Detailed in this post are possible accessibility-related bugs which members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have identified during their testing of iOS 9. If you have not already updated your device to iOS 9, we strongly recommend that you read through this post and any comments before doing so, as we believe that there are some new bugs in this release which might have a negative impact on the user experience for some blind and low vision users.
As always, we do need to stress at the offset that our testing of iOS 9 has been somewhat limited. We are only a small team, and in most cases have only installed and used iOS 9 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 devices or in all use cases. It is also possible that, in some instances, we are simply mistaken or that there are additional issues which we did not identify in our testing. Accordingly, we would really appreciate feedback from those who have installed iOS 9--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, itâs 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 you should report bugs directly to Apple, as well as the best ways to do so.
With all of the disclaimers out of the way, here are the 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
- When receiving a phone call, the iPhone will occasionally become unresponsive. VoiceOver does not speak, and you cannot navigate around the screen to see who is calling or choose any options. This has happened when the phone is both muted or unmuted, and often happens to one user when using bluetooth audio. When this problem presents itself, it is not possible to answer the call. However, it is not something that occurs every time you receive a call. For example, one of our Team typically receives about 20 calls each day, but may only experience this problem once or twice in a week.
- If you enable both VoiceOver and Zoom at the same time, VoiceOver gestures and the rotor may not work, and VoiceOver may not focus correctly. We believe it may be related to having a very high magnification setting on some devices. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this particular issue, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
Moderate Bugs
- Braille displays will disconnect if you are in Airplane mode and have re-enabled bluetooth. The display will work normally until the screen is locked; when you unlock the screen, you will find that your Braille display does nothing and needs to be reconnected.
- When using the Smart Beetle display from HIMS, while the display is supported, key mapping is not done correctly. For example, pressing f4 takes you to the home screen, which is supposed to be the function of f2. Pressing f2 will activate the eject key, which is supposed to be the function of f4. This can be verified by pressing space with K to launch VoiceOver help and pressing the keys as described above.
- The VoiceOver Actions rotor now includes a new tool for text selection. This may take some learning, and there appear to be some inconsistencies in its behaviour and use (particularly between static text and text that you are editing and wish to select text located to the left of the VoiceOver cursor). At this point, it is unclear whether this new tool should be considered as still being a âwork in progressâ, or whether Apple would say that it works as designed.
- In Safari and Chrome (and possibly other web browsers), you may find that the behaviour of VoiceOver when trying to enter text in text fields is inconsistent/misleading in some cases. Using either the onscreen keyboard or Braille Screen input, the feedback from VoiceOver may suggest that text is not being input and that the field is empty. However, the text may in fact have been entered. One place where we have seen this is in the Search field on AppleVis, where VoiceOver appears to indicate that no text has been entered--but actually completing the search proves otherwise.
- When sending an email in the Mail app, the device becomes unresponsive for 10 to 30 seconds. This appears to only happen when you send after replying to an email, not when sending after composing a new message.
- In the News app thatâs new in iOS 9, a 2-finger swipe down (to have VoiceOver âread allâ) inside a story will sometimes cause VoiceOver to crash and restart.
- If you have notifications set to be grouped by day in the Notifications Center, there may be inconsistencies in the behavior of the âClear Sectionâ and âConfirm Clear Sectionâ buttons when there are notifications for multiple days on this screen. These can prevent you from clearing notifications. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
- VoiceOver becomes unresponsive after initiating a new recording in Voice Memos. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
- If you are using a bluetooth device and VoiceOver is turned off or crashes, you may find that you need to reconnect your audio device before VoiceOver will once again use it for output. Bluetooth devices also disconnect when other audio controls are activated such as the VoiceOver Rotor âAudio Duckingâ and âAudio Destinationâ.
Minor Bugs
- On the new Proactive Search screen, there is a row of 4 icons at the top of the list of âSiri Suggestionsâ which is announced by VoiceOver as a single unlabeled button which does nothing when double-tapped. These icons are selected/favorite contacts. When VoiceOver is disabled, tapping on 1 of these icons will result in various contact options being displayed (phone, message, etc.), which you can then choose from. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this. For them, VoiceOver correctly locates and announces the contacts and the VoiceOver rotor can be used to access the options for contacting them. So, this behaviour may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
- When you attach a file to a new email, VoiceOver does not provide any feedback as to where the file is in the message as you review the text using rotor navigation. Touching the "body" field will speak the attachment name, but only after reading the entire content of the body. You can, however, locate the attached file by touch if you first touch outside of the body field and then slide your finger around the screen.
- In the Mail app, VoiceOver no longer reports how many messages are in a thread when you touch or delete it. Instead of "x messages in thread," you hear "multiple messages in thread."
- In the Mail app, the label for the search field is no longer hidden to VoiceOver. Swiping right from the Edit button now says "Search, search text field" as normal, but another swipe causes VoiceOver to say "Search" again. Double tapping either the field or the "Search" label will activate the field.
- In the News app thatâs new in iOS 9, the suggested channels and topics on the âExploreâ tab are displayed in horizontal scrolling bars. When you flick up/down on the screen element that allows you to scroll through this, you will need to locate the scroll bar by touch to see the suggestions which have just scrolled into display. If you swipe into this bar, you will go to either the first suggestion on the first page or the last suggestion on the last page.
- When adding a new event to the Calendar app, the names in the list of calendars that you can select to add the event have some extraneous text (the calendar name followed by something like "png, clear, crisp, image").
- During a phone call, showing or hiding the keypad works, but VoiceOver doesn't recognize that until you touch the screen. If you have the keypad visible and double-tap the button to hide it, then swipe left, you swipe through the keypad. If you instead touch the screen to explore it, VoiceOver reports what it should have all along--that the keypad is gone. The same happens in reverse when you show the keypad again.
- If you use Siri voices with VoiceOver, performance is rather sluggish in some situations - noticeably more so than using the Samantha or Alex voices. In particular, the Enhanced Quality voices exhibit more sluggishness than do the Default Quality voices. The Samantha and Alex voices appear to be largely unaffected and work as previously.
- There are some inconsistencies of behavior when switching voices in VoiceOver settings > Speech which can result in VoiceOver not automatically switching to your new selection. You may need to use the language rotor to force the switch or select a different voice and then reselect your first choice.
- In iOS 9 on an iPad, the Command key on a bluetooth keyboard shows all possible keyboard shortcuts. However, this feature appears to not work with VoiceOver, as no additional information or feedback is given when the Command key is pressed.
- When in the Notification Center, you can swipe left into the Status Bar. For consistency across the OS, this should not happen.
- Using the âAudio Destinationâ option in the VoiceOver Actions rotor can cause bluetooth headsets to be disconnected and the rotor option to become hidden. Whilst this may be the way that this is designed to work, it would be better if the headset were to remain connected and the action could be used to change audio back from the iOS device to the headset without the need to reconnect.
Bug Fixes
As with most major iOS updates, there are also a number of accessibility-related fixes for existing bugs. Here is the list of bugs that we believe to have been fixed in iOS 9.
Comments
router bug
Yes, I mentioned that I noticed this; it's extremely annoying. :(
siri hq voice and battery
Hello,
I too have noticed the siri hq voice drains the battery. Another thing I've noticed is the hq voice also makes the phone feel warmer than normal which to me explains why it's draining the battery.
phone not always autolocking
I don't think this is related to accessibility but I noticed the phone does not always autolock under ios9.0 and I have to lock it manually. This happens about I'd say 10 to 20 percent of the time.
Pinging IOS9 from Apple Watch
Below is my email to Apple regarding a bug I found pinging an iPhone from my Watch.
Dear Apple,
I would like to report a VoiceOver bug that I have experienced since updating to IOS9.
Devices:
Apple iPhone 5 running IOS9.
Apple Watch Sports 42mm, running Watch 1.1 and 2.0
Both devices have Voice over enabled.
Problem:
When I Ping the iPhone 5 running IOS9 from my Apple Watch Sports, the phone becomes unresponsive to VO. This occurred on both Watch 1.1 and 2.0.
Nethod:
iPhone 5 and watch are connected, over Wifi and BT.
Phone is on, VO enabled but the screen is locked.
Open the Settings Glance on the Apple Watch.
Double Tap the Ping iPhone Button.
The iPhone will Ping once then become unresponsive.
Additional pings sent from the Watch do not make a sound.
Voice Over will no longer speak.
SIRI cannot be activated.
There are no sounds or screen clicks audible.
I am told by a sighted person that the lock screen is visible.. Despite me having Screen Curtain Enabled.
At this point, I am unable to proceed.
Reset by clicking the screen lock button does not resolve the problem.
Plugging the locked phone into power causes all of the unheard Pings to play in quick succession but does not restart VO.
Resetting by holding the Home and Screen Lock Buttons does not resolve the problem.
After 10 -15 minutes of attempting a combination of the above, the phone recovers.
I cannot determine whether it is because of anything I do or whether it self corrects.
This problem is dependable and repeatable.
Hope the above information helps.
Sincerely,
@SeaNoEvil00
autoreply bug
Not sure if anyone will have spotted this as I doubt too many people use this feature, but apologies if this has already been catalou as I haven't had time to read all 155 comments to this post: when setting an out-of-office autoreply I have noticed a bug. I had an old autoreply in the text box and obvisly wanted to update it. I selected all and pressed delete as I would have done on IOS8 to clear the text, and the settings app crashed. I repeated this process several times with the same result. The crash occus whenever the out-of-office text box is completely emtied as text. The work-around is never completely to empty the text box of text when updating your autoreply. Always leave one letter in there, and go back and delete it afterwards. I'd say this is a pretty minor thing, but very curious. For the avoidance of doubt, I tried several ways of deleting the text, and the crash happened each time the text box was completely emptied. I am using a 5S. I have to say I'm loving IOS9 so far. some eccentricities, but no more than that. I haven't yet encountered the phone-answering bug for example.
Ringer & Alerts
Hi. I've noticed that the ringer goes silent along with text alerts at times. I've missed a few calls because of this and I have to check for text messages. I'm not sure if this is a mainstream bug or it's happening with Voiceover. Either way its a joke and times like this I wonder why the iPhone is so highly rated with it's latest OS onboard. I've never had issues like this on Android.
on screen braille imput bug
hi. I never had the braille bug that you were talking about, braille seems to work perfectly for me. be sure to place your fingers exactly on top of the points because they are not right underneath the other, in fact they are arranged in a v shaped form, a v for the sighted i mean. makesure first that you are imputing the correct dots and then see if you still have this bug.
Voiceover repeats while I am dictating sometimes
Hi,
I haven't figured out exactly when this will happen, but sometimes while I am dictating, often in a message to another person, as in a text message, voiceover repeats what I'm dictating as I am speaking. Has anyone else experienced this issue
Sounds and Bluetooth
I am having issues with Voice Over sounds. I like to hear the sounds as I swipe and move my finger on the screen. For some reason, in iOS 9, the volume of the sounds is occasionally lowered.
In the past, I would simply triple click home to toggle Voice Over off, then on.
Now, when I turn off Voice Over, I loose my bluetooth connection to my headset.
It's not a big deal, but it's ugly.
I am also missing alerts. I also use Chime, and sometimes it speaks the time, very loudly, and sometimes it doesn't for long stretches. Sometimes I get lock screen notification sounds, and sometimes not.
In many situations, VoiceOver text is clipped at the start of a phrase.
This all adds up to a less than stellar impression. None of it is mission critical, but I expect better from Apple.
I've experienced...
I've experienced that dictation thing as well. very odd it is.
Screen becoming non responsive
I can confirm the issue with the screen becoming non responsive with incomming calls. I have a 16 GB 5s and I get about 5-15 calls per day and it happens on about half of them. In addition, if I go into settings sound and flick down to the volume slider, flick down or up to change the slider setting the screen becomes non responsive every time. The only way I can bring voice over back is by pressing home.
unlabeled buttons in phone favorites
I have noticed when flicking right passed a favorite in the phone, there may be an unlabeled button after the more info button. Strangely, this is not found on next to all favorites.
sound and bluetooth
Me to. Still having issues with calls and Bluetooth. I thought that changing audio routing will help instead of automatic. Does not work. I very, very disappointed with iOS 9. It seem to have more bug than any previous iOS. Sad.
i've seen some people say
i've seen some people say they were disappointed with the upgrade. they thought it was supposed to be focused on security and stabilization. i think stabilization mostly got it. yes there are a few bugs, but over all its a very good update. remember that the .0 release isn't the end all to be all of updates. secondly just because you don't see something on the surface, doesn't mean its not there. the following link details all of the security updates in ios9. and there is a huge list of them.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205212
Re: Alerts and Ringers
To those who have experienced the ringer of a call dropping out, a question: do you have a MacBook? I just ask because this morning I thought my phone was doing the same - then I realized that, for some reason, it was trying to hand off the call to my MacBook, even though I had not set it up to do so as far as I knew.
ios 9 voice issue
I am thankful for this community to help me navigate the iPhone using VoiceOver. I use VoiceOver just about 100% of the time and after installing ios 9, the voice sounded very sick, as in battling a cold, and it was driving me nuts . As mentioned in Minor bug #8, Siri's voice not only sounded sluggish, but was crackling as if the problem was with the bottom speaker. The timing was too coincidental to suddenly have a hardware problem. The solution to change to Samantha or Alex in default form corrected this problem and saved me from taking the phone to get a new speaker!
Relieved
Having waited to see whether more people posted positive responses, I'm very relieved not to have upgraded to IOS 9.
Some people say it's much better than IOS 8.0 was. Sadly, I don't find that in any way comforting. It's like saying having your leg broken is OK, because it isn't as bad as when the other leg was amputated. Many have said the bugs are fairly minor. But taken all together, it is clear that the existing bugs would render my IPhone difficult to use, which flies in the face of what the device is for. If I want difficult, I'l go back to smoke signals and semaphore.
I'm fully expecting not to upgrade until at least IOS 9.2 at this rate. And I mean IOS 9.2, not 9.0.2 which is already here and still unlikely to have fixed any accessibility issues.
What makes this all the more galling to me, is that Apple seemed to be saying that IOS 9 was all about fixes, stability and performance. If the significant deterioration in battery performance several people have reported is anything to go by, I'd say Apple have somewhat failed to deliver on that score. Sluggish performance, having to disable features to maintain battery life, crashing features and communication errors, all sound pretty unlike fixes, stability or performance improvements to me.
I do congratulate Apple on being better than most when it comes to accessibility. So this isn't a rant about being ignored or discriminated against. I'm just very disappointed after the promotions I'd seen before the release of IOS 9 to find that what has been delivered hasn't provided the very thing I'd been hoping for. And for my part, there are very few new features in IOS 9 that I'm interested in. So even those don't outway the problems for me.
I shall continue to wait patiently for the problems to be corrected in the hope that it won't be too long. Pobably some time early next year would be my guess, but let's see. The fact that we've had weekly releases so far could suggest what Apple hinted at, in that we might get a lot more frequent, but smaller, incremental updates. So perhaps things will gradually improve, rather than get sorted in one fix.
And please, I'm not bashing Apple or claiming anything extreme here, because I've made the same remarks about Microsoft and Windows 10. So I'm not impuning anyone else's satisfaction with the product. I'm simply reporting my own lack of it.
Phone call bug with voice mail.
Hi all. Not sure if i posted this. Last week, my iPhone five's voice mail went off. I checked it, returned the call. But when I went into look, the incoming call, wasn't there. No ringing of the phone, it wasn't on silent, I didn't hit the decline button, it was weird. I chalked it up to my dad mother's saying hello, but when it happened a few days later, I'm now convinced, someone else must have this. I'm considering getting a six S anyway because I knwo the battery on this thing's going. anyoen else have this though seriously? I wouldn't have known the call had come if they didn't leave a voice mail. but what's weird is the call never showed in my recent list.
Possible IOS9.0.1 Bluetooth Keyboard Bug?
So, Iâve had relatively little trouble with IOS9 so far, save for one recent problem. My bluetooth keyboard is suddenly allergic to edit fields. The Quicknav is turned off, and the function keys work just fine, but any attempt to write an iMessage results in the little âBonk bonk,â you hear when youâve reached the bottom of a document.
This issue showed up a couple of days ago, and then went away after I turned both my Bluetooth setting and my keyboard off and back on again. Tonight, the issue reared its ugly head again, and my efforts to rectify it proved futile. Fortunately, I stumbled into a workaround when I tripple-clicked Voiceover off, and discovered I could type iMessages just fine then. I was similarly able to type unhindered when Voiceover was on, but I toggled my screen-curtain off. (My screen curtain is usually on, because I like my privacy).
I know Iâm not the only one who has experienced this. I did some googling and found a recent post about the exact same issue and fix. Iâm wondering if:
A. Whether or not anyone here knows of any other fixes that eliminate the need to toggle things on and off whenever I want to text, and/or
B. Whether or not the list of bugs should be updated to include this one.
Thanks for your time,
L
P.S. The problem first showed up in 9.0.1, and still exists in 9.0.2.
Bugs on both of my phones
I pretty much always have headphones plugged in, and it seems to cause a lot of problems in IOS 9. Siri can't hear me and doesn't respond to me unless I unplug them. That was never the case before. I also get the call answering bug consistently, and when I double tap to answer it, not knowing who is calling, the phone vibrates three or four times more after I've answered. That's really disorienting.
I got my new 6s today and when I was setting up alarms and ringtones, voiceover would crash completely and have to be restarted after tapping just one, unless I unplugged the headphones to do it, then it worked fine.
I also get the totally unreliable voiceover tick sounds, they just stop sometimes, especially if there are other noises or sound effects or a video or something going on.
Other than audio issues, I found out that I can't write app reviews at the moment. I can give DiceWorld a numeric rating, flick to title, then the app store crashes, with 100 percent consistency.
What else? Not IOS 9's fault, and maybe someone can tell me how to fix it, since I'm setting up new phone and all... I hope it's just me. MBraille is supposed to auto-copy text to clipboard when you switch out of it but it's not doing it. I don't see a setting, am I missing something?
voiceover jumps to the first item on the homescreen
Hello,
I found a very strange bug in iOS 9 I think.
Just do this:
- Unlock your phone and place your finger directly on the second item in the dock.
- Voice over will start reading this item but will jump to the item on the first item on your home screen.
- This happens not every time but it happens frequently...
Regards
Possible bug using audio messaging
I updated my 5S today to 9.02 in preparation for getting an Apple Watch. I have found none of the bugs mentioned. The only one I have found is when I go to messages and tap and hold the audio record button and then try to send it is very difficult to find the send button. Also, I have been told my audio message is very difficult to hear even with speaker turned on. Has anyone else experienced this?
Annoying bug since 9.02
I've just found a very annoying bug. I was answering a text message and trying to correct something but swiping up with one finger wouldn't read character by character at all I changed to words and nothing just clicks, very annoying. I could only read the whole message and had to guess where the mistake was. This didn't happen when ios 9 was first installed only since the recent upgrade to 9.2
possible bug when changing ringtones
Hi, could I get someone to try this. I have a 5S running 9.02. When I go to Settings > Sounds > Ringtones and tap on one, it plays over the speaker and headset simultaneously as usual, but when it finishes playing and you go to swipe to something else, right then VoiceOver freezes. I have to turn VO off and back on again via Siri, or Siri + Triple Click, or just press home button a couple times and VO eventually unfreezes.
Thanks
checking spelling
Another one that I've noticed since updating to 9.0.2: when using the messaging app, making a spelling mistake no longer results in Voiceover saying 'misspelled'. Very odd indeed, as it's fine saying it in other apps such as Facebook, for example. Anyone else experienced this? i haven't changed any messaging or Voiceover settings that I'm aware of. AS I say, I've noticed it since 9.0.2 but it might have been there since 9.0 without my picking up on it.
The most annoying bug for me.
Does anyone have an issue where when you try to swipe up and down, Voiceover changes Audio Ducking, even if Audio Ducking is not even in the roter? Just curious.
New Potential Voiceover Bug
I just want to warn you ahead of time that my post will be quite long but I feel that this is essential because I've noticed a lot of bugs with voiceover that are very annoying, this particular one is especially infuriating to me. I hope this isn't all in my head but every time I connect to wifi a few different things happen to the voices on voiceover particularly the enhanced quality voices, mostly british and Australian voices. It used to be a problem with the siri voices but now it seems as though the same problem is happening to all the enhanced voices. When I connect to wifi and try to download enhanced quality voices every voice downloads (you obviously know it's download all the way when voiceover tells you how much space each voice is using. When you disconnect from wifi and turn it off, then go back to voiceover settings speech and default diolect, certain voices either say Retrieving info, then when selected it says something to the effect of download error, please connect to wifi and then try downloading the voice again. I turn wifi back on and the voice downloads again and all is fine until I disconnect. Another thing that happens is that once every voice finishes downloading properly for the second time and I still stay on wifi but just close out of voiceover settings, restart the phone then open the voiceover settings back up again, go to speech and default diolect to see if the voices are still working, I get a message that states retrieving info, then when I select the voice, nothing happens. I also notice that voices start downloading again particularly the british siri male voice. My most recent issue is right now where the Australian voice Carren is still stuck on preparing to download. I have told the folks at the genius bar at apple but I'm not sure if that solved anything. Does anyone here notice the same thing or is it just my phone? Surely I can't be the only one with this issue?
Another bug
Another bug with voiceover is that generally when you get messages, voiceover tells you as you go to the messages app on the home screen how many unread messages you have. Well, it's supposed to tell you that, anyway. It doesn't. Same goes for the mail app, when selecting the male app on the home screen it says there's no unread emails, I tap on it just to make sure, but I discover I've many unread email messages, same thing on the messages app, I tap on the app, I find several unread texts and imessages!
IOS 9.0.2 three tap zoom problem!
I just updated to IOS 9.0.2 and the first thing that I noticed was that The zoom was changed. Before, I could do a double tap with three fingers and slide up to increase the zoom level and then immediately do a double tap with three fingers and slide down to decrease the zoom level. This was great! Now since the update, I need to wait 2 full seconds before I can do a double tap with three fingers and slide up/down to increase/decrease the zoom level. It currently restricts the zooming behavior to a double tap with three fingers to zoom in, and a double tap with three fingers to zoom out. There is no immediate adjusting for different image sizes. Please fix this Apple since Im stuck and can not downgrade to fix this and depend on this accessibility for everyday use.
disappointed ios 9.32
hello
i'm using iphone-5 IOS9.32
- when connected bluetooth headset, it stop working once i recieve a call, or even make a call and voice back to telephone.
- after making a call or even recieve, i notice that VO voice changed and not reading fine as usual, it semelar to double voice or like that ..
any help in this?
Unhandled bugs.
I have been an iPad user, for quite a long time now, there are some bugs that I found here and have not been solved. Anyway, here is a list of bugs that I have identified in IOS since IOS7.
1.When using an apple wireless bluetooth keyboard with safari, Safari becomes unresponsive especially when it is loading the page. Sometimes it gets completely unresponsive until you either turn off Voice Over or close Safari. If you close safari, the problem is more likely to persist so you better use the 2nd option.
2. When using Voice over and you are using the "english US as the default voice, Voice over switches to "English Australia to announce spaces and punctuations.
3. When using Wireless bluetooth keyboard from Apple, Sometimes you can't enter your password because the function keys and the alphernumeric keys become unresponsive. You have to turn off the keyboard and turn it on again for you to use the keyboard.
4. When using Apple wireless keyboard with VoiceOver, It reaches a time when the keyboard enters 2 carecters at a time. EG, you type A and it enters AA. when this problem comes, Navigation is practically impaired as voice over announces only 1 item to the left and another 1 item to the right. The text box will not close any more until you use the onscreen keyboard Even if you turn of and on VoiceOver, you turn the keyboard on and off the problem does not go away. You have to restart the iPad to fix it.
5. Voice over still reports wrong input language of the keyboard when you are cycling through them with Control+shift+space. You still need to test the language by typing until you get the one you want.