Just as a note I've been able to deal with the Windows new computer questions bit using Narrator but no it's not ideal.

Just turn on and hit command F5, command is the key in the same position as alt on a Windows keyboard. From there you may as well do the tutorial if you're not familiar with Voice Over, it doesn't take long and it covers using HTML areas as well.

As for software, remember Apple's word processor Pages and spreadsheet Numbers are both free from the app store. As usual you may wish to run a check for updates but other than that everything you need should be there right away. If you're using an iOS device however Apple's remote app can be useful, you can sit your macbook somewhere a little way off from you and still control iTunes using your iPad or iPhone. Very handy if you have a sighted friend you want to watch something with via your MacBook.

Hey CW. As for mudding programs, Atlantis and tintin are good places to start. Daisy programs? I don't think there are any, but I'll do some research. You can play all the windows games you want with vmware fusion, and Draconis have two awesome games for the mac. Did I mension that there is iBlink  Radio for the mac?

Hmmm. I am currently running 10.9.5. Yes that is the version it shipped with. To be more correct it shipped with 10.9.4. As for the voiceover not being as fast as jaws, I have in fact found it as fast as jaws at times. If you notest, I said at times. As for bugs, have you dug around in JAWS. I have found one or two in jaws at times. For example, try using the jaws cursor in firefox in windows seven. They might had fixed it in 16, but I doudt it. The whole interacting thing with voiceover does get some getting used to, but the item chooser helps out allot with page navagation when you know the page. There is the control plus option plus command plus h to go to the next heading for an example of something simlar to jaws. FS added touch screen support to jaws in 15, but the track pack navagation was in Voiceover before then and I still use word on windows with JAWS for now if you want to compare the two. LOL. If you really get down to it, you can find problems with any screenreader on the market. As for Voiceover stopping in times, are you backing that up by with those bugs you see there? Are you sure? I am just saying. You are not the only one that has found bugs. I have heard about some kind of wifi bug here and I know for a fact that IOS 8 still have enough bugs in it. So, by your logic, IOS 8 will go off the market per say pretty soon. This means that there will be no more IPads and IPhone sold after a point because of NDroid doing what IOS is trying to do so much better. It looks like to me, it all depends on what each person does on their computer that desides the OS and screen reader of choice.

I AM USING WORD IN WINDOWS DO TO THE FACT I AM HAVING TO WRITE PAPERS AND THE LIKE. THOSE PAPERS CAN BE QUITE DEMANDING WHEN IT COMES TO THE formatting. Other then that, pages would do fine. Anyway, well said CX.

LOL to all the one-siding around here. I'm not willing to campaign for Windows simply because I hate some aspects of the Mac, which do include the glacial progress of VoiceOver, it's true, nor am I willing to campaign for the Mac to the exclusion of Windows. I, for example, am using Mountain Lion on my iMac with XP in a VM because quite honestly, there's no going forward for me. In fact it's entirely possible that if I move back to Windows, I'd be going backwards from where I am now, to Windows 7, just to keep all the functionality I need. Having said this …

Both platforms are good for different things. It is really true that Windows does more than you give it credit for, because you get much better guarantees of accessibility with arbitrary programs than on Mac or iOS, but only if you first neglect the fact that it's a bitch to set up and use for basic tasks. That is one area where the Mac just wins, IMO, hands-down. Keep VMWare on your Mac, or a separate partition, and you'll be able to use both Mac for the vast majority of your shit and Windows for the vast minority of it. That unless you begin to find, as I do in Yosemite, that even basic functions are becoming increasingly crippled in the name of "Progress".