Incoming banner notifications interrupt VoiceOver speech when the “Speak Notifications” setting is enabled

Category
VoiceOver Announcements/Feedback
Severity
Moderate

Description

A regression in iOS 17 causes incoming banner notifications to interrupt VoiceOver speech when the “Speak Notifications” accessibility setting is enabled.

Specifically, any time a new notification banner appears, VoiceOver will immediately stop reading the current on-screen text or menu to announce the notification. This interrupts VoiceOver mid-sentence or mid-menu in a disruptive manner.

In previous iOS versions up to iOS 16, VoiceOver would finish reading the current paragraph, sentence, or menu before speaking a new notification. This prevented jarring mid-sentence interruptions.

The new interruption behaviour makes VoiceOver speech more difficult to comprehend for users who rely on the feature to read on-screen content aloud. It also disrupts navigation of menus and apps.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Enable “Speak Notifications” in Accessibility settings.
  2. Enable VoiceOver.
  3. Use VoiceOver to read a paragraph of text or menu.
  4. Have a notification banner appear.
  5. VoiceOver will interrupt immediately to speak the notification.

Bug First Encountered

iOS/iPadOS 17.0

Device(s) bug has been encountered on

iPhone

How often the bug occurs

Always

Apple feedback #

FB12810870

Status

Fixed

Fixed In

iOS/iPadOS 17.1

Options