iOS 27 and iPadOS 27: A Summary of VoiceOver and Braille Issues and Improvements

By AppleVis, 14 September, 2026

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 were released to the public on Monday, September 14, 2026. This post contains a summary of new bugs and fixes impacting VoiceOver and Braille support that the AppleVis Editorial Team has independently validated during our use and testing of these releases.

The information contained in this post is compiled from our own use and testing of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 during the beta period from June to September 2026; as well as from validated reports submitted by others through our Community Bug Program and shared on the AppleVis Forum. Our sincere appreciation goes to everyone who so generously took the time to share their findings with us.

At the outset, we need to state explicitly that the bug list contained in this post is not definitive and that our assessments are not infallible. While we are confident in the presence of the issues discussed in this post, there are many other reports shared on the AppleVis Forum by members of our community that we have not been able to independently replicate with the available information. Many of these reports represented use cases that are different from those of our team; and a small number were issues that, despite understanding how to reproduce them, we did not get the same results. We say all of this so that readers understand the limits of our own testing, and that others' experiences may be different from ours. An issue not being present in our bug list does not mean the issue does not exist; it simply means that we are either unaware of or unable to reproduce it.

As is our routine practice, each bug in this post has been given a severity rating. These ratings are based upon what we believe to be the implications for accessing and using features and functionality for the average user; the level of impact on the overall user experience; and whether or not there is an effective workaround for the issue. However, as these ratings are subjective to an extent, it is very possible that they may not reflect your own opinion or use case. With this in mind, we strongly recommend reading this full post and any replies before updating to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27; as we believe this will help you make an informed decision on whether to install the software at the current time or to wait for a future release. We also strongly recommend that you read this Megathread about the iOS 27 RC, as it contains a wealth of community reports about and experiences with the Release Candidate version of the software.

Some issues listed in this post and on the Forum may manifest only under specific conditions; this is all the more likely as software continues to add more features and the number of devices, available configurations, and use cases in Apple's ecosystem continues to grow. You likely will not experience every bug that we list, and you likely will not agree with every severity rating for the bugs that you do experience. While we wish it were otherwise, this is to be expected. And as is the nature with all software, it is also likely that you will encounter issues that are not reported in this post.

To ensure the information in this post is as complete and accurate as possible, we would appreciate input from those who have installed iOS 27 or iPadOS 27. Please confirm if you are encountering the same problems listed or if you have found workarounds. Please also let us know about any additional issues not mentioned here. Of course, it is even more important that you report any new bugs directly to Apple - they are already aware of the ones listed in this post. For an explanation of why and how to report bugs to Apple, see this post.

With all of the preamble out of the way, below are the new bugs for VoiceOver and Braille users which members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have personally experienced and believe to be present in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27:

A Major Change to VoiceOver's Audio Profile

In iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, there is a significant change in the sound profile of VoiceOver when the device's internal speaker is used. When compared to iOS 26, VoiceOver audio in iOS 27 has significantly less bass, particularly at lower volume levels. The resulting sound might best be described as 'neutral' or 'flat', with significantly less of the low-end emphasis and other processing that has characterized VoiceOver audio in recent versions of iOS/iPadOS.

If you have not yet upgraded to iOS 27, we believe that you can get a reasonable approximation of how VoiceOver will sound on your device by making a phone call, putting the call on speaker, and then using VoiceOver to navigate around the screen; as the flatter, more neutral sound profile that VoiceOver uses during a phone call sounds very similar to what we are hearing in iOS 27.

At the time of publication, we do not know whether the change to VoiceOver's sound profile is expected behavior; thus, we are not including it in our bug list. Nevertheless, we feel that users should be aware of this change before upgrading. If we receive additional information, we will update this post accordingly.

Serious Bugs

Moderate Bugs

Minor Bugs

Improvements for VoiceOver and Braille in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27

To the best of our knowledge, Apple does not routinely publish lists of bug fixes for VoiceOver or braille across releases; thus, it is difficult to get a complete accounting of every issue that has been resolved or what fixes users can expect to see upon upgrading to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27. With this in mind, our testing suggests that the following issues present in iOS/iPadOS 26 have been resolved or meaningfully improved in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27:

In Conclusion

Our team has compiled lists of new vision accessibility bugs for every major iOS and iPadOS release since iOS 7 in 2013. No software from any manufacturer is completely free of bugs. That said, the number of bugs - particularly those classified as "serious" and involving core VoiceOver and braille functionality - in iOS/iPadOS 27 is deeply concerning. We call on Apple to urgently prioritize fixing the bugs listed in this post, as well as those on The AppleVis Bug Tracker.

If you have not already upgraded to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, we would strongly recommend that you take a few moments to read through any replies to this post before doing so; in case other users' experiences differ from our own. Also, consider that historically, Apple has delivered fixes for many accessibility bugs within the first few x.x.1 updates following major releases, and waiting briefly may allow Apple to resolve any initial problems reported after the public release.

In the event that you do encounter an issue that is particularly bothersome, there are some troubleshooting steps you can take. Sometimes, simply toggling VoiceOver off and on again or restarting your device can resolve some issues that may arise following an OS update. Therefore, we highly recommend including these steps as part of your standard troubleshooting process.

If restarting VoiceOver and/or your device does not resolve the issue, it might be worth considering a reset of your VoiceOver Settings; to do this, navigate to Settings> Accessibility> VoiceOver> Reset VoiceOver Settings. While this approach requires manually reconfiguring your customized VoiceOver settings, we have heard of multiple instances where a VoiceOver settings reset resolved issues since this feature became available in last year's iOS 26. This suggests that occasionally, problems can be attributed to local factors rather than being OS bugs.

Finally, when commenting below, we ask that you please keep the discussion focused on accessibility issues specifically introduced or fixed in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Our release posts tend to be widely read and garner many helpful responses, so it is all the more important that readers can easily find relevant information.

Also, please remember that upgrade decisions are personal, with each user's situation unique - there is no right or wrong choice. Comments criticizing others' decisions are not constructive and do nothing to add to the discussion; but they do set a negative tone and get in the way of readers finding helpful information. Furthermore, not experiencing an issue yourself does not mean that it doesn't exist for others, as bugs can be configuration-specific. Stating that an issue doesn't exist simply because you haven't encountered it is unhelpful. Our aim with these posts is to provide a forum for respectful, constructive, and honest sharing of experiences that inform decisions and empower people.

In closing, we would like to again thank everyone in our community who contributed to AppleVis' testing and bug-reporting efforts during the iOS/iPadOS 27 beta cycle - be it through our Community Bug Program or just by posting on our Forum. Our information about this release is more complete because of you, and we are very grateful to all who took the time to contribute.

Options

Comments

By Pilgrim Pete on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 12:17

Tremendous work by the AppleVis team as always with compiling this list. I've sadly experienced most of what's mentioned.

To add to the above list, here are some other bugs I've found and reported but are still present in the final release:

  • VoiceOver general: Siri voices when used with VoiceOVer are speaking noticeably more slowly than they did on iOS 26 at the same rate setting — I need to set them to 95 to get the same speed I used to get at 70, and doing so seems to degrade speech quality
  • Messages: When you navigate a link by character using the rotor, VoiceOver spells out l-i-n-k individually after every single character, making it difficult to check what the link actually says
  • Passwords app: Rotor action items are duplicated in several sections
  • Find My: Rotor action items — including Remove Friend and Remove From Favourites — appear twice on the People tab, and the same kind of duplication exists on the Devices and Items tabs
  • Find My: On the person details screen, the buttons to notify you when someone moves, to notify the person, and to assign a location label are each announced as two separate elements — the icon and then the button
  • Photos app: When dragging a section to reorder it on the Collections tab, you get haptic feedback as it moves past other sections but no spoken announcement to tell you where it's going to land when dropped
  • Sound Levels: On occasions, the sound level when listening through my iPhone's speaker will spontaneously jump. I don't know if this is a VoiceOVer-specific issue, but it effects VoiceOVer speech and system sounds such as notification alerts

To add to the note in the main post about the wrong time sometimes being announced when waking the phone with the side button, my own experience has been that VoiceOver may also instead announce a notification or the date . In the past couple of days this has worsened and VoiceOver will on occasions say nothing after pressing the side button.

I've seen a lot of bugs resolved during this beta cycle, but it's extremely disappointing to see so many make it through to the public release. This includes several where the severity should have made them a priority and others which likely would need only a few minutes to resolve. Roll on the 27.1 release I guess šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø

By Leonard de Ruijter on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 13:04

Besides the tremendous list of new bugs, I also found one braille fix since iOS 26 that is not listed here.
In iOS 26, when you had braille word wrap off, it would yet be on when freshly connecting a display, e.g. after a VoiceOver restart. You'd have to turn word wrap on, then off again for the off state to work again. This is no longer necessary now.

By dean mills on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 13:08

Even if that is not a bug with the audio profile issue, I feel that the AppleVis community needs to reach out to Apple to get this changed back. It is really awful how it sounds, and it’s going to really affect some people more than others.

By Singer Girl on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 13:42

I am definitely waiting to update. Thanks for all these blog posts to explain to us all of the bugs and improvements over the years. It’s been super helpful. I definitely can’t risk my device not telling me the time and lock screen when I’m waking the phone they’re really don’t wanna have a lower quality voiceover sound because I were hearing aids and it might make it even harder to hear the speech. I made him do OK right now, but I definitely don’t wanna have to deal with the phone apps buttons not working properly either. I’m definitely gonna wait for the point one release. I really don’t wanna have to cause. I’m really excited for this new voices to come for me, but I’m waiting. Thanks again for the info.

I thought, from their description of the bug that only the internal speaker of the phone was affected by this issue.

I'm not sure how hearing aids work, but would they not broadcast the VoiceOver audio to the hearing aids? Which would, on a technicality, limit or make it so that bug isn't noticeable?

I do not use hearing aids

By Alicia Krage on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 14:37

I've been fortunate enough not to have experienced most of the bugs listed here. Sorry to those who have.

It's been years since I was on any type of beta, but am really glad I hopped on the beta for this one and culd contribute to some of the bug reports.

By Brian Giles on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 15:07

As someone pointed out to me during the beta, the work around to the Safari buttons at the top for things like bookmarks and history is to do a single finger triple tap (what VO says performs a long press). I haven't tried this in the phone app, though.

I'm surprised at the number of new bugs, particularly since Apple touted how much improvement they've done to little things throughout the OS in 27. I wonder how many of the other accessibility features that aren't for us have these kinds of bugs.

By Callum Stoneman on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 15:13

Does anyone know whether the reduced VoiceOver sound profile mentioned at the start of this post also happens when connected to MFI hearing aids?

I have the same question for the bug that causes speech to disappear while playing audio in Safari, but the overall VoiceOver quality is definitely the priority here.

By Pilgrim Pete on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 15:26

In reply to by Brian Giles

I can confirm that a one-finger triple tap or a one-finger double-tap and hold both work as a workaround for this. Either gesture will switch between the Bookmarks, Reading List, and History tabs and update the content shown as expected.

By Brian on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 15:35

I am definitely going to wait on updating to iOS 27. 😧

By longma on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:01

I am not sure if this is an issue exclusive to Simplified Chinese or if it exists in all languages. I am inclined to believe it is limited to Simplified Chinese, as I have reported it to Apple three times, and each time they replied that they were unable to investigate it. The issue manifests when we receive an incoming call: VoiceOver fails to read the full caller ID number. For example, our mobile numbers in China consist of 11 digits, but VoiceOver only reads the first 7. You can only see the full number after you hang up and return to the call history page.
Furthermore, I noticed the article mentions that VoiceOver suddenly stops reading text midway through. Unfortunately, this issue has been widely experienced by us Simplified Chinese users since iOS 18; I didn't expect it to have spread to more languages now. In a Simplified Chinese environment, the performance on iOS 27 is even worse. For instance, if someone sends you an iMessage containing three paragraphs, VoiceOver will naturally ignore the last one. Unless you already know there is a third paragraph and navigate to it using the rotor's word-by-word browsing mode, you would assume the message only consists of two paragraphs. I imagine that if this issue is widespread, it must be rated as a critical bug.
In short, I will not update my primary device to the first official release of iOS 27; I will only update my secondary device.

By AppleVis on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:15

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

In reply to by Brian Giles

Thanks Brian for this workaround. We have downgraded this issue to moderate, updated the post, and credited you for the find in the post.

By Joshua on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:18

when typing in the passcode voiceover doesn't say the right number of numbers entered, it says one less then the correct number, example 5 of 6 entered

By mcox on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:40

Is Eloquence subject to this too? (Yes I'm an old-school Eloquence user)
Does anyone no if this is simply DSP-Related or something else?|
People are going to tell me I should be grateful that we have an iPhone that is accessible, But I'd argue that it most definatly is not in this version of iOS. I'm also so anoyed about all the bugs I've read here, I'd be willing to say I think it is the absolute worst update for the state of accessibility issues in quite some time and I'm even more anoyed it looks like the internal and beta (Not applevis) testers didn't even think of testing for or getting feedback or reading feedback from VI users before getting to this point. As of 2026 I really don't feel it's good enough. I'm not planning to switch to android or anything, I love iOS generally, but it does get to me alot.
I'm glad to see focus has improved throughout the OS, but the fact that the lock screen is still dodgey is not a good thing.
I guess that means the focus issues I'm having while loading webpages is still likely to be a thing...
Massive thank you to the team, who as always, have produced an exempliry report of the issues faced if choosing to update, which I'm not going to do right now.

By Sasquatch on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 16:41

With all due deference and heartfelt thanks to the AppleVis heroes who have tested iOS27 and compiled their list of initial findings, I must wonder aloud why the apparent degradation in the quality of the Voiceover Audio Profile is not being reported to Apple immediately to draw and one can hope focus their attention on this concern. Irrespective of whether this degradation of the Voiceover Audio Profile was "expected behavior", it is (or should be) a significant concern to all Voiceover users. It is already sometimes problematic to hear Voiceover interactions in other than quiet surroundings. It is hard to imagine how the new "flat" or "neutral" characteristics of the iOS27 Voiceover Audio Profile can do other than exacerbate the difficulties in hearing and understanding Voiceover in public spaces or other less than tranquil environments. I just don't see the downside to getting this concern in front of Apple as quickly as possible. Not a sermon... just a thought.

By Brian Giles on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 17:01

The work around to triple tap the buttons in Safari is also working for me to switch between all and missed calls in classic view in the phone app.

By treky fan on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 17:27

After reading this list of bugs, I've decided to hold off on updating. As a diabetic, I rely on my phone to get my blood sugar readings from my CGM, another reason why I'm holding off. Having said that, how can I stop my phone from downloading the update in the first place?

By Brooke on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 17:48

I hope this is something they will eventually fix. I'm not going to update for that reason; I can't imagine VO always sounding like it does when I'm using it on speakerphone during a call.

By Cornettoking on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 18:11

Thank you guys as always for the bug summary. I'm not going to update this year, I'll wait until the most serious bugs (including the VO voice quality) are fixed.

By Jo Billard on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 18:17

In reply to by Brian Giles

I never think of trying a long press. So glad it works.

By Darrell Bowles on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 18:17

Hello,
It is absolutely astounding that the features that we rely on are in a huge mess like this, and yet, no fixes have been made. I have reported the audio issue to apple, but the amount of bugs in this release really makes me question the obvious: how much longer as a community should this be accepted. I normally am the type of person who tries to handle things without making a fuss, but the fact that basic functionality is broken is alarming to me.

By Justin on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 18:20

The whole voice over voice thing is a bit weird, sure but I think I can get used to it. It isn't really different, much, but theres a little less bass, plus it seems like the volume of the voice is quieter, somehow, and VO volume is at 100% I'm actually interested to see what this does on the mac now, I'll probably update anyway, I've already updated ot Ios27, and I don't really notice the strange bugs listed here, at least not yet. We'll see how it all goes thruout daily use. Apple is usually pretty good about fixing bugs in their .0.1 .0.X versions, so we'll see what they do here in the coming days. Feel free to upgrade if you'd like to, it's really not that bad from what I'm seeing so far.

By Piotr Machacz on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 18:33

1. I don't think the VoiceOver audio quality issue effects all devices. Running a 17 pro here, and I had it for the first 2 or 3 betas. It was very noticeably worse, sounded like what was described, but a subsequent beta fixed it for me and it hasn't come back since. I also just asked a friend running it on a 16 pro Max, and while he said VoiceOver seems quieter to him he also hasn't noticed any changes in Equalisation. I also know at least 2 more people with 17 pro max devices on whose devices it sounds completely normal. So, whatever the cause of this is, it's not global and I don't think it's intentional.

2. Regarding the inability to clear all notifications, there's a workaround for this. Instead of using the clear all action, find any clear button next to an app's section, then tripple-tap it to get a context menu. Clear all should be the only option and pressing it from here does work. It's nowhere near as fast because it takes forever for the menu to open and then for the notifications to clear after you press the option, but it does at least let you do it.

Couldn't agree more. Thank you for stating it so kindly and clearly. I appreciate testers having an open mind and not wishing to be needlessly negative, but the neutral response to the change may bury a genuine problem.
I so badly want to contribute to drawing Apple Accessibility's attention to this, but I simply cannot sacrifice my primary device to this update, and it is the only device I have that can run the new version. I try to be a beta tester, or at least an early adopter, whenever I can, but that just wasn't possible this time around.

I don't seem to have any real hearing problem when it comes to the range of sounds I hear, but something makes speech processing very difficult for me in any kind of noise, and noisy is the normal state of the world around us.
I use earbuds but if I use them too much my ears really hurt despite my AirPods seeming to fit perfectly.

Not being able to rely on the time being spoken correctly is something else I just wouldn't be able to cope with.

Maybe in a couple weeks I can go to an Apple store and request a demo to see, or rather, hear, what the state of VoiceOver sound is. I've never done this before so I don't know how it is likely to go. I'd need to test with Alex and Siri voices since I will never use the VoiceOver default voices. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to test with the voice I use and love now, because it is a 3rd party speech engine that's still in beta.

They should be willing to let me test Voiceover on a new phone since it really is the most significant factor in my decision whether to buy the new 18 pro or not.

By Wayne Scott Jr on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 19:39

Yes, I feel disappointed! But I'm going to wait to see if Apple fixes this. I use both VoiceOver and braille with hearing aids. Thanks, AppleVis, for all of your hard work.

By Bingo Little on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 20:19

The issue is this: maybe I'd get used to the VoiceOver changes. Maybe I wouldn't even get them at all; but I really shouldn't have to wonder about that. If it's a choice between a possibility of poorer quaity audio and a certainty of the quality I have now, I'll weigh up a certainty against a possibility and go with the certainty for the moment. I'm not one for jumping all over Apple, and although the list of bugs is surprisingly long I would be prepared to live with the rest of them, but I hope the message reaches aApple loud and clear that they should not mess with the audio profile of Voiceover.

By Ann Marie B on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 20:29

Hi. As always thank you to the Applevis team for compliling this list of issues and workarounds for IOS 27. I have updated on my Iphone 15 and noticed a bug when editing the lockscreen in addition to the VO audio bug. When a user has multiple lockscreens and attempts to delete one of these lock screens VO does not state delete when editing a lock screen. Prior to IOS 27 when long pressing on the time to edit a lock screen VO stated photo wall paper, done, the order of the lock screen in the list and link focus. Now when editing a lock screen after longpressing on the time VO states link focus without speaking any remaining elements or actions such as photo wall paper, cancel, or done. VO still states the order of wall paper in the list. Hopefully these annoyances are resolved along with the audio bug in a not too distant release.

By Ramy on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 20:38

this is the first year from 2010 that i can not decide to upgrade.
very frustrating really,
but with all these bugs, sure, will wait, and wish they will be fixed soon

By Jonathan Candler on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 20:57

Guess my philosophy about beta testing software is no longer valid no more! All these bugs, I'm very disappointed and surprised that none, of these have been addressed prompto during the beta faze. Either that or some yall didn't do a good enough job testing but I do not think it's the latter here. Regarding the audio profile issue, I'm absolutely disgusted that this, made it all the way to final release. I do not like how VO sounds in a phone call and if I'm going to be expected to hear that bullshit throughout the whole system then I will be one pissed off person! I'm out and about quite a lot and I use my phone at a low volume to not disturb people. Second class much? Yes! Oh and please do not tell me to not be frustrated and let apple take their time cause some yall love to praise apple no matter what and I'm quite tired of that attitude. This audio profile behavior should have not made it into the public build and the fact that this is the case is quite baffling to me! The fact that feedback about this wasn't mentioned to apple, maybe it was but I do not feel like going through bunches of posts to find out so I'm going to assume not, is baffling. I get it, bugs exists but these many, major, bugs! I am quite disturbed! I'm even hearing shit is worse when using bluetooth audio from other channels of communication but I digress. Sighs. Can we repeat IOS 7 all over again because this is looking like the case. Or maybe it was 13, hell I don't know anymore. Either way, not a good look here.

By techluver on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 21:04

Hello AppleVis team,
First of all, thank you so much for putting these bug roundups together every year. The community relies heavily on your work, and the thoroughness of your testing is invaluable.
I have a small suggestion for future release cycles, if the timing ever makes it feasible: would it be possible to publish the initial bug list before iPhone pre-orders open?
Having access to this breakdown ahead of time would be an incredible asset for anyone trying to make an informed purchasing decision—especially when managing pre-order return windows and balancing whether to jump to a new hardware cycle right away.
I completely understand that final testing and write-ups take tremendous effort and depend entirely on Apple's release candidate timeline. Just wanted to put the thought on your radar as something that could help folks navigating big technology investments down the road.
Thank you again for all the hours and care you pour into this community!

By theextreme on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 21:46

Hi,
As others have mentioned, thanks so much for compiling a list of the known bugs. I have observed a few more that might be useful for others to know about:
1. VoiceOver does not read the time or anything when unlocking the screen. This has already been mentioned, but in my experience, tapping the screen doesn’t do anything either. The only workaround is to invoke Siri, followed by the home gesture. I have not observed this in the RC build. I have only noticed this once updating to the latest iOS 27 version
2. VoiceOver will sometimes switch voices when reading text. In some cases, if the primary voice is set to other than Samantha, VoiceOver might switch back to Samantha when reading some text. I have only observed this in the Gmail app so far, but it might reproduce in other apps, too.
3. Sometimes when activating an element, like a button or link, VoiceOver might become unresponsive for about a second or so. Not sure if this was mentioned before, but thought I might include it.
4. When browsing a webpage with a drop-down, VoiceOver will open the drop-down even when it’s not in focus.

I also wanted to comment on the audio profile issue that others are concerned about. I don’t believe that this is an expected feature, considering that the equalizer settings do not work. Hopefully Apple fixes these bugs soon. In the meantime, I’m really considering switching back to 26 if the build is still signed, although the image description improvements are making it a really difficult decision lol.

By Nikola Jovic on Monday, September 14, 2026 - 21:53

Hello,

I think the phone call comparison is throwing some people off. AppleVis absolutely used the right analogy here, but for those who have the bug, it doesn't mean that the audio quality will be exactly the same as on a phone call, where all audio has a much lower quality than the audio outside of a phone call. Instead, focus on the tone and the frequency of the voice, which, as said, doesn't have any bass and sounds flat. Similar to what Piotr said, I also had the issue in the earlier betas, but then it disappeared on my phone (a 17 pro max here), and I happened to be testing the very first betas on a 12 pro, where I never noticed it to begin with. So this is a very odd one. A better comparison might be a Face time call, even with that, the audio quality isn't the issue here. Overall I don't think this will be a showstopper for most people (unless specific hearing issues are involved).

I'm rather sad that Apple messed with language detection again, which they seem to be constantly doing for no reason, can't this just be left alone to work in peace?

More constructively, be careful if you need to use one voice to read multiple alphabets. For example, for me, a Serbian speaker, Croatian voices can no longer be used to read something written in Cyrillic. It was even worse during the beta cycle, where even a Serbian voice couldn't be used to read both Cyrillic and Latin, thankfully that part has been addressed. This may seem to be confusing for those who have no idea about how our languages work, so I'll explain it a little, but feel free to skip the rest of this comment if you aren't interested as it contains no other information.

Basically, Serbian uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets equally. Languages such as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, or, to an extent Macedonian as well are extremely similar, and speakers of these languages can all understand each other. This gives us a lot more TTS variety, imagine for example that an English speaker can use both the American and the British voices perfectly fine. TTS developers are often aware of this, and often make sure that even if a voice is Croatian, it can read both Latin and Cyrillic for this reason (Croatian doesn't use Cyrillic). The default system voice built in to iOS for Croatian (Lana) is an example of such a voice, being able to read both Cyrillic and Latin with no issues.

Apple has artificially restricted this feature. If a Croatian voice is in use on iOS 27, and you encounter some Cyrillic text, VoiceOver will say, "unpronounceable Serbian text" (Serbian might be switched over to Russian/Bulgarian depending on which voices you have in the rotor), instead of simply sending the text to the TTS engine and letting it handle it. I don't understand who thought this is a good idea, and why.

All of this happens with detect languages disabled inside VoiceOver's speech settings. In other words, if I disabled language detection, it means that I want to use one voice to read all texts, no matter what, I don't want it switching or artificially restricting which text that voice can read. If language detection is enabled, the situation is only slightly better. In that case, when encountering some text VoiceOver thinks my engine can't read (text in a different alphabet to the current TTS language), VoiceOver will attempt to switch over to a voice which can read it. The only problem is that I have no control over which voice it will switch to. It may choose a Russian voice even if the text is in Serbian, it may switch over to a Bulgarian voice, it's not something I can configure. I personally don't care about this part so much, I just want language detection disabled to mean let the voice I chose read everything, don't send garbage to it just because you assume it can't read it.

Thanks to this being broken, in our region, we have stagnated quite a bit in terms of iOS accessibility, and that doesn't make me very happy. I have constructively explained this via Feedback during the beta cycle and was hoping this approach will be reverted, to their credit, as I said above, Apple did improve the situation, which was 10 times worse. During the beta cycle, the opposite didn't work either, so, with a Serbian voice, you could only read Cyrillic texts, and with a Croatian voice, you could only read latin texts, which made it a constant need to switch voices all the time. If it released like that, I wouldn't be on 27. The positive is that my feedback has the status of potential fix identified for a future OS update, so I am hoping that 27.1 improves something in this regard.

I don't know if any other languages are affected, from my comment, you will be able to draw a conclusion if you may suffer from this bug or not. If you speak a language which uses Latin and its own alphabet interchangeably, something will probably not work right and you may not be able to read one or the other using the same voice. I understand this bug is quite hard to track, especially for English speakers, so I don't expect it to be listed here, with my comment, I just want to draw the attention of other users to it.

By tunmi13 on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 00:29

Hi,
Thanks for this comprehensive list of issues. I figured I would provide a correction to the combo box one, however.
This does not only apply to your average combo box, but also popup buttons. In addition, the pop up button or combo box does not need to be immediately to the right of the edit box. It'll still trigger, even if it's on the form field further down.

By Gar on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 02:17

I'm not sure if this is specific to iOS 27 as I've only started to use them heavily more recently, though it seems as if when a widget populates the dynamic island, swiping to the dismiss action and double tapping does nothing. Can anyone else confirm this?

By Singer Girl on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 03:39

I have to agree with Jonathan Candler here. Giving VoiceOver a poor quality audio profile would be like giving shaded person a film with a blurry screen. That would never be accepted or tolerated, and it would’ve been fixed and it would’ve never made the final release. For a lot of advice voiceover is our screen and we’re supposed to just sit there and accept the fact that the quality is being rested with in the final release? I don’t think so. Plus I were hearing aids and I’m not willing to risk not being able to hear voiceover properly. Also, a lot of a really basic navigational parts of have been messed with. I’m not willing to have basic operations messed with. So like I don’t really wanna deal with having to work around the problems with the phone app and I definitely don’t want to have to deal with the lock screen where nothingā€˜s being spoken when you hit the side button. I mean just being able to tell the time on the lock screen is pretty darn basic. If that didn’t work for side people, it wouldn’t have made it into either. I will update, but I’m definitely waiting until a .1 release at least. There is a lot of things that made it into final release that would’ve never happened if it was for users. And I know they speak because I’ve had the same issue with other companies. I’ve had voices that didn’t work properly in windows and they did absolutely nothing to fix the problem, even when I explained at the same way that it’s like a side person screen being blurry they still didn’t fix it. This kind of thing has happened for us now on iOS. To answer somebody’s question earlier my hearing aids do not use Bluetooth go over my phone so voiceover is technically not really coming through my hearing aids in that sense because I don’t need Bluetooth connected to my hearing aids in order to use them. I have a kind of mild hearing loss, I’m able to just use my hearing aids normally without using any kind of Bluetooth to connect into my phone. It’s still something. I’m just not willing to risk it though. The fact that we’ve had so many basic areas of functionality break this year is kind of crazy considering how many as they were and how much testing people have to do. I really hope these issues get resolved really soon though. I want to update. I really want those voices from my phone. The older ones that are coming, but I will wait as long as I need to because I’m not willing to risk these basic areas of functionality. I just feel like there were a lot of things this year that would’ve never made the final release if it were just for people, but they ended up coming into voiceover and it’s not like there’s not a lot of people that don’t test it and report it to Apple. I’m not sure if this is possible, but there needs to be like more voiceover users in their quality assurance or something, I mean, I can’t work or anything, but I feel like that kind of so a lot of issues that was happening but here we are.

By Bob Cavanaugh on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 04:46

I'll probably wait for a few weeks to upgrade to 27, as I have been for the previous few releases. Here are a couple observations though:
1. Sometimes, when reading text, VoiceOver stops speaking and does not resume on its own. This issue does not occur all of the time. When it does occur, speech will stop mid-sentence (and sometimes even mid-word). Touching the screen or performing a touch gesture (like a one-finger swipe left or right) restores speech, and the user can then refocus VoiceOver on the impacted element. This is not a new bug, though it's entirely possible it has gotten worse in iOS27. This happened to me just a couple weeks ago.
2. Messages: When you navigate a link by character using the rotor, VoiceOver spells out l-i-n-k individually after every single character, making it difficult to check what the link actually says. Again, not a new bug. I noticed this just a few weeks ago.

By Ɛ āˆž V on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 04:48

at least IOS 26 is working as well as it is. I'll be waiting. I do have one question though. Is the bug where volume jumps when you have a bt speaker connnected and open a text field still there? I have no idea why this hasn't so far been addressed. It's really bothersome. basically my workaround is to hit one of the phone's volume buttons at the same time as tapping to open the text field and that seems to fix it. it sounds like it's happening in more areas, and without a speaker being connected this time, right?

By Singer Girl on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 04:56

I use my devices, internal speakers all the time so having voiceover be poor quality on those speakers would definitely be a show stopping bug for me. They said earlier on this thread it decided people have blurry screen. They would never let this go through final release, but then we have to deal with Voice being over quality for our final release? She’s not cool. Look I don’t know who’s responsible for it. I’m not gonna blame anybody. I’m not gonna go like you know yelling at Apple or anybody like that but whoever I’m not just go through it’s just you know somebody probably doesn’t use the stuff that you even notice it and then you know when it does get reported it’s for some reason it wasn’t getting fixed so yeah definitely be waiting for at least till 27.1. As far as the volume down with the Bluetooth speaker I think that might’ve been fixed somewhere else but maybe coming back again. I don’t know. I don’t use Bluetooth speakers on any of my devices. I don’t even use Bluetooth headphones. Are you still use the wired EarPods?

By techluver on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 05:11

I have to say, I think I like this audio profile a little better. Honestly, it’s not all doom and gloom, it’s just a little different. I should figure how to keep this if they ever change it back.

By Singer Girl on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 05:53

OK, that’s really good to know actually. Thank you. So maybe it’s not too bad. I’ll try it with my secondary device first. Only because if there are any issues that have been reported as far as like some of the button not working correctly in certain app and whatever I can deal with it on that device a little bit better than I would, if it was my primary device. That’s cool. So maybe it’s not as bad as everybody saying. But I still think I’m gonna give it a little while. At least I have to wait till I’m back on the Wi-Fi connection anyway. Cause I can’t even do any updates right now off of Wi-Fi. Even the minor ones. Ever since the 26.6.1 I could not update that until I got to Wi-Fi. When I called Apple to ask him about this, they said that they think it may be a limitation within my cell carrier of what can update over cell data. They also said it’s because these updates are getting bigger now, so what is a limit on that. But at least they were able to see all the steps I was doing through screen share and I said I wasn’t doing anything wrong so at least we got that going. If you like the new audio profile then maybe I will too. That’s kind of cool. I’ll maybe try in a couple more weeks or something or maybe like you know October or something I don’t know we’ll see but it does make me feel a little bit better at least doing that somebody doesn’t mind it that much.

By Oliver on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 07:00

I have a suspicion it's a feature rather than a bug for when a user is in conversation with siri. If you have conversations in Claude or Chat GPT, you also get a drop in sound quality, the sample rate seems to drop to about 8 k.

I'm hoping this isn't the reason because that would mean there isn't going to be a fix but I suspect the way they are using the speakers and listening for siri might be causing some issues, at least, it's a theory.

By Singer Girl on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:01

That’s an interesting theory. If that’s the case, the devices that are not Apple Intelligence capable might not even have an audio profile issue. So maybe updating won’t be as different of an experience for people like that. For example, my devices are an iPhone 15 and an iPhone SE 2022 and neither one of those are Apple Intelligence capable. So maybe I won’t really be affected at all by the quality of the voiceover speech output on the internal speakers of the internal speakers of my devices. Interesting. There’s still a few other bugs that would make me wait a bit on the update though.

By Oliver on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:13

Though I'd not count on it. I don't have the new Siri activated, just the classic version. I don't know how much they vary builds between models.

By Lee on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:17

On I think Public beta 2 or 3 the voice was doing what people said. It was shocking. However, for me the voice is completely normal in the RC. I have a iPhone 14 for work and now comparing the two voices together I can hear no difference my personal phone sounds just fine. Tried with a couple of voices and no issue. So as so often happens this maybe one of those issues that some have and some do not. Current phone iPhone 17 pro.

By Singer Girl on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:23

That’s good to know. Thanks. I might go ahead and give it a try on my SE 2022 is that’s my secondary device. It’ll have to be probably a little while before I do that though. I’m thinking probably like September or beginning of October just until I see any more info first. But yeah that’s my secondary device so I just think it’s safer for me to update that one first when I do update. I’ve actually always done that when I’ve had two devices. I’ve always updated the secondary one first because it’s just better for me. I’m not like the super most savvy tech user in the world so my things really do kinda need to work cause it’s a little hard time for me to work around things so yeah, but we’ll see what happens. I know there was some issues with the phone app and stuff which I suppose wouldn’t matter too much on my secondary devices. I can’t make calls on it anyway. But that thing of the lock screen, not speaking when it wakes up that’s something I really don’t wanna have to deal with and I’m not exactly willing to take a chance on that part so that’s kind of also why I’m waiting. But yeah, just have to see what happens. It might be one of those weird things that like some people have and some people don’t you know I may not end up with any of it. I have no idea. I guess I’m just not really ready to take the chance. Well, definitely not on my 15 because that’s my primary device.

By Michael Feir on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:55

Hello everyone. I seem once again to be one of the lucky souls who hasn't encountered many of these bugs on my 16 Pro. One glitch I've noticed is that openning some text editing fields requires a one finger triple tap rather than the expected one finger double tap. Some buttons also require the one finger triple tap to activate. I first noticed this in the Ulysses app.
That lock screen issue where noting is announced when you hit the side button to open your iPhone can be annoying. Turning VoiceOver off and on again using the accessibility shortcut is my preferred workaround there.
While I am not personally inconvenienced enough to wish I had waited to update, I really feel for beginners who don't have my fifteen years of experience using iPhones. Apple should have caught and fixed these issues before the public release.

By eyesfreesight on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - 08:59

I try my best to be on the bright side but it seems like the list of serious bugs is a little bit bigger then the list of any improvements, let alone minor bugs and moderate bugs…. I don’t know where technology in Apple specifically is going with this. I still remember good old times when Apple releases some new features for everyone and they were completely accessible with VoiceOver…. I understand if it was a different brand but not Apple….
I have no idea whether the accessibility team of Apple has experienced some layoffs since 2017, where I was enjoying my most favorite version of IOS, (IOS10)…. There are a lot of blind people will be happy to work fin Apple accessibility - that would improved their own user experience, loyalty to Apple and also improved the unemployment rate of blind people around the world. Have someone ever thought about the fact that there are over 70% of blind people unemployed in the US? We are not talking about adequate salaries here, we are talking just basic employment….