Kestrell

Here is the thing which I think ultimately is drawing and will continue to draw large numbers of blind people to Mac products: when you walk into an Apple store, a blind person is treated *just the same* as a sighted person. Blind people are so used to people in stores trying to ignore them completely, or giving off the attitude that the clerk is really hoping you will just go away, on top of the clerk usually being completely clueless about accessibility features in the products they are selling, that every purchase of a tech product is hugely stressful. With Apple products, you walk into a store, and it's as if the clerk doesn't hold it against you that you are complicating his or her day by asking questions to which s/he doesn't know the answer.

Also, I know from being on the MacVisionaries list that many blind people are using the gesture interface. I don't know them personally, but then, I don't know a lot of younger blind people--it may be one of those skills that occurs seemingly naturally in the generation which grew up with the technology. Actually, I do know a younger blind woman who seems to have no trouble with the gesture interface, but she does a lot of texting, and prefers to have an actual keyboard.