Apple Releases First Public Previews of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra

By AppleVis, 7 July, 2016

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Apple has today issued the first preview releases of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra for members of its public beta testing program.

The Public Beta Program allows end-users the chance to test pre-release software and provide meaningful feedback directly to Apple. If you have a secondary device—or are an experienced user willing to put up with the quirks of beta software—and have an interest in helping make the next releases of iOS and macOS the best possible for VoiceOver users, one of the best things you can do is beta-test and report your findings directly to Apple. All accessibility-related feedback submitted through Feedback Assistant will be routed to the right people, and your reports are being read, taken seriously, and followed-up.

If you aren’t already registered with Apple's Beta Software Program and wish to learn more, visit the program’s website for more details and to register.

More information on the new features you will find in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra is available here:

Important Note:

We would strongly encourage you to consider long and hard before installing either of these releases. At this end of the beta cycle, this software is likely to contain many bugs. At best, this may result in some quirky behavior. At worst, it could make your device unusable and require a roll-back to a stable release. You also need to consider that some of the third-party software that you use or rely on may not work. Such is the nature of beta testing. Ideally, only install iOS 10 on a secondary device that you do not rely on and macOS Sierra on a dedicated partition.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that we have recently changed our policy regarding what information about Apple’s pre-release software can be posted to AppleVis. You are now free to discuss any new features or changes that you find or learn about in this software. However, we do ask that you refrain from sharing or seeking information about bugs in the software and do not use this site to seek technical support with installing or using the software.

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Comments

By Jake on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

I'll be testing the new MacOS with Braille as a focus. Unfortunately both my iPad and iPhone are daily drivers at my job (some apps only accessible on them and not on PC or Mac), so I'll probably not be testing the iOS betas this time around.

By Fatima.Hamoud10 on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

iPad mini (1st generation) will no longer support iOS 10.

By Joe on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

I heard 1 feature of iOS 10 was Bluetooth audio could be separated where you could send music or sound it to your speaker and voiceover could stay on your phone after installing this I cannot see how this is possible yet has anyone else find a way to make this happen?

By Joe on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

Tried that there is audio destination like in ios9 but flicking down gives you the same result.

By Tyler on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Also on iOs 10, Voiceover now speaks column and row numbers when navigating web tables. I checked the new verbosity option in Voiceover settings, but the only option there is to enable or disable Emoji suffix. Is there a way in the current beta to change this behavior?

By Greg Wocher on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

Hello all,
I have the beta of iOS10 installed on my iPad mini2. I was messing around with moving apps using a bluetooth keyboard thinking it would be a bit easier than doing it by using my finger to slide it all over the place. I came across something very interesting. It is now possible to move apps using the actions rodar when in editing mode. Once you are in editing mode you can flick up or down on an app and one of the options is move app. Once you click on move app, you can move to any screen, move to an item and then flick up or down. You will get options like move before or after which ever app is selected. If you have a folder selected it will give you the option to add the app you are moving to the folder. This makes moving apps so much easier. Since this is my first iPad I am not sure if this feature has always been on iPads or if it is a new feature of iOS10. I tried doing this on my iPhone 6plus running iOS9.3.2 and it was not there.

Regards,
Greg WOcher

By alex wallis on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

that sounds a really cool new feature, now if only there was a way to move multiple apps at once, app moving has been annoying for years.

By Chris on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

The only thing I found under audio was speech and sound channels that basically sends speech and VO sounds through the right, left or both channels. Remember that this is a work in progress. The audio routing may not be fully implemented quite yet. I found a reverse dot position option under braille screen input which makes me very happy.

By TheBlindDragon on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

You don't have to be in editing mode to move apps. Flick down tell you hear arranging apps then you are taken into editing mode. Now you select your destination for the app you want to meve.

By gallagher123123 on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

I am testing out the beta on my iPod touch 6th generation, and really liking what I am seeing.
1. Finally, the whole vocalizer collection can be accessed in iOS 10. This means that we can finally use Tom on the iPhone, with out a jailbreak.
2. Braille screen input will now speak when in contracted braille mode.
3. Finally, a new method for moving apps and making folders. I really hated the old method. It looks like iOS 10 will be a great upgrade for accessibility.

By Troy on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

Does Samantha still sound like she's smoked one too many?

By Chris on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

Unfortunately, Samantha seems to be unchanged. That's not Apple's problem though. Nuance should either give that voice a major facelift or simply drop it from the product line.

By Daniel Angus M… on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

hello all,
since the presents of new voices is discussed on this topic, I thought adding the presents of another one wouldn't violate the AppleVis guidelines and my NDA. if it does, please let me know. someone posted that the about the Vocalizer voices being available, so I'd like to let you all know, the Fred voice from the Mac, and is the voice when you install or upgrade the Mac, is now available in iOS 10. it seams with every major reliese of iOS 8, 9, etc, apple is adding one Mac voice. my hope is that they make the complete collection of Mac voices available in this, or the next beta.

By dvdmth on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

I put iOS 10 on my old iPad Air, but I will keep iOS 9 on my current iPad Mini 4.

While in VoiceOver practice, I found a keyboard command I don't remember being there before. It may have been around for a while and I didn't know about it, ,or it might be new. I don't feel like re-pairing my keyboard with my iPad Mini to find out.

The command I found was Control-Option-Accent, which now does the same thing as pressing Escape. This is the same as the scrub gesture on the touch screen.

It makes sense, because I believe Apple's keyboard for the iPad Pro does not have an Escape key. I remember someone asking earlier how to access the Escape function on that keyboard, and I don't think anyone knew a solution.

By Chris on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

For those of you running iOS 10 on an iPhone 5, do you get all the voices except Alex? Do you get everything except Fred, Alex and Victoria on that device? I don't have that device, but I'm just curious how Apple is treating the last 32 bit CPU. I put this on my iPhone 5S and it runs like a champ.

By Andy B. on Thursday, July 21, 2016 - 13:18

From now on, any app targeting IOS 10, or any app installed on an IOS 10 device must be built in 64BIT mode. If you don't, IOS 10 will warn you about unpredictable results.