Hi,
Just thought I'd set up this thread for people to throw some ideas around of how we might voice issues to apple regarding bugs, inaccessibility and any other issues.
My hope is to:
- Develop a simple means of logging issues.
- create a unified voice with said issues in mind.
- Establish the best means of presenting these issues or findings to apple.
If we can meet these goals we can also extend the methodology to 3rd party developers.
I believe that unifying our voices on issues has much more power for change compared with that of individuals.
I realise that there are already methods such as the feedback app on beta builds, but if we have a means of everyone listing their issues, we can then collate the problems providing apple with coherent feedback and us with greater leverage as a group.
These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. My motivation is wanting us to stop in fighting and muster a solution. There are a lot of upset blind apple users, let's find a constructive way to resolve these problems.
So, please present your ideas in a considered and respectful way... We all know how such forums can devolve into fruitless squabbling. Let's work together on this solution.
Comments
Actually system reports I don
Actually system reports I don't think can be found there. What you will find is a way to create a simple I believe it's a .px file of your system, this is quite huge as well and I've ben asked to submit those to companies as well. Just do what they tell you to do and you should be fine.
Proactive
Hi, yes, I think getting instructions from the developer as to what they actually require is good but it is also good, in this case with apple, at least, to be proactive. As stated earlier in this thread, accessibility at apple doesn't always respond which isn't to say that they don't read or act upon our concerns.
Great to know about how to do the reports on IOS so thank you for that. It would appear, going through the forums, that most concerns regard IOS rather than Mac which, for the most part, is okay. This may also be a reflection of just how many people use IOS devices compared with Mac OS.
I've ben a mac user for 10
I've ben a mac user for 10 years, and ios use for 10 years, and a beta tester since about 2003 or so, so all of this comes from experience. In factg when I say I will submit this or that many companies are shockeI even know what that means and appreciate the details I go into to try an get a bug squashed.
Bug
Well in that case, see if you can reproduce my bug that I reported and give them more data since you call yourself an expert. On the lock screen, press power button to ask siri a question. Most of the time, voiceover reads the screen and says How may I help? Siri becomes confuse. Forgot using iOS 13.1.3 and iPhone XS.
No issues. Works here. I
No issues. Works here. I cannot reproduce it. If you reported the bug you can close it.
Where can I buy a unicorn iPhone?
What fresh hell is this?
KE7ZUM instructs somebody to close a bug report because she can't reproduce it.
Her credibility when it comes to commenting on the existence or not of bugs is already shot after stating categorically that iOS 13.0 had no bugs, and now she double-downs on this by showing that she's ignorant of the fact that bugs can be specific to configuration or hardware.
I know that this kind of response isn't what the OP wants, but KE7ZUM's responses are a perfect example of how hard it can be to get accurate and meaningful information to Apple.
KE7ZUM, a bug being reported by others doesn't exist simply because you and your unicorn iPhone are immune to it.
Phone
I wish I had her phone. I am crossing my finger that if is true and next week iOS 13.2 is out will fix the bugs. However I have $1 that they will not.
I really can say that at
I really can say that at least for me all the bugs. I listed will be closed by the time this comes out to you guys, you will love the new update. And no you maybe not have my phone, it's mine, what you can have is all the info that is sent to apple minus some personal info including base band. Maybe I'm just lucky,
Model: iPhone XR
iOS Version: 13.2
Model Details: iPhone11,8
Model Type: MT2E2
Carrier: TMobile US (39.0.1)
First Backup: 8/1/19, 9:41 PM
Latest Backup: 10/22/19, 10:04 AM (Encrypted)
Latest iCloud Backup: 10/21/19, 8:08 PM
Number of Backups: 32
Backup Size: 44.96 GB
Backup Location: Default Backup Location
Status: Connected via Wi-Fi
Passcode Enabled: Yes
Passcode Locked: No
Jailbroken: No
Accessibility Use Voice Over: No
Accessibility Zoom: No
Accessibility Invert colours: No
Accessibility Speak Auto-text: No
Accessibility Use Mono audio: No
Accessibility Show closed caption when available: No
MDM is not removable: No
Wait until device is configured: No
MDM configuration is mandatory: No
Is supervised: No
Pairing with other computers is allowed: Yes
Find My iPhone Enabled: No
iCloud Backup Enabled: No
Battery Current Charge: 2054 mAh (68.1%)
Battery Design Max. Charge: 2942 mAh
Battery Effective Max. Charge: 3018 mAh (102.6%)
Battery Charge Cycles: 117
Battery Temperature: 30.9 °C / 87.6 °F
Battery State: Discharging (-0.6 Watt)
Battery Instant Amperage: -161 mA
Battery Instant Voltage: 3956 mV
Battery At Warn Level: No
Battery At Critical Level: No
Battery Serial Number: F8Y924123WNJKGWAT
Battery Manufacture Date: 9241
Battery Avg. Temperature: 28.0 °C / 82.4 °F
Battery Min. Temperature: 21.3 °C / 70.3 °F
Battery Max. Temperature: 47.0 °C / 116.6 °F
Battery Max. Charge: 2112 mA
Battery Max. Discharge: -4127 mA
Charger Watts: 0
Charger Voltage: 0 mV
Charger Amperage: 0 mA
Device Color: 1
Device Enclosure Color: 1
Language: en
Locale: en_US
Region: LL/A
Activation State: Activated
Time Zone: America/Los_Angeles
CPU Architecture: arm64e
Hardware Model: N841AP
Hardware Platform: t8020
Bonjour Unique ID: 2EC77D57-2C4B-4A21-AA3D-31C016C4688B
iOS Build Version: 17B5077a
Firmware Version: iBoot-5540.40.51
Baseband Version: 2.02.12
USB Device ID: 12
USB Product ID: 12
USB Interface Speed: 480 Mbit/s
By the way I dunno why it says I'm not using voiceover, but ok? Used. atool I I have for mac os to extract all of that, the whole thing is about 2 pages in length, you might or might not need all of this when reporting bugs and compareing notes.
Happy reading.
Your attempt was noble Oliver
Your attempt was noble Oliver. This community is rarely United. I’ll continue to reach out to Apple, but I don’t see this working. I hope I’m proven wrong. Too many conflicting personalities and different needs/wants.
Guess I'm lucky too!
Apart from a bug that won't let me edit videos in the Photos app, which is not even an accessibility bug, I have been extremely fortunate with iOS 13 running on an iPhone 11 with iOS 13.1.3 as the build. Sorry that so many others have so many bugs. I'm sure my time is coming.
unlucky
Throughout the history of using iPhone, I did not have bugs, until iOS 9 that had to deal with lock screen getting notification and voiceover saying the time. Now I am paying for not having issues with unlucky 13. I have iPhone XS and I am looking for iOS 14.
One Voice
Regardless of whether or not individuals are encountering bugs, a unified voice can only be to the benefit of this community. So let's embrace Oliver's suggestion and help to put something in place for future reference.
There are indeed bugs. For
There are indeed bugs. For those who do not experience them, this thread probably isn't for you. It is a forum to plan and decide the best way of reporting issues to apple. If you are experiencing no such issues, then you need not take part in the discussion.
As I've said before, the great guide written by David is the first course of action, combined with the post regarding sending system reports.
The issue that comes to light with this thread is that we do indeed have a wide range of hardware, my fault for not acknowledging it in the first place. In my defence, one of the overriding benefits of apple, to me, is the uniformity of products. Theoretically everything should run the same everywhere which is, of course, naive. There is a wide range of hardware in our devices and, as apple continues to increase the line, there will be more of a variation.
So, individually we should report bugs as stated anyway because apple requires the raw data to recreate issues. The second aspect is to hold apple accountable for bugs that many of us experience and yet nothing seems to be done about it. Do we have any further suggestions of how we might accomplish this? Maybe having a means of identifying how many people have reported the bug? Could we include a counter in a new thread that people can tick once they have reported it? Obviously, this will require a high level of honesty by the community but might be a way of making the bug reporting between ourselves more transparent, and I think that would be a win.
News
For those of you who have twitt, facebook and whatever sent comments to those news places such as apple insider, 9to5, Mac and others about bugs. I find it interesting that when releases come out, those news never make any comment about accessibility and voiceover. I do not have twitt or facebook and not planning. If I do see an email, I send them one but sadly most of them do not use email.
The curse of being a minority
The curse of being a minority I'm afraid. I think unless they are phone breaking for us, which seems to be rare, it's not news that is interesting to the general public.
Not knowing
I think is that accessibility is not in their thoughts and to tell you so, when I was sighted, I did not even think about it myself. Just by letting them as a blind person know your problem some of them might acknowledge it.
Very true. I'd suggest that
Very true. I'd suggest that it does need to be news worthy. A couple of gripes here and there won't gain traction. A true issue, such as the VO locking up, if it persists, might be something worth letting them know about. I'd also consider it a last resort. strong arming without trying the peaceful path first is only going to end in woe.
The First Step
The first step is to come up with a timeline process. For instance, a new severe bug pops up that impacts a sizable portion of blind users. I'm just using random numbers, but let's say 450 people report the same issue that they are having to Apple Accesibility. How long after that do you wait for Apple to fix the problem before contacting media outlets to inform them of the issue? Obviously, there will have to be a realistic time period. Reporting a bug to Apple and then contacting the media five days later is, in my humble opinion, absurd. But what is a good number for the amount of time after an issue is reported (and documented, say on applevis) to the time when you would then contact a media outlet like 9to5. Coming up with a realistic number is a very important step.
Also we need to consider the
Also we need to consider the update cycle. It might be that they fix it fairly quickly but may wait to push out that IOS update as other things are being sorted or bugs being quashed. So, just summarising:
1. We need to have a means of knowing how many people have reported the same bug to apple.
2. We need to know when apple first became aware of the bug.
3. We need to establish a timeline, either next release or x number of weeks after the apple first becomes aware of the bug.
4. If it is fixed, great, we all have a big hug and go about our day or:
5. We highlight the lack of movement by apple, dependent on the severity of the bug, to a media outlet including the number of people who have reported it, its severity and how long we have been waiting for a solution.
Suggestions?
How many
The issue with losing VO when ending a call or trying to answer a call has been around since iOS 131. They fix several bugs that were reported but this. Now I just finishd a call and VO went out. This is not acceptable to me speciallyafter several releases of iOS. Suppose you are an emergency and VO does not work. What can you do. Before people start saying well press power button to turn VO off and on or ask siri to do so, that is not an answer.
Why isn't there a common repository of knowledge
Yeah, this whole email thing isn't good enough. I don't care that there are bugs, I just need to know what's the current state of voiceover for an interactive webpage. If people are experiencing the same thing. If there are workarounds for a developer. If there aren't.
Also the snarky comment from https://www.applevis.com/blog/found-accessibility-bug-ios-ipados-macos-watchos-or-tvos-here-s-how-let-apple-know-and-why-you " So, sit back, and accept that you would be happier that their time was spent working to find fixes and add new features rather than writing emails." was not appreciated. Instead of having a shitty email system where you may or may not just send an email into a void, have a system that keeps developers up to date with the quirks and bugs with VoiceOver. NVDA and JAWS does that. Why can't VoiceOver. (https://www.digitala11y.com/how-where-to-report-accessibility-bugs/)
This whole situation is ridiculous.
Youtube
Now whenever I watch a video about iOS 13.1.3, iOS 13.2 beta and anything to do with apps related to iPhone or watch, I make comments. I did so in several one about the best apps for iPhone and watch and express my concern that accessibility was not address regarding the app. Concerning iOS 13.2. Specially when the person were stating how good the iOS. I do not have twitt. I am waiting for 9to5 to post a video about it so I can go and comment about it.
Mosen podcast
Just listen to JonathanMosen podcast at large. He made a great comment about accessibility with Microsoft, google and apple and how they react with media such as twitt respond to accessibility. I agreed %100 regarding his comment. Apple does not respond well with questions via email or support when using twitt yet via support vby phone good job. It is interesting that he uses Windows 10 and not a Mac since 2016.
AppleInsider
FYI. This week I sent an email to Victor from apple insider sharing our concerns regarding bugs in voiceover and Braille. Today in his podcast, he acknowledge applevis.com and the issues we are having with voiceover. He did a great job talking about how apple need to address this issues. He suggested that he may use voiceover for a week to see. Hope he does so. Thanks to Bella the cat for suggesting that. I sent him today an email saying thanks. Also I encourage him to use voiceover for a week. It is nice that someone from the regular podcast about apple responded. 9to5 never responded to my email, I sent to a person talking about iOS 13.2 So I am doing my part.
Great job
Great job. Your efforts are appreciated. It’s important to to reach out and communicate frustrations as much as possible. That way, people are aware of it. The more people are aware of it, the more the right people will hear about it and maybe make an effort to make changes
where is everyone at?
Hi,
How is everyone getting on with reporting the bugs as outlined earlier in this thread? Any or many responses from apple accessibility?
A frustration for me is having no reply, feels very much like yelling into the grand canyon... Not that I've ever been there. It would be nice to at, at the very least, have my email acknowledged.
Also, well done to Holger Fiallo for taking the inishtive on the media front. It would be interesting to find out how many bugs are discovered in such a short use case scenario.
this also makes me think that we should have a rating system for bugs. Possibly 1 to 5 with 1 being a nuisance to you, such as I found the status bar on previous builds, and 5 being a bug that grows horns, crashes through the screen and consumes your families... Or maybe VoiceOver completely seizing up... Which ever.
Maybe, when talking about the bugs between ourselves, we could use this rating to clarify which are more pressing which might also be useful for apple accessibility when trying to parse our input.
what do you think?
No rpelies here bgut just
No rpelies here bgut just reported
* Feedback · FB7425432
* Feedback · FB7423972
* Feedback · FB7420939
* Feedback · FB7412066
That's about it. We'll see if I even get a response. This by the way within the last 2 days.
thanks for that update. It
thanks for that update. It seems, in my experience, that accessibility will respond to clarify in two or three days, anything after that and you'll be lucky to hear anything further. Also, due to the time difference I think a lot of my bug flags are dropping into an inbox out of hours. Maybe I should be more strategic. Report early evening here so the morning back log is cleared in the states.
In my case I Hear not a thing
In my case I Hear not a thing. But I'm on beta and using the feedback utility. So we'll see. I do normally hear not a thing when on the public ring either though and that's after sending usability memorandum of about 2-3 pages with details and links to diag files etc.
The last back and forth I had
The last back and forth I had was regarding the failure of VoiceOver commanders with the apple scripts which was just after the Mac OS 15 update. Since then it has been quiet. I'm hoping that's a good sign and they are busy fixing everything in their magical workshop.
Can anyone confirm the bug in
Can anyone confirm the bug in the video app where tapping on see all, it doesn't matter which section you use, voiceover doesn't see anything.
For instance, go to the watch now tab, pick something like kids tv shows, keep swiping past the 2 or 3 shows that's already listed and you'll come to a button labelled see all.
Double tap on that, what use to happen is you would get a larger list of kids shows.
I think they broke it when 13.1 was released, because it was working in 13.0.
It doesn't have to be for kids shows, pick another category and it's the same result.
Hopefully I described it wel enough for someone else to reproduce, assuming it's not just on my iPhone 6S.
Can you reproduce this in 13
Can you reproduce this in 13.2? I took the videos app off of my phone and am about to crash. Today has ben long and I'm not feeling so hot right now but let's hope someone who has the app can reproduce. Send apple as always a systums diagnose and a screen cap using the screen recording tool we now have in ios.
I can confirm this bug in the
I can confirm this bug in the TV app. I think I've already sent a message to apple but will send another. Thanks for reminding. Very annoying considering Apple TV is supposed to be one of their new front line products...
Thanks for confirming, I also
Thanks for confirming, I also wrote to them so we'll see if there's any results.
Hopefully my email didn't go into the void.
Response
It's just the canned response but they did reply on this:
Hello,
Thank you for your email. We appreciate the feedback and wanted to let you know that Apple is currently investigating this issue. We cannot comment on when it may be resolved.
Apple Accessibility
... Which is certainly better than silence, so thank you apple accessibility, if you are reading this. Knowing that our emails are being received and read is really nice.
See All
Yep, I am also encountering the bug described in the Watch Now tab. I have 13.2 installed on an iPhone 11.
Will contact Apple Accessibility shortly...
In the meantime, any suggestions as to how long we should give Apple time to respond to reported bugs?
Correct me if I'm wrong as I believe there have been four updates since iOS13. So, perhaps 10 working days? Certainly no more than a month.
Feedback Utility
I’m also in the beta program. I’ve noticed that I will only get response in three cases.
The first is on a large scale reporting. Which the the boiler plate response. We are aware, looking into the issue.
The second, Can you provide more information.
The third, We have corrected issue. Can you confirm with your issue.
Otherwise; it’s usually just crickets.
Yep I'm getting mostly chirp
Yep I'm getting mostly chirp chirps here. But I know that the issues are beeing reported as I see it on my twitter feed, so we'll see. I'ts too bad I have to be responsible for closign my own bugs as some I forget to close for about almost 10 years.
Time limit
Regarding time limits, what should be our next move should there be little or no progress in updates?
My suggestion is not time, rather the number of incremental updates that have occurred. I reported the bug with the see all button, as an example, in iOS 13.0. We are now on 13.2 and it hasn't been resolved. there have been two chances for it to be included in the update, so, as patient as I am, I do think it's taking too long.
The next question is, what do we do should there be no resolution to the problem in, for example, 13.3? I know we have spoken about media coverage but, unless we get heavy handed and combine all the bugs and our greviences in a press release that we can circulate, these individual issues are not news worthy. By the time you finish explaining this particularly issue to any non VoiceOver user, they'll be asleep. It's the key aspect of any reporting to ask the question, who cares?
So, I'm open to other ideas to force hands if absolutely necessary but, we must also bare in mind the work that has and is being put into VoiceOver and the means of its integration with apple's products and beyond. I hate using the word 'should', they should do this, or should not do that, because it's a very shaky foundation for an argument. What I will say is, apple don't have to improve anything they do. They could kill development dead of VoiceOver and still be within guidelines of accessible products. Though it is frustrating to see features break or new features that introduce bugs, we need to remember that this is all being done on good faith and, admittedly, for good Pr. Either way, I am grateful and this is why I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me unless I really have to.
That was a terrible metaphor...
if apple
If the bugs don't get fixed in more than two or three updates, the media should be contacted I think. Speaking of bugs... On applewatch, 1. Turn on voiceover.
2. On the watch face, turn on autospeak for any item of your chice. Tipical behavier: When apple watch is powered off / on, or after restart, the autospeak for the item should still be enabled so that when watch face comes up, voiceover should say the time, followed by the item or items you have autospeak turned on for.
Current behavior: after items have been selected for autospeak, after watch is powered back on / restarted, after watch face comes up, voiceover will say the time, but the items selected for autospeak will be disabled, needing the user to enable autospeak for the item or items.
This is a miner bug, but its annoying as heck. Will resort it to apple soon. Can anyone confirm? What voice are you using. On my case using siri voice, but does this happen to those using samantha have encountered this bug too?:
The bug with the see all
The bug with the see all button in the tv app is at most a minor annoyance.
I reported it because I actually found it useful, and I was surprised to get a response, based on what most of you were saying, messages go into the void.
Mine was a similar response to the one above, but I suppose a canned reply is better than no reply at all.
Hello,Â
 Thank you for your email and for bringing this to our attention. I will file a report on this with the appropriate teams.Â
Apple Accessibility.
I guess if they spent their time responding to emails, then nothing would get done.
Apple
Did people ever take the time to check apple insider? He did address how apple just deal with our bugs and that they need to be more responsive to our needs. I did my part like I stated. Did anyone here attempted to contact 9to5 mac? or other podcast or webpages that focus on Apple products? I hear people talk about reporting bugs which is good but if you just get the same respond from apple what is the point? Is time for some of you to start reaching out to the main media like I did.
Mine is direct via the
Mine is direct via the feedback app, my feedback submitted, but that's because I'm in the beta.
As for the watch issue I really won't be able to reproduce it as I have not restarted my watch in about 2 months. But now that I think of it you are right, my auto speak items did go away. I just though I didn't set them up after the last update so didn't even give it a second thought.
Siri voice in iPhone
Whenever I turn VO, my default voice which is Siri male goes away and Siri female becomes the default for 40 or 1 hour. Eventually he comes back. Maybe he went to the bathroom and she took over until he came back?
a restart
restarting the apple watch is not necessary, it'll happen too if you just power off / on
I don’t think people know how to reach Apple insider/other media
I don’t think that other people are really aware of how to actually reach Apple insider, 9-to-5 Mac, or other media entities. It’s great that you were able to reach out to them. Maybe you can make an effort to provide information as to how we all might email or reach out to these entities.
Apple maybe using AI to fix bugs
I think I read somewhere about a year and a half ago that Apple was using artificial intelligence software to seek out and resolve bugs. I don’t know if this is actually true. Moreover, I’m not sure if it’s in the testing stage or actually being used by the engineers. But it could be one of the reasons why it’s taking so long to resolve bugs. If it is an artificial intelligence, it might not be detecting the issues or it might not have figured out how to resolve the issues. if any program or software is being used to detect bugs, it could be early days in its overall beneficial usability. It might be learning as it goes.
Again I have no way of knowing if this is actually true and I don’t want to stir the pot anymore than it’s been stirred. Just putting in one thought about the possibility of how things are changing in there work to resolve issues. It could end up being a wonderful thing as bugs might end up being squashed more consistently as this possible solution progresses
A couple of things
Hi, just a couple of things:
1. The beta program sounds great, especially the ability to contact apple directly however, I won't be joining it for a variety of reasons mainly, I don't have time to report all the bugs that are in a supposed stable build let alone the time to report ones that are in an expectedly buggy version. We should still continue to report bugs to accessibility even if they appear to be fixed in betas as they can always roll back changes for public releases.
2. It is a personal choice to contact the media over these issues. Let me say this now, all of these things are personal steps to take and holding others accountable isn't needed. Some people are highly invested in solving problems such as those on the beta, some have other commitments and only fire off a couple of bug reports, both are fine and both are great. Act in a way you feel comfortable and others do the same. As I mentioned, I am loath to contact the media regarding the problems I am facing as I don't yet think it necessary. If the bugs I have reported are not resolved soon though, I will first write to apple accessibility informing them of my intentions too see if this will elicit a less ambiguous reply.
Nice work everyone. Its good to read a thread that has nearly reached 100 comments and hasn't either gone too far off topic and hasn't reverted to a punch-up.
As the previous commenter asks, could you provide the contact details, the email and twitter handle of the people you have contacted and attempted to contact at both apple insider and apple 9 to 5 just so those who want to contact them have the means?
O
Twitt or facebook
I do not use those but if most of you do, the articles from places like 9to5 mac or others have a twitt or facebook contact. If someone is going to wait for bugs to be fix, you are going to wait forever. What is the point of this topic? First you suggest talking about what else we can do about this. Second that we need to do more about just reporting. PS. Not you guy, Oliver.
I think we've done well here.
I think we've done well here. I've certainly learned from all you commenters of a better way to focus frustrations in clear and explicit reports to apple. I feel that all we can do is present the options to those who want them and leave it in their hands to use or not use the resources. My idea was to compile ways of approaching the problem for those who wished to and not to solicit action or to say that others are not doing enough.
I'm a little busy at the moment but will try to compile what we have covered here into a single post including bug reporting, contacting the press and so on.
Did we come up with a timeline? EG, bug first noticed to the point we first contact apple to say we are unhappy and will be contacting media streams to actually doing so?
If the community really wants to go all in with the media thing, we need to compile solid evidence such as timelines, severity of bugs etc and create a press release which can then be circulated. Again, this seems a rather heavy handed approach and a difficult thing to justify based on anecdotal evidence.
Thoughts?