[bcab] Re: Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and development.

Nick - based on my very limited experience of a half day on voice over 2 years 
ago, and keeping a general eye on developments:
Voiceover is pretty capable when using the apps that are part of the OS such as 
web browser, Email, basic word processor, etc, but support for 3rd party 
applications is very very limited, last time I checked, which admittedly is 
probably getting up for a year ago, there were only 3 commercial apps that were 
known to work with voiceover.  As far as I know there is no office suite that 
will work with voiceover.

Don't know about development environments but it seems unlikely given the above.

If you're mainly interested for spare time type applications such as Email and 
Web browsing with the occasional bit of note writing then a Mac Mini is good 
value for money but if you have more demanding tasks in mind then I suspect 
that in the main you won't find a Mac replacing your Windows system any time 
soon.

But then as I said - I haven't made the switch so I might be completely wrong.

Adrian Higginbotham
Project manager: Learning services
Becta
Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Becta switchboard 02476-416994.
Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/
BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ 


-----Original Message-----
From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Nick.Adamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 29 February 2008 13:20
To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bcab] Accessibility of the Mac Minnie for office, web and development.

Hi All.

I'm sure this has been spoken about so many times but I've not been interested 
before.

One of the guys at work has been talking about his mac and I'm pretty impressed.

I'm thinking about one for home and I'm wondering about accessibility.
I know there's Voice Over which is the built in screen reader. How good is 
this, how does it compare to the plethora of windows screen readers.

Mostly I'd want to do email, office type applications, read books which are 
plain text or html, brows the web, maybe a bit of IM.

I'd also want to develop PHP on it and some C++. what are the development 
environments like, how accessible are they?

Any information gratefully received.
Cheers.
Nick.



Nick Adamson
Software Engineer
General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited

Email: nick.adamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: 01495 236467
http://www.generaldynamics.uk.com

General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited
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Units 3 & 4,
Oakdale Business Park,
Oakdale,
South Wales,
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