the state of screen readers in macos

By emperor limitless, 30 April, 2025

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I know this subject is somewhat overused, but I have some thoughts that I can't help but want to discusse with the people in here.
while browsing a topic similar to this I saw someone suggesting we make a long artical detailing all the bugs and problems with voiceover on macos, then we could go and check/cross mark them if they are solved so people can see stuff in real time and we could make a giant wave where people politely ask apple accessibility to take a look at the post
my curiosity is, has something been done about this? IS there somehting like that somewhere?
the other point that I've been pondering, making different screen readers.
I've been going in denial mode that we don't need it, the company is going to deal with it, but honestly.
we all know that is not true, we'll never be nearly as satisfied as we would be with say, NVDA on windows, yes, NVDA still has some bugs/complaints, like any software in the world naturally would, but it became literally a desktop accessibility standard for how to do things right, while macos is the exact opisite.
like yes, I agree with the people that comparing the two is not a good idea and they are both different, but lets be honest with ourselves, how much is that being honest and how much of that is simply not wanting to admit that it's not actually ideal?
like, I got used to voiceover, and honestly? I don't think I would mind it too much, it's somewhat slow in some places while it's fast in others, it's a different way to navigate ui, but when something slightly inconvenient happens to have a lot of bugs, it starts getting somewhat tiring.
I don't need to put a monologue about what issues voiceover does and doesn't have because I think everyone on this forum already mastered an replayed that game, so lets explore something else.
making something new.
it was brot up a few times, I saw that, and in fact, there was an attempt that was ultimately discontinued through vosh, the developer not to blame of course, but I'm still wondering about this.
I'm a developer myself. And I have ok experience. Not a newbie who simply asked AI 5 questions and can write simple ui appps/games, but someone whoo genuinely knows what I'm talking about. This isn't bragging, but I know that a lot of people nowadays underestamait what a developer means and simply say they are after learning the absolute basics, which isn't exactly wrong, but I know that people might dismiss me instantly if I did so.
anyway, a bit of an off-topic rant, but now that's out of the way.
I am curious, were there any confirmed facts as for whether making a screen reader other than voiceover being impossible? I believe vosh was relatively in the alpha stage and had extremely basic navigation functionality so I am not sure if the developer stopped because it was impossible to go further, or the developer got busy with life.
and I will admit, I am hoping perhaps the interest of some other developer(S) Might get grabbed, since I refuse to believe I'm the only one who's getting exausted by how utterly tiring voiceover it is, and as a developer, I use text editing a lot, and require thigns such as caret navigation or normal web navigation to be reliable and consistent, but voiceover didn't give me that experience at all. And while I acknowledge the effort by the apple accessibility team, and unlike others I know that some effort is being put in because some of my personal bug reports/finding were solved, however, I believe it will take decades for voiceover to become ideal, because we all know that voiceover fixes one problem and introduces 3 new ones.
what do you guy think, and sorry if this post was overly long.

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Comments

By Chris on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - 19:43

This website already has a bug tracker, though I don't know how comprehensive it is. I would hope Apple looks at it, but you never know. Someone claiming to be from Apple came on here a while ago and said employees aren't allowed to look at the website during work hours. If true, this is ridiculous and utterly counterproductive! At best, it's someone trolling, but at worst, it demonstrates the problems with Apple's culture. I'm sure the people working on these features want to do all kinds of wonderful things, but can't and/or unwillingly have their priorities shifted because the corporate overlords have their hands tied.

As for creating a screen reader, my understanding is that Apple doesn't document all the APIs and other things required to create a fully functional one. It should technically be possible on macOS, but not any other Apple platform because they're so tightly controlled.

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - 20:02

When was the last time Apple did a real update of VO? Yes, they added nice features and fix bugs when they remember to do so. With windows NVDA and JAWS update their software to address bugs and make it more easy to use. Before you jump on me, do like VO but just asking. Do not use MAC but heard stories about it from here.

By Ash Rein on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - 20:05

I think we need a third-party screen reader. And I would pay for it if it was made available. Voiceover is fine in a lot of ways. And I think an additional option could be beneficial.

By Jonathan Candler on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - 23:18

VO use to be great! Member snow leopard anyone? It started going down hill when Tim took the job and even shown more bugs in later OS upgrades. There are bugs that have existed for a long time that still, has yet to get fixed. My honest opinion and I've been saying this for a long time, VO needs, a complete redesign and code rewrite! I don't care, apple has all the resources to do just, exactly that. Apple don't fix a lot of these bugs and in some cases, gotten worse. Sure, some have been fixed but VO has more bugs than been fixed Lol. Plus I've heard that VO runs on one core only. I don't know if that's still true but look at the times. It's clearly time for an over hall. However, I wouldn't mind a third party screen reader if it came to be, fact I'd welcome it.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Thursday, May 1, 2025 - 03:37

I agree with the last poster. I am proud to be stuck in tutorial hell for the last 10 years so my dev skills....... But I do have experience with lots of different screen readers on different oses and voiceover on mac is flawed by design in many areas now. But until this moment... The best we can do is still to report as much as we can, and also acknowledge that it's very exhausting so nobody should feel guilty of not doing enough or not doing at all...