pc. I got the mac for the reason
stated in thispost including the long term cost.
5. Unknown makes unwanted. Why do funds, insurance companies etc, stick with
windows, when there could be a better alternative for a particular user and
with respect to price?
windows is still the main operating system in many workplaces because microsoft
office keeps being the main sourse of productivity where as the word processing
on the mac is not as feasable for some especially if you do a whole lot of
advanced formatting or editing such as making labels or very detailed
powerpoint presentations. But, i tried keynote and it outweighs powerpoint
although i wish it fixes some bugs with voice over but that's a minor
complaint. I don't do much in terms of formatting except write resumes or
essays and basic wordprocessing so that's not an issue. I just hope iwork fixes
some kinks with voiceover such as reading tables and slides and bullets. other
than that i'm pretty happy overall.
Anyone have any opinions you can talk about them off list or reply to the list,
whichever is better.
Thank you.
Priscilla Garces
priscillagarces1...@hotmail.com
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