The Accessibility Bugs in iOS 8: From Serious To Minor

By AppleVis, 17 September, 2014

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

***Update 17 November 2014: More of these bugs have been fixed in iOS 8.1.1. See our post for more details: Apple Releases iOS 8.1.1 with Fixes for Blind and Low Vision Users***

***Update 20 October 2014: A number of these bugs have been fixed in iOS 8.1. See our post for more details: Apple Releases iOS 8.1 With a Number Of Fixes And Improvements For Blind And Low Vision Users***

Detailed in this post are possible accessibility bugs which members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have identified during their testing of iOS 8. If you have not already updated your iDevice to iOS 8, we strongly recommend that you read through this post and any comments before doing so, as we believe that there are a number of bugs in this release which might have a significant impact on the user experience for some blind and low vision users.

However, we do need to stress at the offset that our testing of iOS 8 has been somewhat limited. We are only a small team, and in most cases have only installed and used iOS 8 on a single device. Also, some of the bugs listed have not been encountered by all members of the Team. So, please bear in mind that it is possible that problems mentioned below will not be present on all iDevices or in all use cases. It is also possible that, in some instances, we are simply mistaken. Accordingly, we would really appreciate feedback from those who have installed iOS 8 - 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 here). This post explains why and the best ways to do it.

With all of the disclaimers out of the way, here are the problems that we have encountered to date. For this release, we have grouped them based upon what we believe to be there likely level of impact to the user experience:

Serious Bugs

  1. In Braille options (Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Braille), changing the setting for Status Cell from "off" to either left or right will cause VoiceOver to stop working completely. The only way to get VoiceOver back is to set the cell back to "off", and to do that one will need sighted help since VoiceOver is completely inoperative. Toggling VoiceOver with the shortcut, telling Siri to turn VoiceOver off and back on, restarting the device - nothing works except changing the status cell option. Additionally, it now appears as though this bug will also present itself when upgrading from an earlier version of iOS if the status cell is set to either Left or Right-necessitating that the VoiceOver user turn the Status Cell to "off" before the upgrade.

  2. In many applications, the screen does not automatically scroll to follow the movement of VoiceOver focus as you swipe through the page. This causes problems when focus lands on an actionable element which is not visually displayed on screen, as you cannot interact with it. For example, the screen does not scroll when flicking through an email. So, if there is an attachment at the bottom of the message, double-tapping on it may not open it as you would expect. One exception is links, where the screen will scroll to their location when focus moves to them. However, moving focus beyond the link will cause the screen to scroll back to its previous position. This behaviour has been encountered in a large number of apps. When this results in VoiceOver focus landing on actionable elements which are visually not being displayed on the screen, it is likely to be confusing and extremely frustrating to users who will not know why a gesture isn't working. The only workaround is to use the 3-finger swipe up/down to bring the desired element on to the screen, locate it by touch, and then double-tap.

  3. Various problems have been reported when using a bluetooth keyboard, including duplicate and skipped characters; conflicts with QuickNav when accessing text fields; VoiceOver-specific controls not working; and VoiceOver occasionally crashing and restarting.

  4. When using the Share option to send a message from outside of the stock Messages app (such as sharing a recording from Voice Memos), double-tapping on the "Send" button does nothing. To successfully send the message, one must disable VoiceOver and attempt to find the "Send" button with no spoken feedback.

  5. Once in awhile if one uses the Keypad to dial a number, they may encounter a stuck key. For example, as you press a number you will hear the DTMF tone for that number. At times, a number will seem to get stuck in that the DTMF tone will keep playing. One must do a reset of the phone to make it stop. We have also found that pressing the same key a second time or removing the Phone app from the App Switcher is sometimes enough to fix the problem without resorting to a complete restart. Reports suggest that this problem is only present when using Touch Typing Mode.

  6. QuickNav appears not to work with a Braille display. Enabling it is supposed to be done with space and Q, but VoiceOver always reports that it is on, thus suggesting it's never on. Pressing H for heading, F for text field, etc, yield no results. This problem has been seen on a Braille Sense Plus and Vareo Ultra.

  7. Using the Handwriting mode crashes VoiceOver. VoiceOver will restart itself in a few seconds, but this does make handwriting unusable.

  8. In Safari, using the Back button or Scrub gesture to return to the previous page will result in VoiceOver becoming near unusable. VoiceOver will read an item if you locate it by touch, but flicking will not move focus. The only workaround it to locate the Reload button and double-tap.

Moderate Bugs

  1. In the lock screen, when a user receives a new Notification, VoiceOver sometimes does not announce the Notification nor the content of the Notification. You will only hear the chime or the default sound for that Notification and nothing else is announced. Conversely, sometimes VoiceOver speaks the entire notification instead of announcing the time and the number of pending notifications.

  2. VoiceOver fails to read the caller ID for incoming calls on the iPhone, whether on the lock screen or while the phone is unlocked. The information is still displayed, and you can touch the screen to find it, but it is no longer announced automatically. A temporary workaround is to enable “Always Speak Notifications” in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver. However, note that this will have privacy implications.

  3. When in a message thread's details screen, if the thread has attachments, VoiceOver is sluggish and may even crash when flicking right through the attachments for the first time. Flicking left, or even right past any attachments VoiceOver has already encountered, works fine. It is only attachments VoiceOver has not yet seen that cause the problem.

  4. On the “All” tab of the Notification Center, the "Clear Section" buttons are announced as "Confirm Clear Section", even if you have not activated them. You still must double tap twice to clear a section, but you will hear "Confirm Clear Section" both times. Additionally, VoiceOver gives no audible feedback to indicate that the gesture was successful.

  5. In the Featured Tab of the App Store, VoiceOver focus will loop continually through a carousel of highlighted items displayed near the top of the page. The only way to force focus out of this loop is to tap elsewhere on the screen.

  6. When double-tapping on the name of a contact in App Switcher to reveal the available contact options, VoiceOver does not announce the identifying label when there are multiple options for the same contact method - for example, home, work and cellular telephone numbers will all be read as simply "phone call".

  7. When first opening the App Switcher you can move through all of the listed contacts by flicking left/right. However, after double-tapping on a contact to reveal the available contact options, flicking will no longer move VoiceOver focus through all of the contacts. Instead, you have to use the 3-finger swipe left/right to make VoiceOver see all of the listed contacts.

  8. In some apps the screen will auto-lock whilst VoiceOver is in the process of reading text (generally when reading a long block of text). If you have disabled the auto lock in Settings > General > Autolock, this will not affect you.

  9. In some circumstances it is not possible to move app icons on the Home screen. This seems to be particularly problematic for those located in the row of icons directly above the Dock.

  10. When browsing the list of subscription options available in Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive, VoiceOver announces only the price, not the amount of storage space that you get with the package. For reference, as of the time of this writing, the $0.99 per month is 20GB, $3.99 is 200GB, $9.99 is 500GB, and $19.99 is 1TB.

  11. If you tell Siri to add a reminder or Calendar event, it will display your event along with the cancel/confirm buttons. However, Siri speech may be silent or speak a couple words at most, and the prompt for you to speak the action you'd like is never given. This is with Siri's speech feedback set to "always", which works when using Siri for other tasks.

  12. Upon first downloading the Alex TTS Voice, VoiceOver fails to switch automatically from the voice in use while the Alex download was in progress. One must turn VoiceOver off, then reenable it.

  13. The button to purchase an item from the iTunes Store does not always respond to a double-tap. It is reported that in some cases a double-tap and hold on the button may work, followed by another double-tap and hold to confirm the purchase.

  14. When using a Braille display, using space with F prompts you to search for text, but this only works like the search box in the item chooser. It is also case sensitive.

  15. On occasions, VoiceOver will not announce that an email folder is empty when you tap or swipe onto the area of the screen where any email messages would be listed. Instead, the only audible feedback is a muted ‘clunk’ tone. The behavior has been seen in both smart folders and regular folders.

  16. When writing a draft email, flicking left past the "cancel" button will not move you to the "minimize draft" button (which is visually located directly below the status bar). Similarly, touching the minimize button will focus on it, but you cannot then flick right to get to the rest of the page. This is doubly problematic as the button is small, so many users may not realize it is even there since they cannot flick to it and touch exploration can easily miss it.

  17. The VoiceOver Keyboard echo setting is unreliable. It does not take effect in 3rd party apps and some stock asps such as Messages. As a result, keys are always echoed. The only noticeable difference is that the pitch of the echo appears to vary based upon the setting selected.

  18. There are some issues with iBooks created using iBooks Author. Notably, the drag and drop widget does not work with VoiceOver; VoiceOver does not announce if a selected answer is correct in iBooks reviews; and the reviews widget does not show the letter buttons to VoiceOver users.

  19. In Braille screen input, the space (one-finger flick right) does not register roughly half the time. It is not misinterpreted as a dot 4, since no dot 4 is entered, it is simply ignored. This makes Braille very frustrating to use.

  20. In Braille screen input, when deleting or entering text, a sound sometimes plays, the same sound made if you try to flick past the end or start of a screen. The character is usually deleted/entered, as far as we can tell, but the sound precludes any speech feedback so users will have no idea what is going on. Plus, sometimes, the character is not deleted and you have to use the on-screen keyboard to delete it instead.

  21. Occasionally, when using the 2-fingered double-tap to answer a call, audio playback will resume rather than the call being answered.

  22. Some users have reported that the 2-fingered double-tap does not always answer or end a call (most likely related to the above bug).

  23. When searching the App Store, the Clear button will remove any previous search from the text field, but VoiceOver will continue to read what was previously entered in the search field … even after you enter a completely new search. The same happens if you delete characters individually.

  24. Some users have reported problems using the multitasking gestures available on the iPad.

  25. In Safari, VoiceOver will not speak the accessible name of HTML input controls that have a programmatically associated label, whether implicit or explicit.

  26. If you have your device set to use the 24 hour time format, when viewing hourly forecasts in the Stock Weather app, VoiceOver only reads the time for the hours between 0:00 and 11:00.

Minor Bugs

Setup

  1. Updating the device from iOS 7.1.x to iOS 8 will not remember the VoiceOver Typing Preference.

General

  1. When automatically switching languages, VoiceOver triggers compact voices even if the premium versions are installed.

  2. When in a Group Message, at the top right hand corner is the "Details" button. Flick once to the right and you will land on an Unlabeled button. This button seems to do the same thing as the "Details" button.

  3. When using the Group message facility, the button to add a title to the conversation is not detected by VoiceOver.

  4. When you have issued a say all command (a two finger flick up or down), VoiceOver ignores all incoming notifications instead of pausing to speak them. This is a feature, but notifications from the Messages app are an exception. In other words, VoiceOver will ignore all notifications except incoming texts; those usually cause VoiceOver to stop reading entirely.

  5. In the Mail app, when you have a draft minimized, VoiceOver's focus is affected. Elements are out of order as you flick left or right, you suddenly get stuck and cannot move past an element, or you get into loops where VoiceOver keeps moving between a few elements as you flick left or right, and never moves beyond those few. Sending or canceling the draft, so the "x drafts in progress" message is gone from the bottom of the window, is enough to restore things to normal.

  6. In the stock iOS Calendar app, you can double tap and hold on an event, then move a finger up or down to adjust its start or end time. However, VoiceOver offers no feedback as to the new time as you move your finger, so you must move, lift your finger, check the new time, then try again to make this work at all.

  7. When VoiceOver focus is on an item in the Dock, a 3-fingered swipe to the left or right will no longer move your through Home screen pages (It is possible that this is by design).

  8. When browsing the Still Photo Wallpapers available in Settings > Wallpaper > Choose, VoiceOver reads what appears to be the internal file name for the picture.

  9. When using some third-party keyboards, the status bar is duplicated directly above the top row of the keyboard.

Tags

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Apple
Braille
iOS
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Comments

By sockhopsinger on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Without yet having downloaded iOS8, it sounds like this thing is buggier than a South Georgia swamp! I guess getting the product out was more important than getting it right.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I do think we should have been told about these issues once it was known they were present in the GM release, and speaking for myself I am going nowhere near the update as it sounds like CBT didn't do all the bugs justice. Bluetooth has been buggy in ios7, but it sounds like the problem is much worse under ios8. It will be interesting to see if bugs are still around on actual new devices, but I suppose there is no reason to think they won't be.

By Tree on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

You guys have done an amazing job with this information. A few of those bugs seem pretty bad and as any long time apple user knows sometimes bugs seem to take up permanent residence. Lets hope that at the very least Apple fixes most of the new major bugs. I have been waiting for third party keyboards for years and it looks like I am going to have to keep waiting.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me as if ever sense tim cook and johny iv have taken control of the company, the logo seems to be crank it out, rush it out, overlook important things like voiceover. I'm going no where near the iOS eight update until I know this stuffs fixed.

By Aaron C on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I've been running IOS8 for the past week on a 4S, and I would strongly encourage anyone, especially if you're on a 4S, to not upgrade yet, if at all. My phone is still semi-usable, but it got a whole lot less pleasant.

By blindgator on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Great job as always by the team compiling this list for the community. I typically upgrade early but after reading over this list I am going to wait as it seems the cons way out number the pros in the Alex voice and third party keyboards. Apple must be down to one dude working on VoiceOver to release an operating system with this many VO bugs. Very disappointing and a major step backwards as far as Apple and accessibility goes.

By Mike Freeman on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Given the bugs listed in this article, I'm certainly not going to update immediately, either.
Interestingly, Bug #2 under "Major Bugs" is present under iOS 7.1.2 using the latest version of Pandora so that what may be happening is that some change needed for iOS 8 compatibility may be causing the bug rather than or in addition to any underlying bug in iOS 8 itself.
I agree with a previous contributor that Apple seems to be slipping a bit and opine that those who worship Apple viz. accessibility should take note just how high (or not-so-high) VoiceOver access has these days in Apple's thinking.

By dvdmth on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I find this list of problems to be quite informative. Although the list is long, I only saw a couple that might be an issue for me personally. I'll have to consider whether or not those issues are enough to keep me from upgrading.

For those saying this is a step backward for Apple, I am willing to give them a little slack here. This update is said to be the biggest update to iOS since the App Store, and a lot of things have changed under the hood. I'll bet there are plenty of problems that people will encounter with iOS 8, not just accessibility related. I heard someone who was involved in testing iOS 8 advising everyone to hold off for a while, unless they have to have something in the new OS, because of the high likelihood of things not working right.

Apple would probably choose to hold off on iOS 8 until it is more stable, but they are unfortunately in a spot where they pretty much have to release the new version now, or else they will take a lot of heat for any further delay for features many people are saying are long overdue.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Jonathan mosen tweeted that there is a bug where if audio is playing and you two finger double tap to answer a call sometimes audio is resumed rather than the call being answered. I hope all these issues have been reported to apple accessibility. For me the big reasons not to update are issues with Bluetooth keyboard typing which was a little buggy under 7 but sounds like it is worse under 8, and also the bug with numbers getting stuck in the phone app when on a call. Also screen scrolling issues sound bad and annoying. think I will wait for ios 8.0.1 to come out before considering it. May also hold off getting a new device til then as well.

By Alana on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

With all the beta testing, the serious bugs should have been resolved at the very least.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I guess none of the people who work on apple accessibility have friends or family who use VoiceOver and none of them personally rely on it.

By Kerby on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Before we jump all over Apple about taking a step backward in accessibility, etc., I think we need to just wait and see what happens when they iron out all of the bugs which I'm sure they'll do pretty quickly. You're always going to have bugs with any major upgrade of an operating system at first release and as stated in an earlier post, they probably had no choice in releasing this upgrade today due to contractual obligations I'm sure

By Siobhan on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all. I've tried the audio messages feature, and it seems a bit strange to use. There's no reliable way to know you're recording. Sure you get that tri-tone thing, but not even a quick vibration. Second, I think the battery life might have improved. Yet the reasons I want to downgrade, it seems like the iPhone five is sluggish now. in everything from closing an app, to pressing the home button to get well, home. I know apple has to fix the health kit but maybe they'll send out a mini update? Wish alex would've been on the iPhone five. I understand it wouldn't be possible on smaller devices.Still not wanting a six, if I want touch id that much I'll just go and get an ipad mini or air.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

remember upgrading is a 1 way street, once done you can't go back, so you should read through this bug list and have a long hard think.

By Missy Hoppe on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone at Applevis for testing and making us aware of these bugs. IOS 7 was my first ever IOS, as I got my IPhone 5S last October, so I've never been through a major update before. With that being said, though, it sounds like there are a lot more very serious bugs than usual this year. Given that the only feature of IOS 8 I was genuinely looking forward to was the ability to use the Alex voice, I will most definitely wait for at least 1 or 2 updates to come out before I even think about updating my phone. Over the past almost year, I'm gotten a lot more comfortable with IOS than I ever imagined I would, but I'm by no means anywhere near comfortable enough with it to attempt muddling through with some of these bugs. I'm genuinely baffled that Apple released something with this many serious bugs.

Oh well. Thanks again to the Applevis team for all their hard work. It is extremely appreciated.

By Edward Alonzo on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

great job apple vis and wonderful job on all the great podcasts and reviews and bug reports. sadly, this is going to keep me from upgrading too untill some of these bugs get squashed. I to think thats why there were all these betas to try and squash all thest bugs but I guess you can't iron out everything on the first releese.

By Herbie Allen on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I have been running the IOS8 Beta on my iPhone 5S for several months and I have found that when in the iTunes store you can tripple tap the prie and purchase buttons instead of double tapping and it will register using voiceover.

By chris R on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all.

Using an iPhone 5S, I am actually very surprised at how fast the operating system seems to be for me. It seems much faster than iOS 7, especially with the Alex voice. I haven't encountered anything that is disrupting my workflow yet rea the bugs above.
Also, it is very easy to downgrade back to iOS 7.1, you can download the .ipswa file for the OS from many plaices on the internet like [website address removed] and I have downgraded before fairly easily using files from that link. Just make sure you have a full back up available from before you upgraded and you can restore everything from that after restoring the OS.
:-)

By Michael Hansen on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hello Chris and all,

Generally speaking, downgrading to an earlier version of iOS is not possible once Apple stops authenticating iOS 7.1.2 instalations.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

its not possible to downgrade once a new ios version comes out, because when you install ios during installation it phones home and checks in with apple, and apple will start refusing to install old ios versions once new ones come out, so it will not be possible to downgrade to ios7 now ios8 is out officially and out of beta.

By Robert A.M. on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hello,

I've been testing the Gold Master version of iOS 8 on a third generation iPad for the last week and have found even more serious bugs when using a bluetooth keyboard than what has been listed here:

1. The shortcuts to move the VO cursor to the first or last element on the screen (Control +up or down arrow ), or to scroll a page up or down (Option + up or down arrow) do not work.
2. To type on any textfield, I first need to disable QuickNav, otherwise pressing the letter keys does nothing.

Fortunately this is just my test device, not the one I use for work, otherwise I would truly be in serious problems... This is why I believe that the Applevis team should allow for beta, or at least Gold Master, versions of iOS to be discussed on the site as soon as they are available.

Regards!

Yes, definitely, but that's only new devices at first, and we generally have a few months before apple stops all installations, in order that people can downgrade temporarily if they want to.
I may be wrong, but I thought that was the situation, unless that's only for betas before the public Release.

By alex wallis on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Chris, please will you do some research before posting something like the above comment? it really wouldn't be good for people to read something like that and to decide to give ios 8 a try just because they think they can downgrade. In point of fact signing of old ios versions usually stops directly after or within an hour or two of release of a new version. In fact, I believe that noted jailbreakers have already commented you can't go back to ios 7, meaning that apple have stopped signing the old version of ios. if they haven't yet they will do very soon.

By Siobhan on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all. First, i was only considering downgrading, i don't trust strange file names from sites I know little about. Second, I made my bed as it were.The only serious annoyance I have is the key echo problem. oh and Voice over did crash hard core. Here's a bug too. If you leave an app, say Facebook, click home, and tap the screen, there's no feedback for a delay of a second or so. Annoying but usable. Don't care for the caller Id not being read, but at least i can find it. I'm not sorry i upgraded, but I hope these things get fixed soon. Has anyone noticed this site laoding very slow today? Just asking.

By chris R on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Let me apologise for giving out incorrect information. There are a lot of conflicting Messages out there about downgrading: I was just raising the point having been successful in previous efforts to downgrade. I may have confused beta versions with public releases.
So yes, you can't downgrade now the public version has been released.
:-)

By Becky Manners on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all:

First, as others have said, thanks to the team who has compiled this list.

I'm writing about problems with a bluetooth keyboard.

I can turn quick-nav off and on, can type with quick-nav off and can move through screens with quick-nav on.

I cannot use the control option/vo key combination to do anything though. Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks,

Becky Manners

By Jalys Ortiz on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hey, all,
I don't know if I'm just lucky or what, but so far, iOS 8 on my 5S is working pretty smoothly. :) The only bug I really encountered was that after installing Alex, I had to turn VoiceOver off with a triple-click of the home button, then repeat the action to turn it back on. Also, I had to go in and change my input AND output settings for my Braille display (I use a Braille Sense U2). For a few minutes after I upgraded, VoiceOver kept kicking me out of the 'sounds' settings, but it's not been doing that anymore ever since I restarted it for Alex.
I honestly don't regret the upgrade, because I've been able to play with it myself and figure out my own solutions to things. While I do agree that the Braille Input feature is a bit irritating, and I'm just using Touch Typing and my Braille Display for now, we have to take into account the fact that this is the first time Apple has decided to make Braille Input a global option, and the only true way they were going to get any proper feedback about what needs to be fixed is through the users.
iOS 8 is also a brand new operating system, so of course there are going to be some things that need to be worked out. But again, as the visually impaired community, we should also try our best to inform Apple of the problems we're encountering as customers. Upgrading is a personal choice; I'm the first to say that. Though at the very top of this article, AppleVis even states that they are a small team of testers, and not all bugs were encountered by everyone.
Thank you so much, AppleVis team, for giving us tutorials and guides for the new release of iOS 8. Keep up the great work! <3

By jcdjmac (not verified) on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all,
I agree with every post, but so far no bugs on my end. sure some users may encounter bugs, but again, either work your way around it, or wait for another update. as repeated before, once you upgrade to iOS 8, you cannot go back to a previous version. and besides the alex voice runs a lot faster on my iPhone 5s. anyways, amazing job on the post!

By Monty on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I've generally embraced new iOS updates, installing the GM builds as soon as they're available. I've done this since iOS5. But this update has me a bit worried. I have an iPhone 5, and it's solid for my use cases running 7.1.2. What I can't understand is, how could so many bugs get passed the beta testing stage and make it to final release? Not getting caller ID automatic read back, and not being able to double tap the purchase button in iTunes is pretty serious to me. I'd be curious to see how users of iPhone 5's who have upgraded to iOS8 have faired with all the bugs. I'm pretty sure though that for the first time since iOS5, I won't be upgrading until at least the first update following today's release.

That was my point as well. I know AppleVis has a smaller team, but somebody from Apple's accessibility department should have looked into this many bugs at the release time. Yes, I appreciate this was a major update so I expect a few bugs, but bugs involving scrolling and focusing sound pretty serious to me. From what I understand if voiceOver says that it is focused on an item not visually displaying on the screen, that would be frustrating for a totally blind user as they would have no way of confirming what is visually displayed unless they can ask somebody. Numbers getting stuck; that is another thing to be concerned about.

By Alana on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Aside from the Alex voice, how would anybody compare the voice quality of iOS 8 to the voices in iOS 7?

By Brooke on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I'm in the same situation as Monty. I've got an iPhone 5 and have decided not to upgrade until another update is released fixing some of the bugs. I did upgrade my iPad Mini and have noticed major focus issues for VO, along with the bug of having each letter repeated twice when typing in an edit field. The Braille keyboard doesn't seem to work well at all on the Mini, but I'm guessing it would work better on the smaller screen of a phone. I do like having the Alex voice though!

I've also noticed, as someone else mentioned, that the site has been slow to load today. I'm guessing lots of us all trying to do the same things at the same time could have something to do with it?

By J.P. on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

The bugs in 8 are horrendous! Thank god I only updated iPod. The focus and not being able to move from header to header. Upgrade broke Fleksy VO. I won't upgrade phone or iPads. Should have waited on iPhone 6.
There are always bugs, but don't remember any this bad... Since I started with 4.

By Mattie SV on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hello all! I upgraded today to IOS 8 and overall, things appear to be alright. However, I must say I have not had the opportunity to explore the OS too much. Also, I did notice that Siri and Voiceover on my iPhone 5s are not playing well together! I use Siri a lot, and this is kind of annoying! Everytime I try to correspond with Siri, she is interrupted by Voiceover most of the time and does not complete correspondence with me. The only way Siri completes correspondence with me is if I temporarily disable Voiceover. I have also notified Apple's Accessibility Team about this and I hope it is fixed soon!

By Jalys Ortiz on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

They're pretty much the same, hun. :) You have the options for compact/non-compact, etc etc. I haven't tried the other languages that aren't English, though, so hopefully someone can elaborate.

By Jalys Ortiz on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi! :)
I've actually been playing with the Braille input on my iPhone, and it's a bit frustrating. :/ But I'm sure that it'll see many improvements over the coming releases, especially since this is a fairly new thing for Apple. For now, though, I'm sticking with the Touch Typing feature.

By Jayson Smith on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

My dad just upgraded his iPhone 5S, and he says the Braille keyboard is backwards, in that dot 1 is where dot 3 should be, and dot 4 is where dot 6 should be. This, of course, takes everything we've all learned about Braille throughout our lives and flips it on its head. Anyone have any ideas why anyone would want it like this? At least MBraille has an option to flip dots 1 and 3 and 4 and 6. Very disappointing.

By the grumpy apple on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Wow. I knew there was a reason to stick with iOS 6. From doing research, I thought the bugs and seven were bad. From this post, iOS eight sounds like a living nightmare. I am very disappointed because apples excess ability was top-of-the-line. Like some others, I also wonder if they might be Messing around. Yes, I do think the new features are cool, but shouldn't bug fixes come first? Sometimes I wonder where apples priorities are these days. Yes, six had some bugs, seven have more bugs, now iOS eight has the most. If Apple keeps this up, they could be losing a lot of blind consumers. Do they want that? I would hope not. After hearing this post, which I'm very thankful That there is an iOS eight bug list a here, I have decided that If something ever happened to this phone, I'm going back to my Nokia. No Apple or android phone will do. And less I could get lucky and buy an iPhone four or something. I'm sorry I seem like I'm whining, but these bugs of gone too far in my opinion. Apple had many chances to fix these, but I think they've blown it.

By Jayson Smith on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

My dad downloaded Alex on his 5S, but no matter what he does, turn VO off and on, restart the phone, it won't work. Any thoughts?

By Brooke on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Someone mentioned that the update broke Fleksy VO. I've just tried it on my iPad Mini running iOS 8, and it's working okay here.

By Alana on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I think Apple should make an update to specifically address the software bugs, not just in VoiceOver but anything else that does not work correctly either. It would be great if this update did not add features, but fixed current issues.

By Jayson Smith on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Disregard my last post about Alex. Dad turned VO off and on, etc. and was messing around in Settings, when Alex suddenly started talking. I guess it hadn't finished downloading yet.

By Usman on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Hi all,
I've also not come across very many bugs. In fact, I haven't been able to replicate any of the above mentioned bugs to be completely honest. I do have a question regarding raise to talk and voice messages as a whole.
I noticed when I raise to talk and lower my phone after speaking, the message sometimes sends automatically and other times you have to double tap on the send button.
How can one make the message send automatically at all times? I quite like that feature.

By james on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

After downloading IOS 8 i don't see the option to change from compact and non compact voices with voiceover can anyone tell me where this is?

By dvdmth on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

This blog post covers newly introduced problems, but I'm wondering what issues from iOS 7 still remain and which ones, if any, were addressed. Can someone here provide details?

By Soupy on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

James, you can set your default language, dialect and quality here:

Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech > Default Dialect

By brandon armstrong on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

hello everyone, i bit the bullet, and the bullet shot me. upgraded to iOS eight, and had the scrolling bug everyone has talked about.

By Sarah on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

First, I must say I've heard mostly complaining on here. But, new releases are always going to have bugs. Even sighted people will probably notice some. If everyone waited to download IOS8 then we'd never get the bugs figured out. I can however, understand, that some people aren't very techy or good with the IPhone. It is a choice to upgrade or not. For everyone complaint about how if there keeps being more bugs APL will lose all it's VI customers, we don't live in a perfect world. Even mobile speak had it's problems, for me, mores, than the IPhone. That being said, it is sad there are so many bugs here. Although most of them seem to have good work-arounds. The calling features make me a tad nervous to upgrade my 4s as well as the speed. one person on here said not to upgrade the 4s. But, I've heard several applevis users, and an audio boo from someone and it didn't seem too bad. I'm hoping to get a 6 on Friday but anything can happen and not sure how it'll go. How is it going with the 4s? I updated my IPod and iaven't seen too many bugs. Lots of crashes but they are slowly stoping. I mostly use my IPod for music so I don't have much stuff turned on that I can play with. Apple had to release this even with the bugs because new phones come out in 2 days, and everyone would be in an uproar if new phones had IOS8 but other people didn't have access. I usually tap the lock btn and then read the caller ID and tap the answer btn because i forget about the double tap and my ringtones are louder then the voiceover and I can not hear it read out the aller anyways. Has anyone tested call waiting? Will it read that and say for example that Mom is calling on the other line. that would be the major issue for me. Sad I can't have Alex yet. :( Guess they don't make 64bit IPods. :( Anyways, sorry this is all over the place and so random. just some thoughts. Downloaded the podcasts b/c the buffering was so bad due to server demand that I couldn't stand it. Excited to listen. Thanks applevis for your hard work and dedication. :) Sarah A.

By Justin on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

I haven't run into any real clenching bugs on my 5S running iOs 8. Alex works wonderfully once downloaded, and everything seems to be working as predicted. The only downer, braille input. As previously posted, the braille input is backwards and flipped upside down. I think that if you want to not use the braille input on the phone, just get Mbraille or braille touch for your braille input needs.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:44

Downgrading is possible. It is extremely difficult to do. But if you find a ios 7 file (torrent or otherwise), it is possible to install the software using dfu mode. One thing that is needed is if you have previously installed ios 7 on your phone using iTunes. There are very intricate instructions online that can detail how to downgrade even after getting latest version.