I got asked a question recently: as someone who is blind, If you are going to be looking for work and are starting from zero which is better to learn a screen reader on, a Windows laptop or an Apple laptop.
Note: This article is only my personal opinion, based on my own experience.
My Experience
I have spent considerable time on all 5 of the major platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android. I am not writing this from inside 1 ecosystem, and I am not writing this to knock any of them. From a blindness perspective, the question is not which system is nicer. It is which system gets you hired and keeps you productive.
Where the Work Is
Big organisations, corporations, government organisations and many others are Windows 1st or Windows only, and if you don’t know Windows you remove a very large segment of the market before you even start. The noteable difference between the 2 is not the technology, it is where the jobs are.
I spent years supporting a very large organisation and I can tell you they are usually years behind the small agile organisations in terms of tech for end users. So expect them to not make it easy to use other things, or to move to other things. However; that is the reality you are walking into, not a reason to avoid it. Given the learning curve with learning new apps and tech, investment in this direction is my recommendation.
To give a couple of examples from my own experience. 1st, in a corporate scenario, you never get to install your own apps, update your apps, or change things. That lockdown applies on either platform, so learn to work inside those limits, because your personal setup does not follow you to work. 2nd, being productive on the employer’s screen reader (e.g. JAWS and M365) setup on day 1 means fewer things to request and fewer things to get through before you can just get on with the job.
The Preliminary Work
This is the part people skip, and it is the part that matters most. Before any of that, do the preliminary work. Learn Windows concepts: windows, menus, dialogs, the ribbon, file management, and how focus moves. Learn the keystrokes, not just a few of them, but the ones you will use all day. Make sure you can touch type. Dictation has its place, but do not depend on it. Dictation is slow, it makes mistakes you have to find and fix, and it does not work in many scenarios [e.g. a shared office, a meeting, a noisy room]. Typing is faster, quieter, and it works everywhere.
The Toolbox
The more tools you have in your toolbox the more fallbacks and options you have. Learn JAWS and Microsoft M365 because that’s what corporations are often familiar with or run on. Learn web app principles, SharePoint and PowerBI, and you will be well set up. Learn NVDA after mastering JAWS and you have an extra tool in your toolbox (and it is free, which never hurts). On Windows you also have Narrator built in as a final fallback if your screen reader dies, to get things back in order to reload. Windows keyboard-first skills carry across every M365 app, so the investment pays off in a # of places rather than being tied to 1 program.
Learn more than basic word processing, learn track changes, commenting and collaboration tools like sharepoint. learn the apps that you wil likely need to use in the workplace like Powerpoint, Excel, PowerBI and Teams including presenting a nd screen sharing.
Additionally, play with the M365 version of Copilot as it can be a real time saver and a good tool to get accessible content [e.g. turning an inaccessible document into something you can actually work with]. I wrote about that here: My Exploration Of How Copilot Can Help Blind Users, Part 1 and My Exploration Of How Copilot Can Help Blind Users, Part 2
What About the Mac
None of this is a knock on the Mac. From a concept and principle perspective the Mac is great: VoiceOver is built in and free (which is genuinely good, and I mean that), the system is consistent, and a # of things that cost extra on Windows just work out of the box. It is not all sunny on the Mac either, though. VoiceOver support in corporate apps is uneven, and M365 products do not work as well with VoiceOver on the Mac, which hits the work side of things directly. A # of workplace tools are Windows-only or degraded on the Mac, and when something breaks you are often the only Mac user in the building, which means no local help and no employer-provided setup to lean on. You also only get 1 screen reader. If VoiceOver does not work with something, there is no 2nd screen reader on the same machine to fall back on, while on Windows you can switch between JAWS and NVDA. Even if an employer does support the Mac, that support is usually thinner. The limits above do not go away, so it still is not a great direction in a corporate environment. In practice, Windows is the standard workplace, and principles do not get you hired. Learn the Mac too if you want it in your toolbox, but learn the standard 1st.
A Note on What Comes Next
Things are likely to change. AI, agentic AI, and other tools are already changing the workplace, and that change will keep going. However; the same principles will likely still exist. You will still need to interact with a device and a screen reader, because talking to something is so much slower than doing it for yourself. With a screen reader you can skip around, jump by headings, skim past what you do not need, and land exactly where you want to be. Talking forces you to listen through everything in order, and you cannot skim speech. Seriously. You will not lose the skills you build now. You will just have another tool in the toolbox. So start with Windows and JAWS or NVDA, add the rest from there.
What did you start with, and what would you tell someone starting today?