iOS 17 Beta, VoiceOver, findings and observations

Back when I first started using Jaws, speech rate was determined by words per minute, not by percentage. I wish these companies would go back to that method as it makes more sense. I don't remember what they used for pitch, but I guess they wanted to use the same method across the board.

I know. I'm just thankful that we actually have the option to use it now. I'll definitely start using it as soon as I can.

do siri voices still crash in the beta?

I have noticed Siri crashing for me a little bit. It happens especially in Mail. I have reported it.

If you see off and public beta, tap on beta and go on there. It needs to be selected. If you have apple ID you could get it. I will wait for beta 3. Good luck to all of you. May the apple be with you.

I am curious if this installing webpages as standalone apps is only for Safari on the mac.

I know iOS lets you add pages to the home screen, but they're shortcuts.

When you remove them, it says remove bookmark.

At least, that's what it says on iOS 16.5.

Oh and this installing websites as apps isn't new, they're called progressive web apps on windows, not sure about other platforms.

Basically, if you don't have internet, use aeroplain mode just to be sure, and then try and play this game, after you have installed it as a progressive web app.

I tried it on iOS 16.5 and it didn't work.

I then tried it on windows 10 and it worked perfectly.

So, anyone willing to give this a test?

https://files.jantrid.net/aliens/

Has anyone had problems with the feedback app? I am noticing that when I swipe right on the screen I can only go so far and then hear the thump. I found that if I scroll up with 3 fingers, I can get to more of the screen. I reported this to Apple accessibility. Also, when in the iTunes store I only see buy buttons and nothing else in regard to music. I find the buy button actually works however if I don't know what I am buying it's kinda useless.
Now that the beta is available to all, Let's bombard apple with lots of feedback. Perhaps this will be the OS where things get fixed? Here's hoping.

so far, I found my iPhone 13 Pro with iOS 15 to be the best. Now that I have my iPhone 14 pro, it was buggier with iOS 16. Let's hope that iOS 17 makes it stable, as well as hardly any bugs.
We've seen how stable it is in beta 1, which is a lot more stable than iOS 16 beta 1 (who remembers not hearing VoiceOver until screen curtain was turned off?), and let's hope beta 2 is more stable.
At this rate, iOS 17 looks really stable. I am super excited for the future of iOS 17!

@Amir
No it's not just you. That setting for Eloquence definitely doesn't do anything. I moved it as far as both directions would allow and not even the smallest difference.

emojis are not being properly read. instead , VoiceOver says backquote JI. reported this in the Feedback app.

Eloquence does this. It was the first thing I encountered and I reported it. See the first page of this thread, actually.

I think Apple is putting a better emphasis on accessibility. I'm very excited for iOS 17.

Hey all!

I wanted to suggest something that could potentially be of benefit. When discussing bugs that have been reported through Apple's Feedback Assistant, it would be great if you could state the Feedback ID.

While I can't claim that members of Apple's Accessibility Team will necessarily be reading all the comments posted here, including the Feedback ID will be helpful if they do read about a bug and want to investigate it further. By providing the Feedback ID, we can make it easier for them to track down the specific bug report quickly.

By adopting this approach, we can potentially increase the likelihood of bugs being addressed promptly.

The Brightness, Volume, and AirPlay controls are still present in the Control Centre, but are currently not recognised as being there by VoiceOver (FB12268847).

You can still access the AirPlay functionality by performing a long press on the media controls in the Control Centre. On the resulting panel the AirPlay button is accessible and works as expected.

Hi,

After playing with iOS 17 beta, here are my findings and observations. first, I have noticed there have been significant performance improvements when navigating the home screen using voiceover. It is very much improved compared to iOS 16. It's very stable. However, you will come across some bugs. But not a whole lot compared to iOS 16. for example, I have notice that when you move to an audio message from someone in your contacts, VoiceOver will not read the text of the audio message unlike the previous version (fb12550) All you here is a sound to inform you that actions are available, and that’s it. however, you can still play the audio message as normal. here's hoping apple fixes it in next beta or future betas to follow.

Apart from that, it scenes to be very stable. I have notice that the crackling from eloquence is gone. for example, in the voice settings of speech from within VoiceOver, when you swipe down to the open the per voice settings option, it reads it clearly with no crackling whatsoever. The same thing goes when typing the letter O, it reads it with no crackling. Overall, not bad on beta 1. however, their's lots more to be done, so with that being said, I hope the bug I’ve mentioned, as well as the previous bugs that everyone else has mentioned will be fixed in either next beta, or in future beta releases over time. Thanks for reading, and let's keep those bug reports coming.

I wanted to let you know i jut filed a bug report on this issue. Here is the number:

FB12286547

This is quite annoying as i relied on this widget. Lol.

Auto switching languages is not working with Telugu Geetha voice invoiceover, FB12295229 — iOS & iPadOS, 10 June 2023 at 8:34 AM

VoiceOver crashed while using YouTube with Siri US voice, FB12295185 — iOS & iPadOS, 10 June 2023 at 8:29 AM

VoiceOver is not speaking when dim screen is enabled, FB12267316 — iOS & iPadOS, 8 June 2023 at 9:30 AM

Eloquence voice in VoiceOver is making weird noise after reading the focus item, FB12267176 — iOS & iPadOS, 8 June 2023 at 9:14 AM
Unable to focus on volume control, brightness, control and also here play button in control centre using Voiceover, FB12266419 — iOS & iPadOS, 8 June 2023 at 7:56 AM

Spotlight search is not accessible with VoiceOver, FB12308625 — iOS & iPadOS, 11 June 2023 at 12:00 PM

Can somebody tell me how in the world Apple managed to make it sad the voice message is unlabelled.

Back in iOS 16 there would be a search box near the composed button and iMessage. Now it’s gone. Does anybody know how I can get it back

Keep in mind that this is the first beta. It is definitely not meant for anything other than testing. Any frustrations are pretty much moot because things are supposed to not work right now. The audio messages are unlabeled because it’s a first beta. The search box is gone because it’s a first beta. Any issues are going to be attributed to it being a first beta. There won’t really be a stable version where most things are working until about beta three or four.

This is meant for testing and sending feedback to Apple through the Feedback assistant application. It's very important that you do this as voiceover users add as Apple device usets.

Hi.
Here are 2 bugs I have just discovered. And since everyone wants FB ID’s, I will be providing those at the end of the comment so voiceover doesn’t just sit there and read a bunch of numbers.
Bug #1:
Siri voices will delete themselves.
I woke up to a muted phone. I changed to my language roater and changed to a different voice. When I went into the settings, all 4 Siri voices were deleted and required a redownload.
That is wh when you are beta testing, you should have multiple voices easily available.

Bug #2:
Voiceover sometimes will speak some characters as you type with hardware keyboards even though that is turned off.

If I find any new bugs I will leave them here.
Here are the FB ID’s.
1. FB12344152
2. FB12344207

Has anyone else been able to open VoiceDream Reader without it crashing? It's a problem in iOS 16 while on low power mode, but here I can't get it to open at all.

Yes, Voice Dream has been crashing for me too. I emailed their support as well, but never heard back.

Zoe Premium is not available on my iphone SE 2020. Why

I do have one program that won't open, but it will open without voiceover running; once in the apps list, it works fine. This trick might work with voiceDream.

Fore me, VoiceDream just has a lot of trouble starting speaking. Once I can get it to talk, all is good. I'm using Neospeech Paul, and that works better than any of the IOS voices, even though it doesn't work all that well. I feel sorry for the company who bought Voice Dream, it has been nothing but trouble since IOS 16.4 or so.

Doesn't work on my end unfortunately.

I haven't even considered participating in a beta since iOS 10 or 11; can't remember which. The beta back then wasn't terrible, but there were enough issues that I've never felt the need to beta test again since then. I'm writing this post because I've been having a lot of serious focus issues with VO and iOS 16. A part of me is thinking that things can't possibly get any worse, so I'm thinking about trying the public beta of iOS 17. I have an iPhone 13 pro. If someone could please share their experiences regarding focus, most notebly in apps such as Kroger or Amazon, I'd really appreciate it. I've heard that battery life on the beta isn't great, so I only want to attempt it if it will improve my situation over all. I only have my iPhone, so will only try the beta if it's safe for daily use. Thanks for any thoughts/advice you may have, and I hope that everyone is having a great day.

I have never had many focus issues with my se2020, I wonder if that is related to the particular phone type people are using. In your situation, I wouldn't try the beta. I have a spare phone, so if the problems get bad enough, I can switch to it.

Generally never a good idea to use your main device unless you’re willing to deal with all the possibilities. As this is beta, there are going to be a lot of issues all over the place. Both small and large. There’s not gonna be any kind of support if something breaks down. At that point, all you can do is wait for the next beta.

They’re generally going to be two reasons why a person uses beta software. Number one is always going to be to see what’s not working and consistently reporting them. The second reason is to get a handle on the overall way something works (bugs included) and learning how you might be able to live with them going forward. The new features are going to be made more readily available and bug free by the time fall hits. This isn’t really meant for fun. It truly truly truly meant for testing and reporting. On average, I submit something like 5 to 6 bug reports daily. I’m thorough so these bug reports take about half an hour to 45 minutes each. This includes screen, recordings and system diagnosis. And I’m retesting bugs and providing new information as I go along. And that’s added to my workday which is already busy If you’re not willing to do that, I would say, private or public beta probably isn’t a good idea.

One last thing. Although I don’t discourage anyone from providing feedback, I will say that it tends to be really important for a person to know what they’re doing. The problem with not knowing is that people might leave a bug report that contradicts other information. And that could really delay a bug getting fixed.

Where the absolute heck did Eloquence go in the most recent public beta?

EDIT: Looks like it disappeared for a few minutes after installing, but it's back now with no additional action from me. Interesting!

I’m having enough issues with the latest developer beta for to the extent that I would advise anybody who isn’t already on the beta program to not install it. As I found in previous years, the first couple of builds work well but then as things progress and Apple Store adding other features it can create more problems. Personally, I’m having a few issues. One is in Safari where explore by touch seems pretty much impossible and trying to move VoiceOver around the webpage can be quite difficult even with swiping.

Siri is still temperamental and cuts off mid sentence and sometimes almost immediately after it starts talking. Navigate by touch when Siri is displayed, seems almost impossible.
The biggest problem I’m having and I cannot work out whether this is just something strange with me, but I’m finding my phone and my watch above having quirky behaviour when trying to activate an item. VoiceOver behaves as the I’ve only tapped once.

I have checked the assisted touch settings But everything looks as I’d expect and I’m not aware of having changed anything. I’ve washed my hands and clean the screens but still the problem persists. Sometimes it becomes almost unusable. The fact that is happening on both my watch and my phone makes me think it’s probably something to do with my fingers but given that I’ve washed them, I have no idea what the problem can be

It’s not just you. Ever since beta four was released, the overall voiceover tap sensitivity has been kind of off. I have no doubt that these are going to be resolved in beta five. They’re way too in the face to not be addressed. It’s the little subtle bugs that worry me. Things that we tend to have to wait an entire year for them to resolve. Funny enough they fixed the issue of voiceover announcing. When spacing twice in beta three, and then it reverted back to not making the announcements in beta four.

their are a few bugs which I haven't seen mentioned yet.
I am using the developer beta. these have existed since beta one and I am on beta four.
when using Siri to send a message, it inconsistently reads back what I said. sometimes it says the whole message, other times non of it and yet other times part of it.
if I am using my AirPods Max and try to make a call, I usually have to take them off and put them back on after I give the command or neither of us can hear each other.
also, every once in a while the phone needs to be restarted because it gets warm, the battery starts dropping quickly and functions just don't work right. I can't quite figure out what is causing this.
Finally in the home app when I open a device such as ecobee all that I hear when touching the screen is the words screen shot. this started with beta four.

I'm on the second public beta, and VoiceDream seems to be having issues with iCloud syncing. When sync is enabled, VoiceDream struggles to load, and and newly added items may not sync at all. The fix I've hit on is a simple one; I've turned off iCloud syncing in VoiceDream for now. That seems to have worked.

Great, except how do you turn off iCloud Sync in VoiceDream if VoiceDream will not open at all?

I’m also having the problem with Siri cutting off mid speech or not even responding at all sometimes.

It doesn’t do it when I’m listening using my AirPods so I think it is because Siri is either listening to it son speech or voice. With iOS 17 they introduced Follow up functionality for Siri where you don’t have to keep saying hey Siri once you’ve already asked it one question. The problem then is that all you have to do is make a sound sound and Siri stop speaking. I’ve had it where it’s reading back a notification in my AirPods, and if I make a sound, it stop speaking.

I’m finding when exploring by touch on webpages, often the drop-down, tick box or whatever the farm field is, opens as I move over it without me double tapping on the farm field.

And example would be drop-down for a date of birth or a drop-down to site to country or language. it pops up the options and the only way I seem to be able to get rid of them is by making a selection. While trying to type this comment, I keep getting the text format options popping up without me tapping on them. Very annoying

An update just appeared in my App Store today. I am now able to open it with VD disabled for iCloud Drive. Was not able to do it earlier today before updating.

Thanks; after the update Voice Dream opens for me as well.

Seems so low compared to both Vocalizer and to iOS 16 Eloquence. No volume adjustment in per-voice settings. How do you get the volume to match other voices (i.e., without changing the main VoiceOver volume)?

I'm not at all at riskof losing speech, but I was just thinking it would be so cool to use your own voice to navigate with VoiceOver. Does anyone know whether there are plans for that?

No, I haven't seen any mention of plans to integrate Personal Voice with Voiceover; it's squarely a physical accessibility feature. Even if by some chance there were, Personal Voice is brand new. So I would imagine the priority, assuming Apple has any, would first be on the intended purpose of Personal Voice and making sure it worked with Live Speech and FaceTime etc. before trying to graft it onto Voiceover. Which itself still has issues. So you might be waiting for a long time.