Announcing Changes to Our Guidelines Regarding Discussion of Beta and Preview Versions of Apple Software

About time. Those who use Youtube can check the many updates regarding beta and what is new but they do not foucsfocus on accessibility. They talk about battery use, bugs and what is new. Glad that AppleVis got with the time.

I think this was a really good idea, partly because of what Holger said. There are many mainstream sites, even really large respected ones which cover iOS betas. From an accessibility point of view the discussion is really scattered and seems to mainly take place on Twitter if you're following the right people. Also, even if Apple's GAAD press releases did give us a glimpse at what's new there's often a lot more than what they say. Nothing illustrates this more than Eloquence this year, but also some very welcome changes like indentation reporting on Mac or iOS quick settings last year which didn't get a public mention. SO having a central place to discuss these, as well as any bugs that inevitably crop up during the beta cycle before they get patched out for the final release is really great.

Also while I'm talking about bugs I can't stress enough that people shouldn't judge iOS 16 or any other Apple software by any issues that might get mentioned during the beta cycle. The betas are there for features to be refined and fixed over time. For example, between Beta 1 and Beta 3 now the Eloquence support got refined multiple times from the way it worked initially and it's almost certainly going to get changed even more before the final stable releases.

Hi,
I want to take this opportunity to extend a huge thanks to this amazing team for these changes. I’ve been a beta tester for a few years now, and have really enjoyed it. I began beta testing, when you guys had a dedicated team for this, that was suddenly disbanded. I’ve always been curious why this team went away. Can anyone tell me?
I really miss it.

When I saw this subject, I thought, oh no, yet another thing that will get even stricter, like everything else seems to. Then I read the post and was very pleasantly surprised. There are more features than ever that I am interested in this year, to the point where I am actually going to use an old iPhone to partake in the beta myself when it's public. It looks like potentially the best release for us n years, and this increased opportunity for us to help get it right can only be a good thing. Thank you very much.

Hello,
I would like to extend my gratitude towards this change.
As many have said before me, many mainstream websites cover bugs in existing betas, and I believe accessibility bugs deserve exactly the same attention, which will hopefully make them even more likely to be fixed.

I don't want this post to be taken as not appreciating the testing Applevis team is doing and their very detailed submitting of every bug report, however, sometimes there might be very specific issues worth highlighting even further, for example the team might not speak a certain language so can't know about issues to a specific voice, may not use a specific feature, and things like that.

Fortunately, and this also deserves praising, I have to say that the Apple accessibility team was very responsive during this beta period. I can't imagine the amount of feedback they had to deal with as a relatively small team, but despite that, I have reported an issue specific to the Croatian voice I am using and which was added in iOS 16, and within one update, it was already fixed, and I think that's also worth highlighting, since it was a very specific language, and not too many people in this region use betas, meaning that despite the no doubt very small number of reports they have received about it, it was prioritized appropriately and dealt with.

As a conclusion, thanks once again for this welcome change, and I certainly hope that doesn't change the relations AppleVis has with the Apple team, but on the contrary, strengthens them even further, showing the dedication of our community both in willing to test betas, and accurately report bugs and test to see if they are fixed in every new update.

This is long over do in my opinion. That really doesn't matter in the grand skeem of things. What does matter is you got it right.

Will this be possible in the near future so I can currently go by heading to see the different titles of the posts it makes it the only forum you can't yet do this is the new one. just pointing it out in case it was missed.

The new section of the forum is structured and behaves the same as the other sections. I don't recall ever having it presented so that topic titles were at a heading level. It's something that I will consider though.

This would make it quicker to go through the topics.

I'm not on the beta but am very glad people can talk about it.

David, I couldn't come up with a more creative subject line ! Seriously, special thanks are in order for having made such an important change. David Taylor quite accurately capsulized my initial reaction above when I saw the title of your post on Twitter, but fortunately - and happily - I was sorely mistaken!

As a reminder, many people from Apple have indicated that they do not come here to look for bugs. So no matter how much attention you give to a bug here, if you don't report it to Apple, they will not investigate. There are plenty of posts here on Applevis that discuss how to report bugs to Apple.
Just saying...

The iOS beta subreddit, which is a mainstream version of what Applevis just started here has a bot that comments on every new topic with a reminder to report bugs in the feedback app if you want them to be fixed.

On that note something I heard about on twitter is that if you're reporting accessibility bugs with parts of the system that aren't VoiceOver itself, proceeding your feedback title with "AX:" will flag it for the appropriate people faster.

Thank you very much Applevis for deciding to allow this content. I find the release notes for new beta releases to be worse than useless, and to know that I can quickly dive on here to check what might be in store will be a big help. the new forum will enable us to compare notes and see if something on our device is a one-off or if it's happening to others too. I actually believe working with each other in this way might yield new or different information on bugs or features than is being fed back already. I look forward to reading what comes of this new area of content.
Thank you again!

I'm so glad this change was made.
I agree with not being able to talk about getting them illegally. I am a developer but I haven't actually installed the beta yet just because I don't have an extra device but I'm glad I can read about all the changes.

I agree fully with the headings comment above. Navigation with you I think it would be much faster. Furthermore great change with the Apple bit of stuff. I really really really agree.

I've always felt it unfair that one can find out about any new features on YouTube regarding mainstream features, but nothing at all about accessibility, particularly Voiceover. I'm very happy for these changes, which puts us on a more level playing field.

Hello everyone,
If you're not a developer, but are eager to try out the new betas, I’m delighted to anounce that the public betas are here!
To get started, simply visit beta.apple.com, sign in, & download the appropriate profile for your device.