Let's be honest about upgrade accessibility

I have been a beta tester of iOS for several years. I've watched iOS 15 go from beta 1 to where it is now and believe me, many bugs have been fixed. No piece of software will ever be completely bug free. It doesn't matter what platform you use. It's just like everything else in life nothing is perfect. I'm extremely happy that I've upgraded to iOS 15. Having said that, there are some things that frustrate me. I will continue to bring them to Apple's attention and that is what we all need to do. I have always upgraded right a way when a new release comes out. I can't think of a time when I've ever regretted doing that. I'm not really trying to criticize this post I'm only trying to say that there have been many improvements since beta 1 of iOS 15. Maybe bugs aren't being squashed as quickly as we may like, but each version is getting better and better.

I have been using an iPhone since IOS 12, and I well remember the days of IOS 13. Anything has to be better than that, unless there were worse earlier versions. Personally, I love the current upgrade, despite its foibles. Voiceover isn't lagging, the focus goes where you want it to go, and a lot of settings are easier to understand, with more flexibility. I have to agree that this post is very negative. Nothing is going to be perfect, it just won't. My advice is to take the good, let the bad go. Report bugs to Apple and eventually they will fix it, maybe not in the time we would like, but they usually fix them.

Hey,
I appreciate you taking a poll on this. Apple needs to know the impact of some of these bugs. I say yes to all three. As far as my opinion of apple, it's unchanged. While using speech, voiceover works fairly well under IOS 15 on ipad. I’m hesitant to upgrade my phone because it's my primary device. Some of the bugs such as voiceover not being responsive after a call and the recent calls bug are complete showstoppers. The way I see it is that everybody’s experience is different. Like the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I also think luck has a little something to do with it. People who are unhappy with IOS have just as much right to an opinion as those who are satisfied. My biggest gripe is the less than stellar braille support. I know braille users among us are few and far between, but that's no excuse for putting it on the back burner. I’ve emailed accessibility since IOS 11 and was pretty much ignored. In braille's current state, I cannot recommend an ipad with braille display for the students I Will with. I contemplated starting a petition or something so apple could see the impact these braille bugs have, but I wasn’t sure about it. I thought your poll would be a good avenue to express our thought on braille. Maybe, could you add a question like the following: Do you feel that the braille experience on mac/IOS has gotten better, worse, or unchanged. Would love to hear what you think.

I have seen several comments now stating that there will always be bugs. This is at best misleading.

The field of computer programming is known formally as "software engineering". When software is approached as an engineering problem, and undertaken with accepted engineering standards and practices, it is indeed possible to produce software products that are free of bugs. But the extensive planning,  development of prototypes and specifications, and thorough testing necessary to accomplish this increase the cost dramatically.

More importantly, engineering restricts a company from making future modifications to their product. Not just Apple is at fault here. Every company must weigh the cost of rigorous engineering practices against marketing-driven feature creep, and their decision is driven largely by watching what their competition is doing. When everyone else is driving new sales with flashy new features that also introduce bugs, then there's little incentive to put out that long-awaited bug fix release.

I am fully aware that the current state of smartphone development might lead many of you to believe that I am a nutcase for even suggesting more rigorous engineering standards. To be clear, I am merely pointing out the root cause of why we see so many bugs. While better development standards would go a long way toward improving quality, I realize that adopting them would be akin to steering an aircraft carrier in a new heading.

All that being said, let me change the topic slightly.

I used computers and smartphones as a sighted user up until about 2014, and at that point switched to using primarily screen readers. And I think it's important to note that I noticed much fewer bugs before 2014 and a lot more after I switched. It has been my experience that sighted use is well-tested while blind use receives significantly less attention in the QA department.

If a company is unlikely to implement rigorous engineering standards for their sighted users, how much less likely are they to incur that cost for a much smaller group of niche users with special needs? This is the reality we face, and the challenge in bringing about substantial industry change.