Hi All,
I recently purchased the 2020 iPad Air and the magic keyboard which Apple released earlier this year. This is the one which magnetically attaches, and also includes a trackpad.
I'm having a problem where the mouse pointer seems to be interfering with VoiceOver, which is making VoiceOver focus jump around. If the mouse pointer has drifted up to the status bar for example, as soon as I press any of the FN, Control, Option, Command or Shift keys, VoiceOver focus jumps up to the status bar. Or if the mouse pointer is somewhere else on the screen, it can happen too.
Basically it's making keyboard navigation with VoiceOver very difficult.
I called Apple accessibility support, but unfortunately the guy I spoke to was unable to help. He said he has not come across the issue before, and does not know what is causing it. There is no option in Settings to disable the mouse pointer or the trackpad, so I can't even do that.
Has anyone else come across this, or are you successfully using the magic keyboard without having this problem?
Thanks,
Dave
By Dave Nason, 18 November, 2020
Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories
Comments
my workaround
Hey there,
I have the same issues using the logitech combo folio. It's not a perfect solution, but what I do is simply slide a finger from top to down on the trackpad two or three times, so you move the cursor down on the sprmngboard.
Usually you don't need to do it very often, do it only if voiceover starts jumping around the status bar.
As soon as the cursor is far away from the status bar, everything works fine.
Hope it makes sense and excuse my english. Maybe in the future it would be possible to turn the trackpad of, or even using voiceover gestures directlz into the trackpad, like in mac OS... Who knows!
Thanks
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the info. It's good to know that I', not alone in this, and the fact that you are having the issue in relation to a different brand of keyboard proves that it is not related to the magic keyboard specifically.
Yes, hopefully they will both fix the bug, and also give us more options, including the ability to switch the trackpad off.
Found a fix
So it turns out there is a way to fix this. While the person I spoke to on the phone was not able to resolve this, the accessibility@apple.com folks were.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver and scroll to the bottom. There is a section called Pointer. Here you can choose to have VoiceOver follow the mouse pointer, have the mouse pointer follow VoiceOver, or have VoiceOver ignore the mouse pointer entirely. This did the trick for me ☺️