[Update: Now Available] Apple to Release iOS 13.4 and iPadOS 13.4 on March 24; With Several New Features, but Mixed News for Blind and Low Vision Users

Maybe the virus will kill the bugs. If I could know for sure that the new samgsun accessibility is better than VO and had the money would change to it. I am getting tire of bugs.

I get the frustration but on the flip side Apple is introducing new things unlike Samsung. Voice assistant hasn't changed in 3 years. So the same things wrong with it 3 years ago are still there now. Hell Talkback has only improved slightly. Bugs are frustrating but do what is best for you.

It's hard to give Apple credit for new accessibility features when they seem to give priority to this over fixing longstanding problems.

Smart Invert has effectively been broken since iOS 13 was first launched.

VoiceOver focus spontaneously jumping to the first UI element has probably been around just as long.

Navigating text with a hardware keyboard has been broken for at least the 18 months I've been trying to make the iPad a viable laptop replacement.

I could go on, and I am sure that most on here have their own list of bugs which bug them the most.

Sorry Apple, but it now looks all too much like if a bug isn't fixed within one or two releases, it's moved to your ‘Won't Fix’ pile. For those of us who rely on your accessibility features, that's just not good enough.

First fix bugs, next fix bugs, and later create new ideas. Even Bella the cat knows this. She is not happy either.

Hello. Thanks for your great coverage as usual. There is however another bug in IOS 13.4 for voiceover users, at least that is something I have experienced. I have my lock screen set to touch ID. However, in case I want to unlock with my passcode, the prompt either shows up after 3 failed attempts or by just trying to unlock in the standard way. Previously, it was possible to enter the passcode by switching to the braille screen input, entering a number sign and continuing to enter the pass code as normal. However, now if you try this, VO will just make the sound for one number which is seemingly entered, but when you try inputting the second one it will say 0 of 4 values entered, and from that moment BSI will do nothing no matter how you try to enter it. I would also mention another bug, which while not major is either a feature in progress or just a bug. While using my second generation AirPods, while they are in my ear, in the rotor I have the audio destination option. This is something people have been requesting, and I thought it might finally make it possible to switch where the audio goes, but swiping up or down and selecting default or external audio route does absolutely nnothing, making this completely pointless. Thanks for your testing as always, just wanted to bring these two to your attention. I am also disappointed at this point that Apple introduced new bugs. I am not exaggerating like some people, there's nothing better to switch to, but this does not mean that Apple did a good job with 13. With features, yes, but 13.4 is a point where no new bugs should be introduced.

Has the repeating notification bug been resolved or not. I have never upgraded to iOS 13 because of this issue. My concern is that it would completely drain my iPhone battery if I did not catch notifications quickly.

I've used every beta and public release of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, and have never encountered a problem with duplicate notifications.

Your and others' mileage may vary.

It is a bit silly to say that a company does not care about accessibility after one failed release. On the other hand, IOS 12 was pretty good. Apple did fail with 13, but if they did not care no bug would be fixed at all. I don't buy the attitude that we need a specialized company. If that was the case, you would be paying two Iphones just to get your phone and a screen reader for it. No doubt that 13 was not stable for us, more for some than others, but I am writing this comment on it, while if someone like FS were to be responsible for Apple accessibility I would most likely not be able to afford it. Of course, I am not saying be happy and shut up, it is just an exaggeration to say they don't care. Hopefully with 14 things will be better. Despite all the new feature leaks, there are also rumours the focus will be on stability.
Ps: To the poster who had an issue with BSI not wanting to let you navigate normally: I had that problem myself as well, most frequently on the web. It seems as though the rotor cycles back to braille screen input. Try to move the rotor a few more times and it should resolve.

Yes, the accessibility bugs are frustrating. On the other hand, we've come a long way in terms of what we can do with these devices over the years. Even sighted users complain of bugs. I think the bottom line is that software is so complex and the parts so interrelated that one can never catch all of the bugs. Then one has to watch out if one fixes a single bug that causes 10 others. Not easy to test and verify all configurations and use cases.

Even companies whose focus is accessibility have bugs and things that don't work in their programs.

All of that being said, we all need to have our voices heard when things are working properly - That includes both the blindness community and sighted folks.

--Pete

Does anyone test the mFI support with these new releases?

hello all,

I herd from 9to5 Mac that iOS and iOS 13.4 will have internet recovery. they mentioned that it may be similar to internet recovery on macOS. this feature will be great and if it's anything like it is on the mac, the download screen when it is lonched will be inaccessible. hopefully Apple fixes this oversite on the mac when they develop this in the upcomming release for iOS and iPad OS.
Daniel

applevis being a small team really does a wonderful job. thank you applevis for an early report of bugs and new features in IOS 13.4.

Amen to that, Oliver..though I think you mean hear, hear. apologies for pointing it out but here instead of hear is one of my pet hates, alongside the use of the word criteria as if it were a singular. hear, hear, derives from 'oi moi!' literally 'hear me!' in Norman French when the verb to hear was oyer, rather than entendre as it is now. This is where you get commissions of oyer and terminer (literally to hear and determine) from. Oyer and terminer is still used in the American legal system.

Hi,
I found another bug. the end dictation beep is gone on internal speakers, but can be herd when lightning earphones are connected. just thought you should know. This also applies to siri as well.

Just a quick word of thanks for the very kind words about our Editorial Team in this thread.

I tend to keep a low profile on here, but I do read most of what's posted, and always truly appreciate the support and generosity of our community. It should come as no surprise that it means even more during these unprecedented times.

I hope that everybody in our community, your families, and loved ones remain safe and healthy.

And, now, back to waiting for that public release of 13.4 to drop ☺️

Are there bugs for keyboard users? When you send a text message does Voice over now say the name and number who you have in the too field? When you go into the app switcher does it still say active instead of Call with john smith active like it use to?

There is an intermittent bug in iOS 13.3 in which a two finger double tap fils to start dictation in a text field which is editing and instead starts media playback. Apple Accessibility have responded to me on this acknowledging that it is a known issue. I think this is now fixed in 13.4. I have been running beta versions for several weeks of iOS and iPadOS 13.4 and haven't experienced the fault. It isn't all bad news - probably ;-)

When completing instalation VO return to Samantha. It took VO several minutes to return to my selected voice. Reminded me of issues with iOS 13.1. Hope this is not a return to that issue.

My default voice is Alex. When I performed the update, I did not lose this voice. Nor did I have to wait for it to be downloaded again. Why my behavioral experience is different is a mystery to me. But so far, iOS 13.4 appears to be working just fine.

Chris; I have seen this bug not only in 13.4 but in earlier versions of 13 cycle of IOS. Not sure what happens but if you go Straight into your contacts and creat a new contact from there it will work fine; But as to it not working in the phone App, I am wondering this myself Using an iphone 10 Running the latest version of IOS.

Smart invert colours will work as expected in Safari and other apps if you turn off the dark mode as well. So you can just create a Siri Shortcuts to make a workaround for now but I’m beginning to be tired to always rely on workarounds since the releases of both iOS 13 and macOS Catalina.

On the plus side however, the mouse/trackpad support on iPad are awesome and really work well.

iPhone 11pro max
when I finished updating, the voice was changed to Samantha, I went into Settings to bring it back to SiriFemale, but the voicelist was empty. then I did the ResetAllSettings, and VoiceOver didn't turn on. then I called the taxi, and went to my friend 8km away to turn on VoiceOver!. again the voices list is empty..
now I have decided to finally leave this amateur company.

iOS 13 in general is very buggy. I hope this isn't becoming the normal for
Apple if so your better off with Android its cheaper why pay top dollar for buggy software.

Dear All,

When I was replying to an email message my friend sent me if I was doing OK, I suddenly became quite bewildered by the response that Vo offered me. This is after updating from iOS 13.3.1 to 13.4 on my iPhone 7. I will describe the bug in detail below. During the course of my experience running iOS on this phone, I've never encountered such a major bug. Some of the bugs that I've read about on this site, I hadn't been able to reproduce, some I could. Some I found little minor inconveniences that are easy to deal with and that can only take a few fractions of a sec to learn to get around to. But this one's different. It's quite a life changer of sorts.

The bug I'm talking about involves the native iOS mail app, after running today's upgrade. I select 'Reply' with either my rotor or through the button. With the sheet that comes up, I hit 'Reply' which brings me to the compose screen. Now, usually I'd either hear, 'Message body. Text field. Is editing.' or something like it or I'd had to scroll through the 'To:' 'CC' and 'Subject' fields to get to the edit box for the body. Now when I did it today, I was presented with my signature as if it were another email I was reading, followed by original messages as separate elements on the screen. Weird, eh? Hold on. It gets much better.

Besides my reply being interpreted as a standard reading email, I can see the onscreen keyboard, through Explore by Touch. I lift my finger on one of the letters, and I only hear the 'Poof' boundary-reached sound from VoiceOver. So at first I thought, great, something's broken in here. I have then discovered that everything I typed on the onscreen keyboard is being entered, also through explore by touch. Only when I manage to double-tap multiple and several times on the message body (now shown as being read, not edited) and I get to a 'Show More Items' menu, and jump back out of it, I can get the Message body textfield to show up. But it takes some effort, and I cannot always get that to happen. I turned off VO many times and then on; restarted the device; and jumped hula hoops but to no avail. .

Now what does all this mean? Editing, typing, deleting, replacing, and refreshing through thoughts on an email message's reply may be now out of reach for a Blind person using an iPhone's native email client. Haven't tested this behavior on the New Message screen yet, but from what I've seen, I personally believe this is purely unacceptable that this new regression / bug is being introduced in this system.

I am a working professional now in the Blindness field, teaching children their Braille, and assistive technology skills they need to be independent. This also means teaching them things like iPads and eventually I may need to teach how to do email activities on these precious devices, with Braille display and all of that. So from my professional standpoint, also, I believe my personal opinion of this bug to cary even more weight. I feel like facing a paradox, where we teach our students to be as independent as possible, setting them up for success, preparing them with the technology skills to be productive, setting up a caring and awesome learning world for them and now how am I suppose to teach access technology with something like an iPad and expect the accessibility to be broken?

I understand we live in a world of deadlines, fastly moving markets, and a rapidly changing landscape that we all (including software devs) to be adaptable and on-our-toes all the time. But clearly, yes, I am seeing the consequences that come out. I like some people in this community, think companies need to not focus on new features too quickly, and efficiently, that they forget about things that need to be improved with present features. Isn't it the goal to always keep learning, always improving? Accessibility isn't the exception to this at all. I would say we all get on our feet and start emailing (if able) or calling Apple Accessibility to let our voices be heard about all these VoiceOver bugs that we're seeing. I think this needs to happen, if we all need to get on an equal footing with the sighted world. I'd say is our moral duty and obligation to hold these people accountable. If we want the change we want, we need to start doing it ourselves. I will report my above to Apple Accessibility immediately and instantly tomorrow as soon as I get out of my virtual work. I'm also switching over to Gmail app. It's getting better with accessibility in text fields.

If anyone's able to reproduce the above bug that would be great to know. P.S. I've also noticed firsthand many others, including the one where VO keeps saying 'Text field, is editing' on Web browsers.

Thanks for reading. Please be safe, stay healthy and have a great day.

Since updating to iOS 13.4 last night, I am unable to pair my Braille device (a Papenmeier Braillex live. Did anyone encounter the same bug?

After digging a bit deeper into the Braille device issue mentionned above, I found out that Apple now a'dded the possibility to customize Braille input commands (in other ways: it lets you define shortcuts that you may use from your device).
As a shortcut lover, I can see that this promisses to be very interesting, but has anyone successfully tested that feature?

@David Goodwin
hello
ever since I bought my first ever IPhone in may 2019, this website has always been helpful. specially when I was first learning to use voice over.
I just would like to clear one thing.. certainly not wanting to be rude
the only reason I switched from an android device to an IPhone was because I knew the levels of support and accessibility apple offers.
no doubt that there are some bugs. but it is still better than android. you have a great website for blind and VI people here and you can always depend on the fact that yes truely, apple has commited to accessibility even if it sometimes seems that they are not working so efficiently towards it as they should do.
if you have an android device, you won't be able to click pictures as easily as you can in apple devices for that matter.
even though you can individually update apps on android device, it is always a mystery whether yhe update will come to your device or not and most often you find that even if company like samsung lists your device on there list but still you realise that the update itsn't there on your device. this was the major drawback for me as someone who loves keeping her device up to date, I was tired of running android 5.1 on a micromax device! and I could never discover what the Heck it updated when it had a system update!
getting an IPhone was a dream come true for me. even if it is an IPhone 6S. I'm happy and greatful to applevis for that.
there lovely edotorial team is all one could hope for :)
stay safe, be healthy and enjoy your day :) wherever you are :)
best wishes from India :)
and again thank you :)

another bug, try typing in your pincode with BSI.

It no longer works, you have to use the normal keyboard instead, not exactly secure if you don't want your pin known.

I suppose you could use headphones, but that may not always be an option.

I use the iPhone XR.I find that the system volume, the volume of VoiceOver, and the volume of the system sound effects are often inconsistent.For example, if I set the system volume to 30%, the volume of VoiceOver will decrease,At this point I locked the screen, but often I heard a sound of a lock screen sound much larger than 30%.Of course, it's not just the lock screen, it sometimes happens when you unlock it.Other times, when the iPhone receives a notification in the lock screen, it will issue a huge sound. This sounds too distressing.This situation has never happened in iOS12 and before.Have you encountered this situation?

Lol when I first heard the call declined message and yes it has been around for a while I asked my friend "Why did you decline my call?" weird enough if the other person hangs up and not you it will say call ended after the 3 beeps.

Hello all,
Has anyone else had problems using braille screen input on the lock screen to enter in your pin? I seem to be unable to use it anymore. I am using a iPhone 10S and I have powered off and on my phone again. This did not help.

Smart invert is much improved in 13.4. I’ve been following the iOS 13 smart invert craziness & it hasn’t been fun.
Some strategies: use smart invert on light mode.
Use dark mode only when smart invert is off.
Obviously this is not smooth and I will continue to voice my thoughts about it!
For now it’s so much smoother than earlier releases of iOS 13 & I’m much happier.

By some sort of magic, or something, after I sent my original posting yesterday, today all the sudden, I am now able to reply to emails no problem. However, I still have some issues.

* When focused on an email message, and flicking up with two fingers, VO will not scroll back to the beginning of the email; instead playing the 'Poof' boundary reached sound.
* Vo is sometimes repeating words after flicking down to do the spacebar after word typed, when using Braille Screen Input.
* So far I could replicate the issue of entering passcode with Braille screen input. For me, sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't.

The one that really gets me is yesterday is pronounced yester-tay. How did apple manage to screw that one up in 13.4?

Do to Apple being bug land now I am thinking of getting an iPhone 8 and leaving it on iOS 12 and not updating it.

Hi All,
Ok first the yesterday issue seems to be voice specific. Samantha has this issue but Daniel in the UK does not. Do not disturb still shows on my iPhone 8 as a notification but that isn't a deal at all. The good news is that for me at least all notification issues seems to have gone. No longer getting repeats when unlocked etc. Its great to be back how it was.

well hi. I also miss 'yesterday' I never expected apple making yesterday 'yester-tayyyy!"
and I love @Julian's way of putting it!
:) ;

UK Siri female will still not pronounce the word are, or the word our, except if those words appear as part of a sentence. So try typing are or our with word echo on, or try navigating by word to are or our, and you just get silence. This is not an issue with UK Siri male or Daniel, but it's been an issue ever since they "upgraded" in inverted commas UK Siri female.

I also had the annoying issue of the iPhone's defaulting to Samantha when I updated to 13.4 but thank goodness that only lasted three or four minutes. I do not see how anyone could stand using that awful voice!

Instead of correcting pronunciation issues, let’s add more. Volumes repeats itself since 12. 2020 and abbreviated months have been wrong since 13.
Yesterday affects multiple American voices.
Crapple is a big ole pile of poo. Leader in accessibility no more!!
Dumped my everyday Mac for a Dell. Looking like 11 is my last iPhone. If Tim, Sarah, and Accessibility can’t bring themselves to care... Time to close my wallet to Crapple!
ETA: You can add the word township to the ever growing pronunciation list. SMH

A good work around for this issue is to go into the pronunciation accessibility settings and put in yesterday in the original word box and then in the substitute box, put in yesterdaye -- When you are putting in the original word in the first box, be sure not to put a space at the end of the word because that will mean it will not be recognized if the word yesterday has a comma after it as it does in the App store app update section where it lists updates for apps. With no space after yesterday and replacing it with yesterdaye in the substitution box, the pronunciation should be fine.

honestly, if people keep buying apple products no matter what, what's the hurry for fixing bugs? there are only two major mobile platforms covering nearly 100% of the consumer market, that's the nature of the problem. so when someone tries to say something like nobody forces you to buy an iphone and the like, think about the above first.

apple is currently treating fixing vo bugs as a hobby, that's plain to see. remember the notifications won't dismiss bug? it's not fixed yet, or have you get used to it already?

when you find the notification, you'd at least want to hear what it is, then you flick down and double tap to dismiss, this takes at least 2 seconds. say you get five of these a day, you'll waste one entire hour a year for absolutely nothing. one hour, not for something unproductive, but absolutely nothing, think about it.

earlier this decade, the street loved apple because its products "just work"; the street still loved apple, but nobody talks about "just work" and the halo effect anymore. these days, it's all about stock buyback and higher stock multiple for a service company. how much a company can change in just ten years, right?

Please let me know if anyone else has come across this problem.
I use voice control to navigate my phone before bed and for some reason a couple nights ago it stopped saying any commands?
Like I give it a command and it makes the switching or clicking sounds but doesn’t say any of my voiceover screen words…

Is this because of an update? I’d like to be able to keep my routine every evening but with this problem there is absolutely no way to get around it.
I’ve searched Google, and I’ve went through every single command in the voice control settings to try and figure anything out… Unfortunately I’ve had no luck.
If any of you get a chance to give it a try please let me know how it goes!

Edited two add a few more details:
When voice control is on, if I touch the screen voiceover will say what it should like usual. But then if I ask voice control to swipe right it makes the swishing sound but no voice over titles.
When I switch voice control off everything still works like normal with voice over.
I still have some light vision so I noticed when I give voice control a command on the home screen like swipe right, the entire page moves! It is like voice control is active without voiceover or that it turns one off at a time?
I’m not sure if I explained it right or if it makes no sense at all ha ha.
Hope this is helpful!

I've only noticed the textfield bug on my journal, and it only seems to happen when flicking right and not left. Very interesting. But then again, I am only starting to use the mobile version of Safari. Another good update though on my end.