The New Features, Changes, Improvements, and Bugs in macOS Catalina for Blind and Low Vision Users

Supposing i'm the only one at all that's been geting this issue since the second or 3rd build of this software here:
When reading any web area, Voiceover always includes info about some insertion point, even in some cases interrupting the flow of group item reading to point out that some insertion point is between the characters null and G for example. This happening has made any web area much less a joy to go through on mac OS as a whole, even occasionally in mail.

I think it's also important that people know that the classic view for Mail has been removed.

The Siri voices are now usable with voiceover. However, the last time I tested them, they were very glitchy.

This update is very nice indeed. I'm really happy with a lot of the small refinements in this version, and voiceover seems to be much much more responsive for me. It's a shame about the Siri voices, but that info was actually removed from Apple's website earlier on before the final release, so I don't think they're ready just yet. I would not use them for now, but I'm sure they'll be fixed in time. Definitely much better than iOS 13 on day one, but even that wasn't horrible.

I just updated my Mac after my sister and her tutor called me to say they beat me to it. Lol but anyway, the update took a long time over spotty wi-fi but all is well over here. I did notice the Siri voices and switched to a British-English male, but noticed that he started and stopped a lot. So I'm back on Bruce for now and will see what happens. I also noticed some of the iOS apps listed here.

While this update adds some cool new features, I'm extremely disappointed the Nuance voices still! lag! This is beyond ridiculous! They broke something in Mavericks, and 6 years later they still haven't fixed it? Really? Why is that the same voices on iOS devices that are less powerful than some of these Macs have no issues in terms of responsiveness?

The Siri voices, while nice, are not practical to use with VoiceOver. They lag just like the rest of the Nuance voices and extremely disturbingly, they can't seem to keep up with the screen reader. I'm experiencing random cutoffs and periods where the voice says things I did a few seconds ago. This makes navigation impossible and would not be acceptable if something like this with this lack of quality control was released to the sighted. You'd better believe Apple would have this fixed pronto!

On the plus side, VoiceOver is definitely more responsive if you're using a voice like Alex, and there are some new Braille features that are kind of cool. In particular, I like that we can finally disable the feature that listed multiple items on the same line. Having said those goods things, however, I really don't understand this.
1. If Apple has blind people working for them, is this stuff tested? It appears the answer is no, as these Siri voice issues have been around for a few months.
2. Why is Apple improving parts of VoiceOver and neglecting other aspects, particularly ones that have existed for over half a decade?

I really don't know anymore. It is truly sad that VoiceOver and the whole system are being neglected like this. I still say the best version of VoiceOver was probably in Snow Leopard. The experience was rock solid! That was the version of macOS that really made me love the platform and the future possibilities VoiceOver could bring. Oh well, it looks like those days are gone, and my patience with Apple is as well.

Maybe they don't care because macOS will be phased out soon anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if they released a Mac powered by an ARM processor running iPad OS within the next 1-2 years.

While I haven't time to extensively try out the new features, I have noticed that in PDFs, using Samantha, VO pronounces parts of words when reading. For example, in the sentence read the files displayed here, VO will say: read the fil es here. Has anyone noticed this?

Is anyone else having problems with sluggishness on first boot?

One particular feature which i think is worth mentioning is the ability to switch between single or multiple elements in the Vo utility. If you choose to display a single element in the braille line, exactly as you do on iOS, you have your dots 7 and 8 back, as they are not needed to display the vo cursor. This comes particularly in handy in those places like articles in safari, where a big line of dots 7 and 8 would be drawn under the whole text of the article, as it was seen by VO as being a single block of text.

All the apps that I had purchased from outside the App Store, are now of a sudden stop working after I upgraded to macOS Catalina. Even my VPN app. Because of Apple new requirements that they want all the app developers to put their apps in the Store, which, will cost each app developer $99 a year. Glad I have Mojave backed up still, so that I can roll back to it anytime. I don't know how long I can deal with this. I think it won't be long though.

Not much more to add. It really is very frustrating the way that macOS is getting repurposed as a sideshow accessory to iOS while it stagnates from lack of care and attention to the experience. I have no objection in principle to macOS being rarified for the small form factor and the everyman, even to iPad apps or the new security features if implemented correctly (so, not in this case), just as long as traditional users remain accommodated and the bugs are actually being squashed. If Apple can't bring itself to love the platform it built, it should hand it over to somebody who will.

Honestly though, not only is Catalina not all bad, but the alternative is Windows 10 and the hideous privacy nightmare that it represents. So, really, it's just a question of whether one wishes to be in the frying pan or the fire. :)

@Socheat: no idea what's going down there; you should be able to run notarised apps from outside the App Store just fine. Go to System Preferences, Security and make sure you are set to run from outside the app store. After running an app, an option should appear to add an exception if one is needed.

Hello! One thing that wasn't present in Mojave but has become a bit of an annoyance for me in Safari is that within every heading Voiceover says Insertionpoint at x and x. Which means it sees the heading as a textfield. To explain further, lets say the headings name is New bugs in Catalina and I go to that heading, Voiceover will say: New bug in Catalina Insertionpoint between c and a. That's just an example. But it is very very annoying. I am a beta tester so this might be something I only find in the beta. But since I have the Goldmaster installed I guess its still present in the sharp version to.

Anyone else notice that when checking the time and date with Right Option-T, there is a noticeable lag and the time is repeated continuously until you initiate the command again? Haven't had time yet to test this extensively,. Other than that, so far so good. Currently using Aaron as my VO voice. He's doing pretty well. Perhaps these voices haven't quite adjusted to their new surroundings, lol! But give 'em time and it'll all be good.

I did so, but it doesn't work. It just hang in there. I can see it open in the dock, but the app window is not visible at all. Might have to look into it again. If it doesn't work, well, revert back is my last resort.

After upgrading, I quickly downgraded. VO stuttered, skipped, and repeated words while reading. Not worth any new features at the moment.
I also dealt with insertion point between. This is an annoying bug which is also sometimes experienced on iOS.
Not going to bitch, but disappointed with accessibility on new rollouts. Very frustrating!

The problems people are having with older apps could be that the apps are not 64 bit apps. The new O. S. will not support older 32 bit apps. Check to see if there are updates to your older apps before you upgrade.

Before upgrading, I have checked and verified all the requirements. The app I was using are all 64 bit apps.

To those who having problems with the time with Apple's script, I don't seems to have any problems with it at all. VO speaks right away after I pressed right option t.

Hi all,

In Safari, If you create a HotSpot (VO-Shift 1 to 0), and then when you refresh the page, the HotSpot you created no longer exist.

Has anyone experience this tOO?

Thanks!
Jhon

Also, I also experience the delay in Time and Announcements when I press Right-Option T.

The auto language switcher on iOS mini years ago; but on macOS no! The multi language users is growing up, and I give up to give feedback to Apple… what I should do? go to popular website and try to make him write about Auto language switcher.
For me it’s not one year it’s six year…

Hello all,
Just updated my Mac OS today morning. I am impressed with the overall performance and responsiveness VO demonstrated so far.
I am fascinated with the ability to select multiple Braille Tables (if I am not missing something here).
I tried to select multiple Braille Tables but I cannot seem to switch my Braille Tables at will.
For instance, if I open a website featuring a different language than the default English (UK), my Braille Display shows gibberish.
Is there a way to add multiple Braille Tables and allow VO to change it to appropriate Braille table based on the displayed language?
Also, where do I find rotor settings on Mac, or are there none I can customise?
Thank you and have a good day!

hello all,
apologies for the immediate next comment.
I realise that on MacOS 10.15, smart invert colours seems to be smarter than the previous versions of MacOs.
However, when I am trying to invoke smart invert colours, my entire Mac screen inverts its colour, (including desktop wallpaperrs and photos/vidios etc).
I thought smart invert is able to differentiate between photos/images/vidios and other text/page background and display appropriate colours on the screen.
Is anyone having the same issue as I am having? I am about to drop an email to apple accessibility team. Before that, I would like to know whether this is a bug or an expected behaviour of smart invert to save me and accessibility team some grief.
Thank you once again and have a good day all!

I have an older mid-2012 MacBook Pro with an HDD. I, too, experienced the big delay with Right Option + T before announcing the time. However, after upgrading the hard disk to an SSD, the time is announced more promptly. There's still a delay, it's just not as noticeable.

If the delay is a serious issue for you, take a look at this article:
https://www.applevis.com/guides/making-voiceover-announce-time-and-date-your-mac

I have found that the mouse pointer jumps either to the top area or the bottom area of the screen when you use the mouse pointer to navigate the text with voiceover, something I have always done with great success. It is very disruptive as i use the mouse pointer to indicate which text must be read out by Voice Over and when the pointer jumps it reads out the text it lands on, no longer reading the paragraph or sentence i was busy reading.

When you go to an album in Music, it only reads out the first ten songs when there are more tracks on the record. I called Apple support about this and the solution we found was to scroll down using the arrow keys by themselves. VO only reads out ten songs. This is rather strange - a brief google reveals people have had this problem in various forms since 2015.

After upgrading to Catalina, my text cursor is not tracked in fullscreen Zoom.
Getting the same issue in Safari and MS Outlook too.

Most of my work is with iTem2, do anyone know of a workaround?

I also have been encountering this problem, I hope they will fix it but I don't think they care about Mac OS like in Maverix or Yosemite.

Hello I have just made the upgrade. In previous versions of Mac OS I had the problem, that preview in combination with voiceover was always very busy when opening and trying to read long pdf files. This problem seems to have been solved. I tried two long pdf files with over 200 pages and it worked.

I realised it to and it's great. But Continues reading still is not working.
But Books App also is better now, VoiceOver doesn't jump when it encounters with a empty line or a picture and it reads all the pages properly.

When I go into Safari, a pop-up window appears. Voice Over reads: "Application window dialogue. You are currently on a dialogue." If I move focus away from Safari and then come back to Safari, I can navigate the screen until the "Application window" pops up again. I cannot close this window and there does not appear to be any controls within the window.

This happens every time I go into Safari since I upgraded to Catalina.

I noticed that voiceover will stop speaking from time to time. Voiceover is still running but the speech becomes muted. The only way I know to fix this is to turn off voiceover and then turn it back on. Has anyone else experienced this bug? I am using a 2013 MacBook Aire

The Books app is very much usable in macOS Catalina. I seriously hope the Applevis team does a bit more investigating of macOS in the future, or that Apple kind of gives us a lot more info on accessibility as there doesn't seem to be that many Mac users on teams like the Applevis one.
Back to the better stuff, I can now read books for long stretches of time, even longer if my chair were more comfortable, lol, on the Mac in the Books app. It doesn't have a "now reading" section like iOS which I've come to love, but I can find a book and begin reading just fine. I can even have Voiceover announce formatting changes, great for students reading textbooks where vocabulary terms in text are bolded and such. For more general changes it's still good to have text attributes sounded rather than hearing all the exact information. The only change from Books in iOS is that, since Voiceover doesn't have a "page turn" sound, the page is announced when doing a "read all" and Voiceover advances pages.

So, even with the Safari annoyance, and the braille problems, and the time problems, as a reader, I updated for the Books accessibility alone, which I found in an early beta on an older MacBook.

To the person experiencing constant speech crashes, those happened to me all the time not long after I got this Mac. It is also a 2013 MBA, but I haven't experienced any speech crashes for awhile now. I don't know whether it was Apple's new file management thing that fixed the problem, or the purchase of my external hard drive, or both or neither of these. In any case, it's all good on my end.

Hi all,
I agree that books app has become more accessible and responsive than what it was in the previous versions of Mac OS. All in all, it is a much anticipated and welcome change.
For some strange reason, though, I am unable to use my Braille Display with Books app. Once I am in a book and after interacting with the text of the current book, my Braille Display refuses to pan.
Consequently, I am stuck at the current line or a text element. No amount of pressing the pan keys budges the focus of my Braille Display to previous or next line or text element.
Am I missing something here? Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thank you and have a good day all!

Hi. I really hate this thing. I want my regular old iTunes and Utorrent back. Can I grab my time machine drive and go back?

Hi. For someone who wants to go back, sure buddy. Just get Mr. Peabody to do it... To the person experiencing the issue where your display doesn't pan, is there a firmware update you don't have? Just asking, I'm sure Apple has a problem but, just asking. :)

To the person who wants to go back, as long as you have a backup of your old OS, surely you can go back. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup my machine.

Not sure if this has been addressed in the latest supplemental update for MacOS Catalina, but I too was having this issue. I have a simple workaround for those willing to invest a little time and patience.
1) Navigate to your scripts directory (whether you use the default or your own, does not matter)
2) Find your script, such as 'Time Of Day.applescript'.
3) Open the file, which should launch Script Editor. Then copy all of the text within the script.
4) Open Automator and create a new Workflow. Choose the action 'Run Apple Script', then paste the text from your script into the code field and save it as <filename>.workflow.
5) Open VO Utility and navigate to Keyboard Commander, then edit your shortcuts to open apple workflow instead of open apple script.

I realize this will take some time, and many of you will look for a simpler alternative. For the rest of you, this will eliminate the weird delay introduced in this latest iteration of MacOS.

HTH

I have a backup from last year and I successfully downgrade when I ran out of space on my SSD. for this, boot to recovery with command+R. then select restore from time machine back. you need to connect your backup drive at this point. then select in time machine system restore, the drive, then the backup. once downgrade, you should be all set. this process will take a while but it's perfectly accessible.

Hi all
I just upgraded to macOS Catalina and I’m in countering a serious bug in safari when trying to download a file. When you click on the download link, it says the usual download has started message. But when I go into the downloads pop over it says busy preparing to download indefinitely. Has anyone else encountered this?

Hello to all,
Let me first say that I love the work that apple vis does, and how it keeps us connected as a community. With that being said, I want to discuss a comment that someone mentioned about how terrible windows 10 is as it relates to privacy.
While I'm not going to touch on the privacy aspect, I will say this: I read the blog post, and while there are two new features one for voice control, and one for voice over users regarding punctuation, This lack of VoiceOver support is why I no longer have a mac. Even Microsoft Narrator has less issues, and believe it or not, continues to be worked on. The last major changes to Voice Over were in Mac OS Mountain lion, and that was almost a decade ago. They are just now letting you guys customize punctuation, but yet the ability to write apple scripts is broken. It really makes me wonder what will become of Macs in about another 10 years.
Bugs are not getting fixed, and