Accessibility improves with the new Mac Lion OSX

It seems like all I've been complaining about lately is the unaccessibility of so many things on the internet, e.g. Facebook, iTunes, Evite, and so on. Oftentimes, it bleeds into my frustrations with my own hardware; my PC-run JAWS is slow, crashing often, leaving me with just the blue screen of death. (Thank goodness for residual vision or else I don't know how I'd know I'd gotten the blue screen.)When I first met my now husband, he was an Apple fanboy. Now that he's my husband, he's still an Apple fanboy. He turned me on to Apple Macbooks, telling me what he tells all Macbook virgins: "Give it two weeks. I guarantee you'll like it so much more than Windows and PCs." And he was right. Everything ran so much simpler and more efficiently. The layout and functionality of the OSX required a small learning curve, but after two weeks, I was practically a Macbook pro (with a lowercase "p").I started out using Apple when it was the era of the Tiger OSX. And with each subsequent OSX upgrade (and thus, the feline superiority scale), we are now in the era of the Lion. I was already blown away with the Tiger OSX's VoiceOver capability, but now Lion boasts a most advanced VoiceOver.My first laptop was a 17" Dell PC--I bought something with a huge screen because at the time, I was only beginning to lose my vision so I relied mostly on zoom magnification to use my computer. I magnified all the fonts in my Word docs to 30+-point font. After meeting John, I moved over to Apple and got a 15" Macbook Pro. Then my vision worsened even more until where it is now, and I could no longer rely on screen magnification. Instead, I had to start using screen readers, so I decided a 15" laptop was too heavy and bought a 13" Macbook since seeing the screen no longer mattered. Last month, I sold my 13" Macbook and bought the new 11" Macbook Air because I wanted something ultra-portable, especially because attending many classes and conferences the last couple of years made even lugging a 13" around annoying. After spending days setting up and moving over files to my new 11", I said to my husband, "I feel like all my past laptops were just boyfriends, and now I'm finally married to one." Yup, I plan to run this Macbook Air to the ground.The Macbook Air came with the Lion OSX. Without further adieu, here are the blind user observations I've had over the past month.

What I Like About the Lion OSX:

1. iCal event input is more intuitive. Now you can add a new event to your calendar by typing CMD+N, and then typing in "Mom's birthday dinner 11/5 7 PM to 9 PM." Hitting enter will create that exact event in the iCal. I read online that you're supposed to be able to designate an event location in the same way, but I've tried it ("Mom's birthday dinner at Taco Bell on 11/5 7 PM to 9 PM"), and it didn't move "Taco Bell" to the location field. Does anyone know why? Still, this input option provides a quicker way to add events--after hitting ENTER, I just tab once to the location field and input it manually.
2. Address Book no longer requires a year input for birthdays. In Snow Leopard, if you didn't know a year for someone's birthday, it would default to some nonsensical year, making your mom, like, thirteen or something ridiculous. (No offense, if you are a thirteen-year-old mom.) No known year? No problem. But if you do know the year, your iCal will display that person's age come birthday time: "Mom's 60th birthday." (And you're taking her to Taco Bell?!)
3. Address Book has more field options for further categorization. If you're anal like me, you like to remember friends' anniversaries (even though you don't really wish them a happy five years or anything), their partner's name, dog's name, their blog URL, Twitter handle, maiden name...and the list goes on. The new Address Book has many of these fields and more. (Okay, maybe I'm the only one out there actually using these new features, but it's nice to have the option.)
4. Mail keeps conversation threads together. This helps to sort emails when there are a lot of back-and-forths with your husband about what to do about dinner. Apple takes a hint from Gmail.

Things I'm Still Having Trouble with on Lion OSX

1. Apps take some getting used to with VoiceOver. As with anything new, there is a learning curve. The curve is especially steeper for the visually impaired. There are still things I am used to or prefer with Snow Leopard: I'd rather have VO read to me an event title and date/time when I tab to it in iCal rather than the event title and location, but I don't know how to revert this; and there are still some navigational issues around apps,, but I hope this will resolve itself after more experience with Lion.
2. Gestures, scrolling, QuickNav, and VO buttons are still confusing. This is an extension of #1 from this list--even at 32, I feel like an old fart ("What's the internet?"). I know there are so many useful tools for the sight-impaired on the Apple, but I need some time to get used to them (not to mention someone to teach them to me). The scrolling is a little off-putting at first because now, you swipe up on the trackpad to scroll down on a document rather than swipe down to scroll down. This is the way it's done on the iPhone, though, so I imagine it will catch on.
3. Sent emails stick around in the drafts folder. I have no idea why some of the emails I've already sent still remain in the Drafts folder as though I had not sent them. This gets annoying, especially for someone like me who loves organization. This issue tricks me into wondering if I actually sent an email or not.
4. Zoom magnification is glitchy. On the Snow Leopard OSX, the zoom magnification function worked by holding down CTRL and using two fingers on the trackpad to scrooll up (for zooming in) and down (for zooming out). This feature has to be enabled in Lion: System Preferences>>Universal Access>>Seeing tab>>Zoom Options, then check the box labeled "Use scroll wheel with modifier keys to zoom." Make sure the field following that reads CTRL. Despite this, sometimes the zooming function using CTRL and up scroll or down scroll shuts off. I find that it works again if you go into the Preferences and uncheck and recheck the box, but this is annoying.

Lion OSX is supposed to be more compatible with Braille displays, and its VO features are the best yet. I tried to learn about it but got overwhelmed with the page. I'm considering paying $100 to get the one-on-one tutorial with the Genius Bar to learn all about VO. I still do not know how to navigate web browsers and inernet sites with VO, and I know this is possible. Hopefully this will allow me to use VO to its full capacity, and then the world is mine!Do you have questions about the Lion OSX or Apple's accessibility? You might be able to find VoiceOver answers here. Want to know more about the Lion? Learn about the Lion OSX here. Know how to use VO with Lion? Teach me in the comments section, please! Or just want to speak to your personal experience with Apple, Macs, VO, or Lion? Your comments are welcome, too.