iOS/iPadOS 27 Beta 5 Megathread

There are some buttons that still either do nothing or don't seem to be working when activated with Voiceover.

One example I was running into today is the "Summarize" button at the top of an open mail note. I tap on this and nothing happens - no summary, no second dialog opening up with a summary, etc. does this work for anyone?

Another button that doesn't seem to do anything is the "Open in app" button that appears in the Siri response when one asks Siri a question. typically, after asking Siri a question, a dialog pops up with the Siri response. This dialog sits at the top of the screen and covers up part of the underlying app. In that dialog is an "open in app" button. I would expect that activating that would open up the full Siri app, but instead, nothing happens. Is something supposed to happen? Is this just broken wiht Voiceover?

Anyway, just curious what others have been experiencing with some of these buttons and trying to activate them with Voiceover.

--Pete

The Summarise button works as expected for me. However, the Open In App button hasn't worked since the first developer release 🤷‍♂️

VO does not read all. When I went to select the 27 wall paper and I was sliding, VO did not read anything until I got to the wall paper. Using iPad 9 and public beta 3.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something. Every time I get Siri to create a draft in mail, it appears in the body of the email. and I can dismiss Siri and hear that it is still in the body, but then when I send it the email is sent empty I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Is there some way I need to accept the draft because it fully appears as if it's in there as if it's been written out

If I am understanding your comment correctly, you are trying to send an email via Siri, and they are being received as blank emails?

I can't say I have ever experienced this.. then again we are talking about beta software.

My advice would be to use the mail app to send and read emails.. for now. At least this way, you are prompted to save drafts whenever you double-tap Cancel on the composition screen. You can also double-check to make sure your message is not appearing in the subject line.

Don't laugh.. it happens. 😳

Another oddity is that when opening a calendar appointment to add a notification in addition to the default notification, one can add the additional notification, but there is no "Done" or "Save" button. Only a "Cancel" button in the upper left of the screen.

Unintuitively, hitting the Cancel button dismisses the calendar appointment, but when you go back and look at it, the additional notification remains there. Why would one have to hit a Cancel button to Save a change?

Weird.

--Pete

Why, because opposites attract.
Duh. 🙄😛

Hi. It's hard to describe this, but I'll try the first time I try a drag and drop. After restarting my phone, it seems to behave correctly. After that, some of the actions will disappear from the voice over rotor. If you can start a drag and drop session, voiceover will tell you you're dropping where you think you should, but in fact the actual icon will end up somewhere else randomly on my screen in order to get my screen back correctly. I had to restart the phone the first time I was successful and I tried the second but it failed. Restarted the phone and then I could try again to slowly get my screen arranged back the way I wanted. Can anyone else reproduce this? I've talked to a friend with a 15 pro Max who's also seeing those so I'm curious to know
I forgot. I am currently experiencing this on an iPhone 17 pro. We're both running the latest beta version of iOS 27

Yes, I had this happen to me on my iPhone 15 Pro in the last beta (I believe it was iOS 27 beta 4).

I tried to move an item into a pre-existing folder. Instead the system created an entirely new folder with another random item that was not in any folder. Now I had the two items in a new folder that was randomly placed somewhere on my home screen. Everything got jumbled up. It was very confusing and took a long time to straighten out.

When I tried to repeat the process, thinking I had inadvertently done something wrong, the same thing happened.

I haven't tried this in beta 5.

--pete

I did it with beta 4, needed to move Mona 7 from second page to home page. No issues. Went well. I was using an iPad 9 and beta 4 of iOS 27. Do notice that with beta the keyboard from slim folio that I use the command h does not work, any command does not work.

"This may have been asked in earlier discussions, and I might have missed the explanation. My iPhone settings allow adult and unfiltered content without warning, which I believe is the default unless the user is under 18 or using a child's Apple ID. Why is Siri blocking certain content and indicating that it isn't meant to work with it?"

Apple is your daddy and want to control what you see. It is off for me. I do not have it on.

Oh, is it possible to turn that filter off so it isn't quite such a prude?

It also annoys me that it doesn't seem to gender subjects which is useful information.

There were a lot of accessibility bugs addressed in beta 5. the main one, and arguably most annoying one, is randomly screen curtain, according to voiceOver, was on but the screen was working normally. that finally got fixed! eloquence is a lot less crackly now though. The one big issue I'm having with beta 5 is if you let your phone sit for a few moments and have it start to speak again, it crackles the first few moments and then fixes itself. kinda like what some poorly optomized windows audio drivers would do. I too have noticed the thing where the image descriptions won't generate because of content. Which honestly? I think it should be a toggle. "Allow adult content for image descriptions." and then if you turn it on, have an alert or something, making sure the user wishes to turn it on.

I'd say it's stable enough, but that is absolutely up to you. if having total stability is what you want, don't upgrade. if you want to try the latest and greatest, and are willing to give feedback on bugs you encounter? yes, upgrade. it's good enough in my experience.

Practice patients. It's only a month away until the release. Even then it might be buggy. The question is, can you live without a slightly less stoopid siri and image descriptions? Considering I have for so very long, I'm happy to wait.

I've also decided against betas. I'm not in the mind set of doing apple's job for them.

I love how all the image description options are in their own rotor menu now. Makes getting a quick detailed description of an image or your whole screen so much easier!

What's interesting to me though, is that those image descriptions use Apple's cloud AI models and aren't generated on-device. I turned on the on-device option in VO settings, and got the same short single sentence descriptions we've been getting since I think iOS 15 in 2021. Same thing when I turned off my Internet connection and tried getting an image described.

I went down a rabbit whole and read about all of Apple's new AI models. There's a second, more powerful on-device one that powers all the stuff like the new expressive voices and dictation that you only get with the 17 Pro and Air because they have more ram. That made me wonder, if that more advanced AI model can generate good descriptions without having to go to the cloud.

From what I've read, it's a similar story in android land. i think most of the TalkBack image descriptions are generated in the cloud, but I think some of the newer pixels can do it on-device because they have a more advanced local model they can use. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The new native image description stuff is every bit as awesome as I hoped it would be. But I don't think it will make me delete Be My Eyes off my phone. The workflow takes a bit longer (yeah first world problem,) but it will remain a good option for when I want descriptions with more detail.

thanks for the note about the image descriptions being done in the Cloud. I just assumed they were done on device and was amazed at how good they are. Now I know the secret!

Good to know for people concerned about privacy.

--Pete

It's the first time I've ever downloaded an IOS beta. Any tips or tricks, or anything I should know to make this a productive experience? So far I'm loving it, although I haven't had the chance to do much exploring yet.

I don't like the way the volume is now set up. It used to be that if I turned up my phone's volume, that was the same volume level as things like the keyboard clicks and text alerts.

Also, when using AirPods, even with the volume at a reasonable percentage like 30 something, it is soooo loud, especially when using BARD. The audiobook was quiet but VoiceOver was really loud, so I had to turn it down in my rotor because otherwise, in order to hear the audiobook, the VoiceOver volume would have basically blown out my eardrums.

Anyone else experiencing this?

The different volumes for alarms and notifications is by design and is a new feature. You can however match the ringer volume by switching on the appropriate setting.

I can reproduce the issue with inactive buttons, which may happen because Siri remains active on screen and focus doesn't land correctly. 

Additionally, I find the writing with Siri interface difficult. Once you issue a prompt, it's hard to get the text inserted into the actual document because the button isn't easily findable. You also still need to accept the input or compare it with the original text. 

I will report this as an accessibility bug, but any tips on navigating this interface are very welcome.

I know that's the new design. I guess i was just saying that I don't particularly care for the new design.

Understood what you were saying. Agree. Also hope the next beta fixes notification. Seriously how hard can it be. Can they higher more people to kill bugs, last time I check apple is worth several trillions.