Telegram accessibility

By DavidAnkers, 1 February, 2021

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello this is my first posting on Apple Vis.
I downloaded the Telegram app and didn't find it very intuitive, plus many of the buttons had not been labelled. So I didn't use it much, but this weekend, there was an update, which promised to make it more accessible with voice over ! So you can imagine how pleased I was to discover I couldn't even enter the app after updating, as voice over wouldn't read the screen to enter my code. My wife signed me in and guess what ! Most of the buttons etc are still not labelled ! I hate having to go through all the buttons, having to add labels myself. How has this app got into the App Store considering how inaccessible it is ? Is anyone else using this app ? Any advice much appreciated.
Dave

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Comments

By Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

Hi. Yeah I've been having the same issues. There's an app I use that replaces Tellagram but still allows you to chat with people you have on there... it's called Bright Guide.

By user26335377 on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

I tried to used it every update, but commonly nothing had change. Yes, there is some fixes in several recent versions, but in general it's unusable with voiceover. I tested this app on android, and it's works perfectly! It's one of the reasons, why sometimes I prefer android to iOS, despite of fact, that in almost everything voiceover has rather better features, there is some apps, which can not be used on iOS...
PS. I also tried brightguide, but it has only very basic functions, which is definitely not enough.

There is an update and now a lot has changed. I am chatting with my friends, I obtained a voice transcript which is due soon, and they are listening, at least someone on github who is not part of telegram support is listening and is pushing these updates out. I did bug 7 things recently. see the github thread posted here earlier. I am actually impressed that we are even moving this fast now that we have somone on our side, even though they are just an ordinary user. I hope they can fix the media section as that on both platforms is inaccessible, and the same can be said about unigram.

By ming on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

I have been using it for awhile.
but, found that the accessibility is not good enough for replace something like whatsapp or signal...
will try it again when I find it is better....

By SoYoung on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

I only use this app for a friend that likes it and it is indeed terrible for accessibility features. Not being able to adjust font size the size we want is unacceptable in 2021. The maximum size is still to small for me.

By Falco on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

Hello,

If you can choose and and your contacts give a little bit about privacy you have to use Sgnal instead of Telegram because:
- Telegram group chats standard are not E2E encrypted (in whatsapp it is standard, in Signal also but in FB messenger not)
- Also funny Telegram give the option to export your WhatsApp chats to their servers = Export all your E2EE chats to a not encrypted Russian comppany. :D
- The Signal devs are listening to accessibility problems and are them fixing already in the latest beta versions.

Regards

By ming on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 20:18

I have been using signal for awhile even before the whatsapp said that they are going to share my info with facebook
the voice message quality is even better than whatsapp

Actually, it is. Read the thread up there and report any issues you find, I might have missed some, as I don't know anything about fonts, and I don't need to, as I'm total over here. The one takign this progect on is disgusted by the code that is left hanging, stuff being commented out when it should be, and stuff being in there that should not be.

By Vsevolod Popov on Thursday, June 24, 2021 - 20:18

Hey all,
After the latest update of telegram the new accessibility issue appeared.
I was testing beta versions and it appeared there, it is even worse than just not having the go to the end of messages button.
The issue is that now we don't have an audio player while playing voice messages to be able to play/pause, change the playback rate and stop voice messages.
I haven't checked it with the sited user yet, but this player doesn't appear when using VoiceOver.
So we cannot stop playing the voice message and change the playback speed when needed.
More than that, when typing using braille screen input, the sound will go to the upper speaker and the voice message will start and stop playing, so to be able to type normally we have to close and open the telegram app.
I have already reported this to volunteer support. I always try to test telegram betas to send bugs, but to be honestI am really tired of that because it doesn't make any sense, issues are not fixed and the new ones are added.
So unigram becomes more and more usefull and telegram app on iOS becomes more and more unusable with VO.

By SoYoung on Sunday, April 24, 2022 - 20:18

One year later and font size is still not adapted for accessibility users, its ridiculous. Even Messenger is a better app for accessibility users than this. I'm close to just delete my account.