The Accessibility Bugs in iOS 10 for Blind and Low Vision Users, From Serious To Minor

By AppleVis, 13 September, 2016

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Detailed in this post are possible accessibility-related bugs that members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have identified during their testing of iOS 10.

As is now our routine practice, the bugs have been grouped based upon what we believe to be there likely level of impact to the user experience to those affected by each bug. At the time of writing, we have only identified one bug which we believe to be serious—an issue which relates to using iOS 10’s Mail app with a braille display.

If you haven’t already updated your device to iOS 10, we strongly recommend that you read through this post and any comments before doing so—as this will allow you to make an informed decision on whether to install iOS 10 at this time.

As we always stress in these posts, we can make no claims on the completeness and accuracy of our testing. We are only a small team, and it is simply impossible for us to test all applications and use cases. Also, some of the bugs listed below have not been encountered by all members of the Team. So, please bear in mind that it is entirely possible that problems listed here will not be present on all devices or in all use cases. It is also possible that, in some instances, we are simply mistaken—or that there are additional new bugs or regressions which we did not identify in our testing. Accordingly, we would really appreciate feedback from those who have installed iOS 10 —to confirm whether they are encountering the same problems (or have found workarounds), as well as to let us know of any additional issues that are not on this list. Of course, it’s even more important that you let Apple know of any additional bugs that you find (they already know about the ones currently listed in this post). This post explains why you should report bugs directly to Apple, as well as the best ways to do so.

With all of the disclaimers out of the way, here are the accessibility-related problems that we believe to be present in iOS 10:

Serious Bugs

  1. When using a braille display with the Mail app, after opening a message, at the beginning of each line of the email, the user will see who the message is from. This occurs in the header information as well as in the body of the message. When sorting by thread, each line also begins with the message number in the thread.

Moderate Bugs

  1. The behavior of VoiceOver focus can be inconsistent and unreliable when interacting with Lock Screen notifications. This has been most common when using the ’More’ option from the VoiceOver rotor. On occasions VoiceOver focus will not correctly switch to reflect the change in what is active on screen after using this Rotor option, and swiping produces inconsistent and confusing results. In some cases you may need to use a combination of direct touch; three-finger swiping up/down; and swiping left/right to correctly place VoiceOver focus on the expanded view of the notification and for swiping to behave as expected.
  2. When using the Messages app with VoiceOver and a Bluetooth keyboard, VoiceOver focus occasionally behaves inconsistently. This issue usually presents itself after one presses enter to send a message; when this bug does occur (which is not all of the time), VoiceOver focus usually lands several messages previous in the thread.
  3. If one has multiple Enhanced Quality voices installed, on occasion one or more of the voices may revert to the default variant and require a re-download. The team member who has experienced this issue reports that it has only occurred for them with the U.S. English Samantha voice, which was positioned as a secondary language in the Rotor.
  4. VoiceOver speech may stop or fade out while reading text inserted into a text field using Dictation. This issue appears to be limited to that particular use case, and swiping or touching the screen will bring back speech as normal.
  5. Using the VoiceOver rotor to navigate by Headings on the ‘For You’ tab of the native News App is inconsistent and unreliable.
  6. On occasions, you may not be able to locate by touch the Space key on the onscreen keyboard. When this happens, VoiceOver may report that you have ‘touched’ the Dictate key, but will still insert a space when you double-tap. However, this behavior does not appear to be consistent and is infrequent.
  7. VoiceOver does not announce the current selection status of the Love and Dislike buttons on the More menu located on the Mini Player of the native Music app.
  8. In some situations, the Enhanced quality Siri voices may not be available for use with VoiceOver. This bug has been very difficult to reproduce, and only one member of our team is currently experiencing it.
  9. In the native Home app that’s new in iOS 10, the list of people who have shared access to control accessories is read by VoiceOver as one item. As a result, you cannot access a specific user to view or edit their permissions.

Minor Bugs

  1. The 2 personalised music playlists new to Apple Music in iOS 10 are appearing on the For You tab as unlabelled buttons with no feedback for VoiceOver users on what they are (which is “My New Music Mix” and “My Favorites Mix”).
  2. If you paste text into the Search field of the App Store, the Search button itself will not become active until you have used the onscreen keyboard to make some further change to the text in the search field (such as simply adding a space).
  3. When swiping through a list of articles from one of your favourites in the native News app, VoiceOver will in some instances provide feedback which suggests that you are actually on the Main screen of the Favourites tab. When VoiceOver does announce these elements, they will not behave as expected when double-tapped.
  4. When editing the list of mailboxes/folders to be displayed in the native Mail App, VoiceOver does not announce their current selection status.
  5. The Delete option in the VoiceOver Rotor Actions menu does not work with tracks listed in the ‘Up Next’ section of the Mini Player in the native Music app. This should work, as sighted users can simply swipe on a track to delete it from this list.
  6. In the Mail app, VoiceOver will occasionally speak the "Inbox" heading at the top of the screen as a long string of numbers and letters. Exiting out of the Inbox using the "Back" button and then reentering the Inbox appears to resolve this problem.
  7. If you have multiple locations added to the native Weather app, VoiceOver focus may wrongly switch away from the currently selected one when swiping through the last elements on the weather details screen.
  8. When moving an app out of a folder using the drag method, VoiceOver does not play the sound to indicate that the folder has been closed.
  9. The Heading at the top of the 'For You' tab of the native News App reads as 2 separate but identical elements when swiping to move focus.
  10. When using 3D Touch in the native Music App to open a ‘peek’ menu, it is possible in some situations that swiping left will move VoiceOver focus to the Status Bar rather than ending with the first item in the ‘peek’ menu.
  11. When one activates the “Call” button when placing a phone call, VoiceOver will often say, “Incoming Call…” before speech stops as the call is connected.

If you encounter any additional accessibility bugs in iOS 10, please let others know by posting a comment below. When doing so, please provide as much information as possible so that others know exactly what to expect; when and where the problem occurs; and any possible workarounds you have found.


This post was updated on 9/13/2016 to remove a moderate bug, regarding the moving of apps out of folders using the new rotor actions method, which we now believe to be working as intended.

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By Jim D on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

This is something which has existed since the early iOS 10 betas. While I consider it a bug, others may not. When browsing the home screen, the name of the icon is read, VoiceOver then pauses for about one second and then says "Actions available." This is, of course, to indicate the fact that actions which allow the app to be moved are available. Still, I would love the ability to turn this "Actions available" announcement off. I don't need to hear it after every single icon. This announcement remains, even if hints are disabled. While this is probably considered a minor bug, it is still very annoying!
Jim

By Robert A.M. on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi there,

I've been able to find quite a bit of bugs myself. Last night I emailed the following message to [email protected]. You might say that some of these are more feature requests than bugs, but they still need to be taken care of I think to improve the experience of the user. If you are able to reproduce these bugs on your devices, I strongly urge you to report them to Apple as well:

"The following is a list and description of the VoiceOver related bugs I have encountered while testing iOS 10 GM on my iPhone 6S over the last five days.

LOCK SCREEN SPECIFIC BUGS:

1. After waking the device with the new ”raise to wake” function, the screen will sometimes turn back off although the user is interacting with it via VoiceOver. If you instead turn it on by pressing a button, the screen will not turn back off until a few seconds pass without the user touching or swiping on the screen. I.e., VoiceOver is currently not telling ”Raise to Wake” that the device is in use and the screen should not be turned off.
2. Swiping left and right on the lock screen to move between elements does not behave reliably. The VoiceOver cursor sometimes jumps straight from the time to the notifications or the ”press Home to unlock” text (thereby skipping the date). Other times it gets stuck at an element, for example, the notification on the bottom, instead of continuing down to the ”Press Home to unlock” text and the ”Page 2 of 3” control.
3. Once or twice after waking the screen, VoiceOver started reading the elements on the widgets screen although the basic lock screen was actually being displayed. I could swipe to move around the widgets, but nothing would happen when double tapping.
4. In the Widgets view, when trying to add new widgets, VoiceOver does not read the names of the available widgets; it instead just says ”Insert New” and ”New”. I.E., VoiceOver says the word ”new” rather than the name of the widget.
5. The new sound that indicates that the device has been unlocked with TouchID, as well as the beep that indicates that the screen has been turned off, are not always played. To help make things clear for the user, I believe it is important that they are played in every circumstance. For example, the unlock sound is not played when the passcode screen is visible or when unlocking the device immediately after waking it, and the beep is not always played when pressing the Sleep button if the device is unlocked.
6. When using ”Quick Reply”, accessed by 3D-touching an iMessage notification, there is some VoiceOver lag while typing, making it slower than usual. Also, it is not possible to swipe left and right to move between the received and sent messages and the section with the ”Compose Message” text field, the Send button, etc.
7. After swiping down on the ”Page 2 of 3” control to get to the widgets, the VoiceOver cursor tends to land on a random (unpredictable) position, usually in the middle of some widget. It would be much better if it would always initially appear on the Search text field, at the very top. Also, what would then be the ”Page 1 of 3” control is nowhere to be found in the widgets screen.
8. Handoff/Continuity is currently broken when using VoiceOver. VoiceOver only says ”double tap to continue using the app” without saying the actual app name, and it is not possible to swipe into and out of this button.

KEYBOARD AND TYPING BUGS:

1. When swiping up and down to move the typing cursor within a text field, VoiceOver has some issues reporting emoji. This happens particularly when the new ”Emoji suffix” option is enabled inside VoiceOver’s Verbosity settings. VoiceOver will remain silent instead of saying the emoji name, and sometimes it takes 2 swipes to go past an emoji instead of one.
2. When using the iOS emoji keyboard, VoiceOver will say a number after an emoji name, for example, ”grinning face with squinting eyes 36”.
3. On iOS 10, it is now possible to type in two different languages without having to select a different keyboard; iOS will automatically detect what language you are using and offer corresponding typing predictions and corrections. These predictions should be read in the appropriate language by VoiceOver, for example, if my device is in English but I’m typing in Spanish, VoiceOver should use the Spanish voice to read the typing predictions and completed words. No voice switching occurs right now.
4. An option should be added within the Accessibility or the VoiceOver settings to disable moving the typing cursor by 3D-touching the keyboard. The only way to do this currently is by disabling 3D-touch altogether, and I do not want to do this for obvious reasons. Unintentionally moving the typing cursor with 3D-touch is, perhaps, the most common cause of me making mistakes while typing.
5. When using third party keyboards, it is sometimes not possible to swipe right when the VoiceOver Cursor is on the ”Compose Message” text field to move to the Send button. This happens not only inside the Messages app, but also inside other messaging apps like Whatsapp.

OTHER BUGS:

1. Inside the Mail App, VoiceOver no longer reads email message previews on a message list, it just reads the mane of the sender, the subject and the time when it was sent, followed by the ”Actions available” hint. Previously, I believe that the preview of the content of the message was incorporated into the hint, i.e., if you disabled hints, you would no longer hear the preview either. Now, the preview is not read by VoiceOver regardless whether hints are enabled or disabled.
2. On iOS 9, quickly 3D-touching any element on the screen with VoiceOver enabled would activate it (same as double tapping), and if an item had specific 3D-touch actions, it would display them after 3D-touching for slightly longer, about 0.25 seconds. With VoiceOver on iOS 10, it is not clear to me whether now a slight press on an item will activate it, and a deeper press will reveal its 3D-Touch actions, or if the time it takes for the 3D-touch actions to appear just got shortened considerably. In any case, I believe that the way things were handled on iOS 9 is better since it makes it easier for users to tell iOS what they actually want to do. I’ve activated an app icon’s 3D-touch shortcuts several times when I actually just wanted to open it.
3. Apparently, within VoiceOver’s code, there are two hints which mean the same thing: Actions available”” and ”swipe up or down to select a custom action, then double tap to activate”. The problem is that VoiceOver seems to randomly pick and say one of these hints as it pleases. I believe that only the ”actions available” hint should be kept to avoid confusion.
4. In general, there are some issues when swiping left and right to move between elements, or when using the 4-finger tap near the top or bottom of the screen to move to the first or last element. The VoiceOver cursor gets stuck in random places or it does not actually move to the top or bottom, but to a random place. I’ve particularly noticed this inside the Podcasts app and while navigating webpages.
5. The new Speech section within the VoiceOver settings is much improved, I am very thankful for the extra voices, however, it still needs some work. After downloading a voice, it sometimes disappears from the list of available voices, i.e., the VoiceOver cursor cannot land on the voice name until you go back to the previous screen and then return to the list. Also, it took me some time to figure out that you had to double tap on a voice name to enter a different screen where you can then select its default or enhanced variant and the speech rate. I consider myself an experienced user, so I believe this will be very confusing for less tech-oriented people. I suggest that every parameter (voice name, voice variant, speaking rate, etc.) is kept within the same screen for each language. Finally, I believe that new Spanish Siri voices are now available on iOS 10, but I do not see an option to use them with VoiceOver in the Speech settings.
6. The additions that were made to the Messages app still need some work for them to be VoiceOver accessible. For example, if you send a heart or a kiss using digital touch, VoiceOver only says that the received/sent message ”contains digital touch”, rather than identifying it as a kiss or a heart. It is also unclear to me how to send full screen effects, such as the balloons or fireworks, while using VoiceOver. I have not yet tested stickers but I am concerned that they also might not be properly identified by VoiceOver.
7. The sound that is played when activating Reachability by double tapping the Home button does not always work. VoiceOver Sometimes plays no sound at all.

I hope you find this list helpful, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need further clarification.

Best regards."

By creed on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

started the update over the air as always. all was going well then I clicked install. after several minutes with the apple logo on the screen, it went into recovery mode prompting me to connect to ITunes. I am still attempting to sort it out to no avail. any suggestions??

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I have not been a beta, so my question to you is that you said you sent this report last night. Was the version of iOS10 any different from the release version today? Is there any chance that some of these issues may have been fixed between the last beta version and the release of iOS10? Thanks.

By Robert A.M. on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

In reply to by creed

Yes, this appears to be affecting several users. I suggest you do what the phone says, connect to iTunes. You might have to restore it and then use your backup to bring back all your stuff.

By Robert A.M. on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

In reply to by sockhopsinger

Nope, I performed all my testing on the GM seed, build 14A403, which is the exact same one that is being released to the public today.

Regards!

By Toonhead on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi. On both my iPad Minnie 4th gen, and my iPhone 6 I ran into an interesting thing when entering my passcode after the phone rebooted right after the update. Swiping over to the area where you enter the passcode resulted in VoiceOver reading the letters that each of the numbers represent. For example instead of 1, VoiceOver said, A, B, C. 2 read as D, E, F. 3 read as G, H, I, etc. The only way to get around this was to press the lock button and try it again. After the 3rd try on both devices, VoiceOver read the numbers as actual numbers and I was able to enter my passcode. I did try pressing the home button but it didn't work as expected. Other than that everything seems to work as expected.

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

The update went well. However, my default speaking voice is gone. Oh well, I guess that gives me an excuse to pick a new one.

By JeffB on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

The update put my phone in recovery mode as well. I was able to restore my phone and I'm now doing the update through ITunes. Apple clames it fixed the error so hopefully others won't have this issue.

By Toonhead on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Here's an odd one I just found, VoiceOver, no matter which Voice you use at least in American English, mis-pronounces the word iMessage. It says iMessEdge. So to fix this, I went into pronunciations and changed the spelling of iMessage to iMessij. that's I capital M E S S I J. an odd spelling for sure, but it works.

By Troy on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I have also experienced the passcode issue. I will say though sure beats that hello setup screen that apple had in previous versions.

By JeffB on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

The bug in the contacts app is still there where using the table index it does not go to the letter selected and seems to randomly take you to a letter. For example if I go to h I'm at G contacts, S I'm at contacts that start with a P. I have reported this bug to the accessibility team. A work around for this is to move by headings.

By Kasper Antonsen on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

i have bin a beta tester through out the pupplic beta program. I have more bugs on my iphone 6s then my ipod. I only used my ipod for the betas and it was more stable. fx voiceover looses sometimes focus when swiping through items f.eks in apps and home screen

By forceflow1049 on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I have the iOS text size set to a value larger than the default size. In Mail, the body text of emails isn't uniform. Some have the (correct) large text and others have what I assume is the default text size. This makes reading some emails challenging.

By Ernie Segura on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hello! I have just upgraded my iPhone 6 to iOS 10, and am unable to unlock my phone! The issue seems that VoiceOver does not seem to read out the letters at all. All it says is the Greek symbol that belongs to the letter. It is also not reading out the numbers, either. Anybody else having this problem?

Update: I was able to get my phone unlocked. I had to enter my password by guessing the keyboard layout.

By JeffB on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I too had to guess the letters as it wouldn't talk. Not even changing the voice from the rotor fixed it. Hopefully this is a 1 time thing.

By Igna Triay on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

OK, so here's the blog said that in iOS 10, moving apps out of folders doesn't work, but it does. So, in a folder, swipe down to arrange apps, then select move app, then choose that dropped out of folder, and then when you find the place where you want to drop the app, just choose dropped before or after, and you'll see the app on the home screen. I think someone confused this for a bug, because I just tried it, and it worked perfectly well

By JeffB on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

This works you can also pick move app then do a scrub and go to where you want the app and pick move app before or after folder-app.

By dvdmth on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I also ran into the problem with the passcode entry screen not announcing the digits on the number keypad. I simply used Braille Screen Input to get through that screen.

As far as I can tell, the issue only applies to the initial welcome screens after installing iOS 10. I have since been able to navigate the passcode screen without issues each time it has come up.

By Igna Triay on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

yeah i also ran into that problem, but used BSI to input my passcode, but working great now

By Anna Beige on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I just noticed that when using Braille screen input, VoiceOver doesn't announce the character/word you're deleting, it just makes the keyboard click sound. Does anyone know if there's a way to fix this?

By Tyler on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

When encountering an alert while using a bluetooth keyboard, Quick Nav will be disabled and I have to reenable it by pressing both the left and right arrow keys simultaneously every time. Has anyone else experienced this? I've been able to reliably reproduce this on an iPad Air with a Logitech keyboard case.

Also, in the iCloud Drive app, the, "Delete," rotor action is doubled, requiring the user to flick down to the second instance of it for the action to work as expected; with the first one doing nothing when double tapping it.

By Tyler on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

When I first went into the edit widgets screen, I experienced the, "Insert widget," bug. After a few minutes, I went back and this time Voiceover read the available new widgets as expected and I have not been able to reproduce the issue since.

By Anders Boholdt… on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi

After upgrading to iOS10, I experience that VoiceOver has some challenges when it comes to closing notifications on the lock screen.

1. Suppose that I receive a message from Twitter while my iPhone are locked
2. When I subsequently unlock my iPhone up, I can flick down with one finger on the right side on my iPhones display, and hear the message before I pres om the home-button and really open my iPhone
3. Under iOS9 I immediately could flick down with one finger after the announcement of the icon of the message, and VoiceOver fine announced "close message"
4. Under iOS10, VoiceOver now instead of announce "Clear weather"
5. If I double tap on this message, the message disappears well enough from the lock screen - but the text is very imprecise
6. I also experience that VoiceOver not say the incoming message I receive when my iPhone are locked, but only what the time is.

Is other people experiencing the same issue?

My iPhone is an iPhone 6 64-GB.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Anders

By kool_turk on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but it appears to happen by default when entering text using braille screen input.

If you make a mistake, voiceover doesn't report what you're deleting like it normally does.

It still deletes text, there's just no feedback.

A work around is to delete text with the on screen keyboard, unless you memorise what you're trying to erase.

By Maya Pureseva on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi all, could anyone confirm this bug please? I'm generally impressed with how IOS10 works on my IPhone 5, however, there is one nuisance which is a deal breaker, hope they fix that soon. In the "More info" screen of the message thread there was an option to view all the available audio attachments, right now, when I click "Attachments", my VO freezes and I can't do anything with it. It's a shame if I won't be able to save my attachments anymore. Thank you.

By John Farina on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hello all,
I have not used iTunes to update a phone. Can anyone give me some instructions as to how to do this? Thanks.e

By Troy on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Can anyone create this one? When in the app store I will go under search and search for an app. The first time it works fine, now let's say I wanna go back and search for another, voiceover will not give me feedback on what I'm typing nor deleteing. Also is voiceover playing a sound instead of saying screen locked a new feature?

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

@Troy if you have Voiceover sounds enabled, then yes, the lock screen sound is new instead of speaking "screen locked."

By JN.V on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

A bug which was with us I think since iOS 9.1 seams to be finally gone, if replying to or forwarding a email, VO isn't silent anymore for a while after pressing send, VO continues working right away.

I also had the issue with the passcode on my iPhone 6 after updating and having to enter it for the first time, but afterwards I had no issues with the passcode field since.
Something strange which also happened after the update, my VO voice was suddenly on Tessa enhanced, where before the update I had it set to the normal Tessa voice, anyway no biggy.

Over all I'm a happy camper.

By Greg Wocher on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hello,
I have noticed something odd with BSI since the update. When I am in screen away mode, the dots don't line up right. Dos 1 and 4 are not straight up from dots 2 and 5. They seem to be set sorta diagonal from the other dots. I am using a iPhone 6+. Is anyone else seeing this? Also I am not seeing the issue where you are not hearing what you delete whith BSI.

Regards,
Greg Wocher

On both my iPhone 6S and iPad air2 voice-over would not speak passcode keypad at all. The update would not complete until the code was entered and since the keys only clicked and didn't speak it was hard to enter the code. Several atempts resulted in device hanging after only some of the code was entered. power switch click then home brought the passcode prompt back. After many atempts the code finally was accepted but no speech ever, only clicks as I touched the numbers on the keypad. I call this serious but if you don't have a code set I think things would be fine. Maybe best advice is to remove code before attempting the update to IOS10.

By Jasmine on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi,

In general I rather like the update. However, often whilst scrolling, if for example I want to activate a button via double tapping, nothing happens, This is the case if I find the button by touch, or scroll to the left and right of the item first. THis has happened in the facebook, and audible apps, I haven't actually been able to log back into my audible app because the phone won't let me click on the sign in button. Any ideas?
Also, don't like the new mail setup for threaded conversations, but that's probably just because I have no idea what to do with it.
I like the bugs fixed in apple music :)

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Greg, don't remember how to do it, but you may wish to re-calibrate your dots to get them lined up how you like them. HTH

By Clare Page on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi! Before IOS 10 was released, i heard several times that quite a few new voices would be added to VoiceOver, but, when looking through the Speech settings after installing IOS 10 today, most of the new voices don't show up anywhere in those settings. Both Fred and Victoria show up among the available US English voices, Fred already there and Victoria available for download, but none of the new Nuance voices, such as Tom or Lee or Kate or Ava, appear in any lists of voices under the Voiceover Speech settings; I can only assume that there was a slight glitch when I downloaded IOS 10 over the air, or that my IOS could be a bit confused by the fact that I live in France but have set my region to UK English because I am originally from the UK. I know this is a minor bug, since I already have the voices I liked to use in IOS 9, but it's still a disappointing one to have, as I would like to have at least tried out some of the new Nuance voices.

By John Holcomb II on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I noticed a bug when I use a Bluetooth keyboard to switch songs. Voiceover reads the track position every time the new song starts too play. Also, when I did the update on my iPod, the first time I was asked to unlock my device it only announced letters, not the numbers. but since I know what numbers correspond to which letters, I was able to get into my device. For example voiceover would read ABC for 2, DEF for 3, rather than reading the numbers. Since that first unlocking I've not had this problem.

By Toonhead on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Hi Clare! I don't know if you're aware of the language rhotor in VoiceOver, this allows you to have several different languages available just by swiping up and down when the language choice is selected. So, what you might try doing is adding US English to your language rhotor and see what kind of results you get. It might be entirely possible that the new US voices are only available via the language rhotor. Just a shot in the dark there.

By Clare Page on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Thanks for the tip, but I already have US English in my language rotor, as I sometimes use Alex for reading, and Fred and Victoria were the only new voices in the list of US voices when i opened up the US English screen in the Language Rotor settings, Fred already there and Victoria available for download. I should point out that, as a fan of human-sounding voices, Fred and Victoria don't appeal to me at all, so I would have liked the chance to at least try out Tom and other new human-sounding voices, but that is not to be for me, not for now anyway.

By Wayne Scott Jr on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I upgraded to IOS 10 and I cannot delete multiple emails in the Mail app. I used to be able to do this in IOS 9. I get a lot of emails and it takes a lot of time to delete one message at a time. I am using an iPad and a Focus 14 blue braille display.

Also, moving apps with a braille display is much, much easier with IOS 10.

By Clare Page on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

I now wish to report that, after mentioning my missing voices bug on another thread, I was advised to restart my iPhone, and now that I have done so the new Nuance voices have shown up in the VoiceOver Speech settings. Why they didn't appear at first is still a mystery, but, if anyone else encounters that missing voices bug, I suggest they follow the advice I was given and restart their i-device, hopefully with the same result as I got.

By dvdmth on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

If you are not getting proper typing echo during Braille Screen Input, either while typing or while deleting characters, go to Settings - General - Accessibility - VoiceOver - Typing Feedback. There are three categories for typing feedback there: software keyboard, hardware keyboard, and BSI. Make sure they are all set the way you expect.

Additionally, I found that the typing feedback I got for BSI didn't match up with how the settings were set. I was able to fix it by disabling feedback for all three categories, then re-enabling feedback for each of them. After doing this, BSI has behaved properly with whatever setting I use for it.

By Kayla Cole on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Last night, I updated my iPhone 6s to iOS 10. Everything worked pretty well, but when deleting text with a braille display, the braille display says the actual character you're deleting, and it won't go away until I move the VoiceOver cursor. For example, I was sending a message, and I deleted a space. The braille display showed the word "space". I had to move the cursor to the "Show More" or the "Send" button to make it go away. Another bug that I found is that sometimes the braille translation inexplicably changes from English US to UEB. In most of my apps, it stays on English US, which is what I have it set on. But in apps like Safari, it switches to UEB for no reason. Has anyone else experienced either of these issues, and is there a way to solve them? Thank you in advance for any help!

By D25 on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Has anyone noticed this, when I'v finished using Siri and the Siri window is still on the screen voice-over is very laggy when I try to flick through the items. For example if Siri has done a web search and I try to flick through the results then voice-over becomes very slow

By sechaba on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

After updating to IOS10 my voice over is literally not working. I have tried speech on and off with 3 fingers, tried to put on my earphones, and even tried turning voice over via siri.

Hi, I've noticed the translation bug, too. I've reported it to Apple Accessibility as best as I could describe it. At the time I reported it, I thought it was a Safari bug, so I described it as such.
The odd thing is, though, the translation bug only affects certain websites in Safari. It affects tumblr.com , for example, but not facebook.com .
I didn't notice it in any other apps than Safari so far. Kindle is fine.
This is seriously frustrating, though. I also have my translation table set to US braille, so when it switches to UEB, it's really distracting for me.
What apps other than Safari have you noticed this in?
You should also report it to [email protected] .
Let me know if you find any way to fix it. I've checked my translation table in braille settings, and it says it's still set to US braille.

By Fatima.Hamoud10 on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Have you tried contacting Apple Accessibility? They might be able to help you solve the issue with VoiceOver not working. Also, try resetting your iOS device. Nothing will be lost. Another suggestion would be to restart your device.

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 13:24

Sometimes the volume control goes way down. Make sure you turn up the volume. That's happened to me before when I thought Voiceover wasn't working.