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

Advocacy
Apple
Braille
iOS
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Comments

By Mandy on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

I found another little bug in the ITunes store where I couldn't pause/stop the preview of a song I wanted to listen to. I had to wait for the whole preview to finish.

By Diego Garibay on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

I thought, maybe I'm doing something wrong or something is changed. But now I have this happen to me to the entire song plays there's no way to posit exit for tapping the song again. This only works some of the time though, I do not know why this is happening?

By Ginny on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

I havent' seen anyone else report this, perhaps they have and I've not found it yet but... I've begun having an issue where the virtual keybaord on the touchscreen turns on anywhere nad not necessarily where there is an edit box to type in. Examples are the virtual keyboard coming on in the app switcher, in the unlock screen, on the home screen, etc. I'm not sure how to turn it off and it's obscuring other icons on the screen. Has anyone else had this issue and is there a way to fix it?

By Chris on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hello.

Well, I have decided to give up on the braille screen input. The fact that the dots do not go down the left side of the screeen as 1, 2, and 3 and the right as 4, 5, and 6 is very odd. I don't like how it's backwards. You don't type a letter c at the bottom of the braille cell, you type it on the top like a brailler. I have heard that others have had luck with calibrating the dots to make it behave like I intend it to, but I have no idea how to do this.
I will use MBraille instead since it has the option to flip dots 1 and 3 and 4 and 6 to make it work like I am expecting.
So, I will not be using this built in braille keyboard until Apple either gets it right or allows you to swap the dot positions.

By Mandy on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hi I have also come across the purchase bug in the ITunes store. It is very irritating. I pressed on the (99P) button, I am in the U.K and nothing, I tried double tapping, triple tapping and it's as if I hadn't done anything at all. Very annoying. Has anyone come up with a work around for this? Apple can't be happy because people can't purchase music! I am using a 5S

By Patrick Hurst on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

I have just tried dialing a number with "standard typing" as well as using the Braille keyboard, but I didn't have the bug. Neither do I have other serious bugs mentionned here, using iPhone 5S with 32 gB capacity and some 8 gB remaining.
But as a computer user who did his bloody beginning Under MS-DOS 17 years ago, knowing where these kinds of bugs can come from, I would advise you to have a look at your memory capacities in "Settings > General > Info". Knowing that some installation processes make copies of certains files / file packages, I assume that you need at least 4 gB of free memory for the update process to perform properly...
And if no troubleshooting advice helps, I would advise you to go to the retailer and show them live what's happening to your device... Suing Apple as some of you suggested is definitely not a solution here!

By Patrick Hurst on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

As I previously mentionned here and as suggested by the main article, you'll have to hold your finger at the second "tap" until you hear a "rising chime" being played (as if you were trying to move the icon. Then, do the same on the "Purchase"-button to confirm!

By Louise on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

I'm new to the site, and am glad to find the tech info. I downloaded ios 8 after thinking I had done my research. I went to the source, Apple, and saw only that the accessibility features in ios 8 are second to none. This has always been the case with Apple, and so I went ahead. I know it might sound strange to some, but I'd never heard of this site, and so was unaware of the major bugs that had already been reported here. Apple's site had no warnings what-so-ever. I found this site when I googled to see if others were experiencing the same frustrations as me.
And here you all are giving valuable tech advice to each other with is good, but I haven't seen such name calling and frankly rudeness in a long time. "blindy", "here's a rattle, do you want a binky?" "let's all sue Apple." I'm sad that the tech advice has to be dug up from under such venom.

Am I disappointed in Apple for having so many bugs? Yup. Am I considering suing Apple? Absolutely not. Can I understand the frustration of people who are spouting off? You bet! But am I going to call them names and tell them that they only have themselves to blame? No.

When I asked Apple about why they didn't have some kind of warning on their site, they said "no company would publisize their problems." That is disappointing. I would have prefered a more responsible approach. I only have 1 IOS device, hence it's my primary device. I went to the source to see if it was good to go, and was told it sure was. So, I reject the notion that I should have magically known about this site, and that it is the responsibility of third parties to let me know of issues with Apple's product. After all, they sure did publisize the recall of the 8.0.1 release.
I also reject that Apple is evil and should be sued. I have reported my issues, and was never asked to provide a crash log or anything of the sort. So now, I'm going to grumble and mumble inappropriate words under my breath while I wait for the release of 8.1 which will undoubtably fix the issues.
I will also keep coming to this site for advice, but hope I have the stomach for the nastyness.

By sockhopsinger on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

It sure would be nice in the new Weather app if, when there is a chance of rain in the forecast, the Weather app would tell you the chance of precipitation! Am I missing something? Anyone else had this problem? Again, I don't know if it's an accessibility bug or if the Weather app just doesn't show that info.

By Andrew on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

Welcome,

Now that you have found this resource, please do utilize all that it has to offer. This goes both ways however. Software, in general, will always have bugs; there are always bugs in a new release of anything. apple, google, Microsoft...you name it. So, knowing this fact, going forward, if you cannot handle your primary daily driver not functioning like it should, do not update to the latest and greatest when the latest and greatest becomes available; especially the brand new IOS version each September. Thousands do, expecting their daily device to function without pause just as it previously did; when it fails to live up to expectations, individuals get mad. What is that famous quote again? Doing something again and again and expecting different results is stupidity....something like that. Let's have some accountability here; everyone is made aware of the risks and there is no one to call out or blame when you choose to press that update button. My suggestion; let those who have an established comfort level for the "bleeding edge" sort it out. This way, those individuals can file the bug reports, the way those reports should be done; complete and proper, and when subsequent updates become available, pull the trigger then. This isn't like picking out furniture. One would expect furnature to come into the store without defects, or nicks and scratches....who would by furniture like this anyway? This is not the case for software however and that is a fact that has been known for decades and people should know what they are getting into. Regardless however, whether it is furniture or software, it is, in the end, on the consumer to be educated and do their research. Those are just my thoughts though and you do not have to agree of course. -Andrew-

By Bingo Little on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

What you were looking for is: doing something again and again and expecting different results is madness. Can't remember who said it, but it was certainly said to criticise the RAF's Bomber Command in the early days of the 2nd World war.

When I talked about class actoins being nonsense a few days ago, there was nothing boorish about it at all. Nor was any person's right to complain being called into question. In fact, the truth was quite the reverse as I went on to complain myself.

Now for the keypad bug folks, I find that if I dial using braille screen input, the problems seem to be solved. However, I can confirm that the keypad bug happens on standard typing as well as touch typing. I've experienced it a few times. Most of the time, taking the phone out of the app switcher sorts it. Occasionally though, a reboot is required.

By the grumpy apple on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hello. I've been reading through this thread. To the poster who wanted to su Apple, Innoway, I wouldn't blame you. However, no matter how frustrating this may be, I don't think a lawsuit is really a good idea. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on. The keypad bug, is a big concern of mine. What if you had to dial in emergency number. You don't have time to restart reset the phone or whatever you have to do to get the beep to stop. When you need to make an emergency call, you need to make the call now. You don't have time to mess around and stop the bug from happening or whatever. So to me, this could be a very serious bag and in the right circumstance, I could see some big Problems. And yes, I also do think it's a good idea to do your research before updating. I do my research before downloading apps or updating my iPhone. Since I OS 8 has all these bags, I'm staying with six Intel something comes along that convinces me otherwise. These are just my thoughts.

By Kenny on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 01:03

This new v8.02 release of the Ios is awlful.

My trusty Blue-tooth Apple Keyboard no longer works well with my iPod Touch 5th gen. I can't even place focus on the password edit field now to unlock my iPod using my keyboard. Have to turn it off and use the On Screen one.

Boy I wish there was a way for me to go back to Ios 7.0 for my iPod Touch is useless to me now with v8.02 installed on it.

By bfm_guy on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Well, a few of these bugs have been fixed in iOS 8.1, but unfortunately many of them still remain. There are a few other bugs with VoiceOver I'd like to mention here. First, in Apple Pages for iOS, you can no longer tell if a word is misspelled, if it is bold, or any other attributes. This used to work perfectly, and misspelled words still get recognized by VO in apps like Messages and Mail, but Pages seems to ignore all this. Another issue is that VO completely ignores Facebook, Twitter, and embedded YouTube video frames within Safari. It also ignores enhanced elements in iBooks such as audio and video elements. Not sure if this is the same bug causing both problems, but since EPUB files are really kind of HTML, I wouldn't be surprised if they're related. Another issue is, if you receive a request from a child in family sharing to purchase something, the approve button is not available. Also, in the Photos app, if you double-tap a photo, double-tap Share, and double-tap iCloud Photo Sharing, an iPhone will seem to not like it and VO will crash. Does not seem to be an issue on an iPad, and you can o the other way - start by opening the shared photo album, choosing Add, then choosing the photo. Some folks may be wondering why this would matter to a blind person, but I definitely do it. Also, that photos bug existed in iOS 7 as well. Here 's the thing folks. Please please please report all these things to Apple Accessibility, to Apple Feedback, even to various Apple executives via email and Apple Care by phone. The more people report it, hopefully the faster it will get fixed. I love Apple, and I really do love iOS 8, but this is the most VO bugs we've ever had since VO was first released in what was then iPhone OS 3. I really don't want to have to wait till iOS 9 for all this stuff to be corrected.

By zeropoint on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Reading back of emails before sending works only intermittently.

With Voice Over switched off there is no way to review the composed email before sending as there is with SMS texts by saying "Review"

With Voice Over switched on, the Siri voice will ( but only sometimes) read back the recipients name, the subject line AND the content of the email.....more often than not though, she won't.

At these times the Siri voice stops after saying one word and then (but again only sometimes) after a short wait the Voice Over voice will speak the content.....frustrating.

By Mister Kayne on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

OK I was told that IOS 8 was snappier. But I was just deceived by this statement. I recently bought my 5S; considered the 5S because it has a better processor than the 5 & 5C. Tempted I upgraded; and now I am on the 8.1 IOS. Phone is sometimes very slow to respond. Like when I ended a call it takes like more than a few seconds to get back to the screen I was on before the call. Also noticed that some applications just close, for no reason...

Another problem I am having recently has to do with this bug:

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.

Ideally I would not want VO to announce my notifications and just give me the chimes instead. I tried all combinations including off the setting in VO to read all notifications. But there are sometimes I get the chimes, sometimes the notification gets read (trust me at the most embarrasing moments) and as of now; no notifications are being alerted to me.

Looks like this IOS upgrade is totally broke. I am wondering if they actually fixed all the accessibility bugs in IOS 7 before they moved on to 8? I don't know but other users can shed some light on the subject.

On a positive note; I think the predictive text feature is simply rocking!

By Missy Hoppe on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hi there! I'm trying to respond to the person who just wants sounds without the notifications being read. It doesn't work 100 percent of the time, but what I've done is set all apps to only play a sound. No banner, no alert. Then, you hear a sound, and can check the notification center at your convenience. Nothing actually appears on the lock screen; I only have it read things like weather alerts aloud; everything else is just a sound. It works really well most of the time, so was worth the time it took to set it up. I hope this makes sense, and that you find it helpful.

By Troy on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hello,
I just purchased a 5s. I deffinatly like it better on my 5s with 8.1 better than my 4s. The only issue I'm having is the bug will vo may sometimes announce the notification on the lock screen rather it is set to do this or not. One thing that will sometimes work and fix a lot of bugs is reset the phone.

Dear Missy Hoppe, thank you for your reply and the suggestion. I am now set to sounds only. This morning received the IOS 8.11 update, don't know how it is going to be and if the notification chimes will work 100%, I expect them to.

Dear Troy, thank you for your reply. Yes, I have tried this suggestion of resetting the phone. In fact more than the recommended times, and has made no difference. Like mentioned to Missy Hoppe today the upgrade just happened, not got enough time to play with it yet to be able to critic.

By Mister Kayne on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Well just updated to IOS 8.1.1 excited that they have fixed many accessibility bugs. I am still having the problem of not being able to receive the notifications by chimes from my applications like Facebook and Twitter. I logged out of these applications, restarted my phone but nothing has fixed this issue of not being able to receive these notifications.

By S550 on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 01:03

Seems like the bigger the number gets an iOS and the faster the processors get is the bigger the shaft us blind users are getting.

By Revis on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 01:03

I was hoping iOS 8.1.1 be the cure all for the Voiceover problems I've had since updating my iPad air to iOS 8. Unfortunately thats not been the case. There's still a number of gestures that aren't working or are working oddly:
The three finger single tap that tells you where you are on the screen, and the three finger swipe to close an open app in the running app screen have both stopped working, and the three finger swipe left - right to move between pages has reversed with the three finger up-down page scroll. At the moment I'm wishing I'd stayed with iOS 7. Here's hoping the apple techs sort out the problems with the next update.

By PaulMartz on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 01:03

Hi all. I have a friend with a new iPhone 6 running iOS 8.1.1. Occasionally, the numeric keypad appears on her screen, as if she needs to enter a numeric value (like a US zip code, for example). However, that's not what she's doing, so the appearance of the numeric keypad is entirely incorrect and out of context. Is anyone else seeing this bug? She is a VoiceOver user, so the symptom she experiences is, for example, she swipes down with 2 fingers, and reading proceeds normally, but then reads the keypad: "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 delete". She has accumulated a large collection of screenshots showing the number pad displayed incorrectly over the bottom fourth of her screen. Any info or confirmation would be appreciated.

By alex wallis on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 01:03

Yes I have scene this bug on places like the homescreen in the middle of webpages etc, sometimes the letter keyboard comes up instead.
When this happens the only solution is to turn the phone off and back on again.

By PaulMartz on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 01:03

Thanks for the confirmation. It's some consolation to know it's not an isolated issue. I've been trying to help my friend with this problem remotely, which is very tedious. I don't see the problem at all on my iPhone 5 or my 4th gen iPad. Is this problem specific to the iPhone 6? What device are you seeing this issue with? Thanks again.

By alex wallis on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 01:03

I am seeing it on a 128gb 6 plus, but it is quite rare, not a big issue for me a little annoying but not a big problem.

By Levi Gobin on Thursday, October 17, 2024 - 01:03

I was bored, and clicked on this thread for no apparent reason.
I was browsing through the bugs for iOS 8, and saw one mentioning that you can’t swipe between pages on the dock.
This still is happening as of iOS 18.1 beta six, roughly 10 years later.
Besides maybe the voice over focus issue which people have said has been around since iOS five, this is probably another one of the longest running voiceover bugs ever.

By TJT 2001 on Thursday, October 17, 2024 - 01:03

I'm quite sure that that's not a bug, mainly because people not using VoiceOver also can't swipe between pages from the dock.

By Jonathan Candler on Thursday, October 17, 2024 - 01:03

Not being able to swipe in the dock between pages is by design. Not a bug.