iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 Accessibility Report: VoiceOver, Braille, and Low Vision Issues and Improvements

By AppleVis, 15 September, 2023

Apple will publicly release iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 on Monday, September 18, 2023. This post contains a summary of new bugs impacting VoiceOver, Braille support, and low vision features that we have identified during testing of these upcoming releases. We have also included details on previously reported bugs that appear to be fixed in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 based on our testing.

As is our routine practice, each newly identified bug has been given a severity rating. These ratings are based upon what we believe to be the implications for accessing and using features and functionality for the average user, the level of impact on the overall user experience, and whether or not there is an effective workaround for the issue. However, as these ratings are subjective, it is possible that they may not reflect your own opinion or use case.

With our small team, it's impossible to test every device, configuration, app, and use case. We can't claim our bug list is comprehensive or that our assessments are infallible. Some issues may manifest only under specific conditions. You likely won't experience every bug. Also, expect to encounter problems not listed that we missed in our testing.

We strongly recommend reading this full post and replies before updating. This will help you make an informed decision on whether to install iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 when they become available or to wait for a future release.

To ensure the information here is as complete and accurate as possible, we welcome comments below from those who have installed iOS 17 or iPadOS 17. Please confirm if you are encountering the same problems listed or if you have found workarounds. Please also let us know about any additional issues not mentioned here. Of course, it's even more important that you report any new bugs directly to Apple - they are already aware of the ones listed here. [For an explanation of why and how to report bugs to Apple, see this post.

With all of the preamble out of the way, here are the new bugs for blind and low vision users which we believe to be present in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17:

Serious Bugs

Some users may encounter an intermittent issue that affects the operation of the VoiceOver double-tap gesture on iOS 17. When attempting to double-tap an actionable interface element, the resulting behaviour experienced is as if the user touched with 1 finger the area of the screen where they performed the gesture, rather than performed a double tap on the element that VoiceOver focus was on.

For instance, with VoiceOver focus on a button within Safari's toolbar, performing a double tap might result in VoiceOver speaking the text content of the webpage that was under your finger at the time you performed the gesture, instead of activating the intended button in the toolbar.

When this behaviour occurs, VoiceOver focus typically moves to the interface element that was spoken. It's necessary to relocate focus back to the intended element before attempting the double-tap again. While this movement of focus may sound similar to the longstanding issue for many users involving VoiceOver focus, the issue described here is new and noticeably different when experienced.

This issue is not limited to specific apps; it occurs across native and third-party applications. It impacts various types of actionable interface elements, including activating items on the VoiceOver rotor's action menu.

In some cases, the double tap might function correctly on the second attempt, while in others, it might require multiple tries before registering accurately.

The underlying issue can also cause problems with the operation of the 1 finger triple-tap gesture and the 1 finger double-tap and hold.

It is important to note that this behaviour is not consistent—it doesn’t happen every time. Based on our testing, there is no discernible pattern to predict when it will occur or how frequently. But based on experience, it likely won't be highly frequent for impacted users.

While serious, this issue does not appear to be widespread Based on our tracking of user experiences during the beta cycle. It has been encountered by five members of our Editorial Team. Additionally, A few other users across the wider community have reported experiencing this behaviour, including Jonathon Mosen and a listener to his Living Blindfully podcast. Beyond these known cases, there has been no indication that a significant portion of users are affected. Overall, current evidence suggests this is an intermittent issue impacting a small subset of users rather than something everyone should expect to encounter.

Adjusting the Double-Tap Timeout in Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver has been suggested as a partial workaround for the issue. However, based on limited testing, changing this setting does not appear to resolve the underlying problem. While you may want to experiment with adjusting the Timeout interval, keep in mind that this could disrupt your natural double-tap muscle memory which is accustomed to the default timing. Any benefits in reliability would need to outweigh the effort required to learn the new timing. At this point, the setting change seems unlikely to provide a sufficient or permanent fix.

We chose to rate this issue as serious because of the importance of the double-tap gesture and its frequency of use. Moreover, our assessment has taken into account the potential impact of this behaviour on individuals who are new to or less familiar with iOS. These users might reasonably assume that the behaviour is due to them not correctly performing the double tap gesture, possibly leading them to conclude that using an iPhone is more difficult than it actually is.

Moderate Bugs

When using VoiceOver to navigate the main screen of the native Weather app, the movement of focus is inconsistent and unreliable. Specifically, focus can become stuck on an interface element, falsely suggesting there are no further elements to the right or left. Or focus may unexpectedly jump over elements as if they don't exist on the screen. As a workaround, you will need to explore the screen by touch in order to locate all weather data.
Using the "drag" action in the VoiceOver rotor to rearrange app icons on the Home Screen often does not work as expected. Specifically, when attempting to drag an app icon to a new position and place it before or after another app, the dragged app frequently ends up in a folder with the target app rather than moving to the desired location. It's also been reported that on occasions some drag action options, such as “drop before” or “drop after”, may not always be available.
An intermittent bug can cause VoiceOver speech to stop after ending a phone call, while sound effects remain. There is no clear pattern as to when this issue occurs. Similar behaviour has also been reported when using WhatsApp.
Incoming banner notifications 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, VoiceOver would finish reading the current paragraph, sentence, or menu before speaking a new notification. This prevented jarring mid-sentence interruptions.
The new predictive text feature in iOS 17 provides recommended words inline as you type using the onscreen keyboard. There are verbosity settings that allow VoiceOver users to control what happens when predictive text appears and when predictive text feedback is entered. However, some users report that these verbosity settings are not being applied consistently across different apps. When the predictive text verbosity setting is set to speak recommendations, some VoiceOver users report that recommendations are silent in certain apps, even though they expect them to be spoken. Conversely, other users have found that with the predictive text setting configured to not speak recommendations, VoiceOver will still read out the recommendations in some apps like Mail.
It is not possible to mark certain actions as favourites in the system share sheet due to the ‘Insert’ button and checkbox being recognised as part of a single element. Specifically, when editing the list of actions to be shown in the Share sheet and focusing on an action that can be enabled/disabled via a checkbox, VoiceOver announces the checkbox state and "Insert" together rather than separately. Double tapping toggles the checkbox but does not allow inserting the action as a favourite.

Minor Bugs

VoiceOver no longer announces the time when the device wakes if there are pending notifications. Instead, it states the number of notifications present.
When using VoiceOver Find with a braille display, searching does not function as expected. Specifically, pressing dot 8 does nothing after typing in a VoiceOver Find query with a connected braille display. The search is not carried out. As a workaround, prior to pressing dot 8 to execute the find function, press dots 2-7 followed by space with dot 8. Your search will now work as expected.
When using the VoiceOver rotor to mark an email as read in the native Mail app, VoiceOver fails to provide clear confirmation feedback. Instead of announcing "read" to confirm the action, VoiceOver speaks an unclear and incomprehensible word or phrase.
When you adjusts the volume slider in Control Center using the flick gesture, VoiceOver announces the previous volume level rather than the new level after the adjustment. Specifically, when a user focuses on the volume slider in Control Center with VoiceOver enabled, then performs a 1 finger flick up or down to change the volume, VoiceOver speaks the volume percentage. However, instead of announcing the new volume level, VoiceOver reads out the volume level prior to the flick gesture adjustment.
When editing Safari bookmarks, the bookmark names and reorder icon label are incorrectly announced with "remove" prepended.
Double tapping on a bookmark or folder title in Safari's edit bookmarks screen incorrectly activates a delete button rather than opening the edit view. As a workaround, the contextual menu for actions includes an Edit option.
Some users may experience inconsistent and less descriptive labelling of Control Center toggles. For example, the toggle for locking device screen orientation may simply be announced as “Locked” or “Unlocked” rather than using the more descriptive label “Lock Rotation” that was present in previous iOS versions. This degraded labelling does not appear isolated to any specific VoiceOver voice. Users of the Alex voice have reported experiencing the unclear labels, while others using Alex still hear the expected descriptive labels. Additionally, isolated reports indicate similar degraded labelling for other Control Center toggles beyond just the orientation lock. This bug seems to manifest unpredictably, affecting only a small subset of iOS 17 users. The inconsistent experience suggests an underlying issue, rather than a deliberate change in labelling.

Other Reported Issues

The Messages app will now automatically transcribe audio messages into plain text, a valuable addition for deaf-blind users. However, some users report the transcript preview and ‘Show More” button appear visually but cannot be accessed through Braille commands, VoiceOver gestures or menus. Our testing could not reproduce this inaccessibility - VoiceOver consistently announced no transcription available for our audio messages. As we were unable to independently validate the issue, we have not filed a formal bug report yet. We will continue investigating this issue to clarify its specific behaviour.

Additional user-reported issues that we have not independently validated are discussed in these forum threads. While our team has not personally reproduced or confirmed these bugs, the threads are worth reading to potentially identify other problems you may encounter:

If you know of any other VoiceOver, Braille, or low vision issues in iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 that aren't already listed here, we encourage you to share details below to help fellow community members. When reporting a new bug or problem, please include as much helpful context as possible - describe exactly when and where the issue occurs, the steps to reproduce it, and any workarounds you've found to bypass or resolve it.

Accessibility Improvements in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17

We know that there will be considerable interest in discovering whether the longstanding VoiceOver focus jumping bug has been addressed in iOS 17. This particular bug has presented challenges in checking and documenting due to its varying impact on different users. While some have been unaffected by this issue on iOS 16, others encounter occasional instances or, in more severe cases, frequent occurrences rendering their device nearly impossible to use at times. A further complication is that no consistent pattern has emerged regarding the circumstances under which this behaviour manifests. For some people, the issue exclusively occurs within Safari, while for others, it can present itself across any application. Similarly, the focus might jump to the top of the current screen for some, whereas for others, it will jump anywhere within the same screen.

The purpose of outlining these complexities is to underscore the challenge in accurately determining the status of this bug in iOS 17. Reports from the iOS 17 beta cycle have been mixed. Some users say that they have seen a end to this behaviour, while others note a reduction in its occurrence or no improvement.

Our Editorial Team's experience is similarly mixed. Given the inconsistent experiences, it's impossible to forecast post-update results for each user. You may be among the lucky subset that sees this issue fully resolved or observes some level of improvement, but we recommend regarding either outcome as a bonus rather than something to be expected after installing iOS 17.

Our testing suggests that the following pre-existing accessibility bugs have been resolved or significantly addressed in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17:

If you encounter any additional fixes or improvements during your own use of iOS 17 or iPadOS 17, please let us know by posting a reply below.

In Closing

Our team has compiled lists of new accessibility bugs for every major iOS and iPadOS release since iOS 7. Based on our testing, iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 have introduced fewer critical VoiceOver and Braille bugs compared to previous major updates. Overall, these seem to be the most stable and usable major releases for blind and low vision users in recent years. However, if you haven't already upgraded, we would strongly recommend that you take a few moments to read through any replies to this post before doing so in case other users' experiences differ from our own. Also consider that historically Apple has delivered fixes for many accessibility bugs within the first few x.x.1 updates following major releases. Upgrading to iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 appears low risk for most use cases, but waiting briefly may allow Apple to resolve initial problems reported after the public release.

"It's not uncommon that simply toggling VoiceOver off and on again or restarting your device can resolve some issues that may arise following an OS update. Therefore, we highly recommend including these steps as part of your standard troubleshooting process. If, despite these actions, you continue to encounter new problems that haven't been reported by others, it might be worth considering a reset of your device's OS settings to their original defaults.

While this approach requires manually restoring your customised settings, including those related to accessibility, it's worth noting that a reset has proven effective for numerous individuals in resolving various issues. This suggests that occasionally, problems can be attributed to local factors rather than being OS bugs. If you choose to perform a reset and find that it doesn't address the problems, you have the option to restore your device from an iCloud backup, eliminating the need for manual reconfiguration of your settings."

When commenting below, please keep the discussion focused on accessibility issues specifically introduced or fixed in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. These posts tend to garner helpful responses, so it's important readers can easily find relevant details. Also, remember upgrade decisions are personal with each user's situation unique - there is no right or wrong choice. Comments criticising others' decisions are not constructive and do nothing to add to the discussion. Furthermore, not experiencing an issue yourself does not mean it doesn't exist for others, as bugs can be configuration-specific. Stating an issue doesn't exist simply because you haven't encountered it is unhelpful. Our aim is constructive exchange of experiences to inform decisions.

In closing, we thank Apple's Accessibility team for their prompt response in fixing many of the bugs reported during the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 beta period. Their dedication to addressing the issues raised by our team shows that Apple continues to prioritise accessibility. However, some problems remain unresolved. We encourage Apple to promptly address the outstanding accessibility issues discussed in this post and the comments below so that iOS and iPadOS can be as accessible, usable, and enjoyable as possible for all users.

Options

Comments

Double tap bug

I also have the double tap bug. It’s been driving me mad. I just assumed that it was either another part of my hand touching the screen or a problem with the screen itself. I have my iPhone 15 pro arriving on Friday so will feedback if this problems still persist

I don’t have the double tap bug

iPad six generation. iOS 17.0. Eloquence

Ben Dallin

I was using iOS 17 develop a beta, and I also couldn’t experience the chime letting me know that Siri was listening to me. Hopefully iOS 7.1 fixes this problem, as it is an outrageous problem

Well that’s concerning

And just when I thought that
All the VoiceOver related problems when it comes to voices
We are fixed
I am noticing my iPad six generation is a little bit slower… still kind of upset the iPhone 7 didn’t make it to iOS 16,

Focused issue

VoiceOver jumping like a kangaroo is fixed!!!! I haven’t had the issue since I installed the update a few hours ago on my iPad! I also like the
(voice settings
Item and VoiceOver settings Called
Open her voice settings
I watch the braille issues with fixt though

Double tap bug

I also experienced the double tap bug when I update it to iOS 17. After speaking to somebody, they suggested that I change my double tap time setting in accessibility voiceover from 0.25 to 0.5. When I did this, double tap works normally.
Hope this helps.

The 3rd moderate item is an iOS 16 bug

Hi.

Speech stopping after a phone call is not an iOS 17 problem, it already appeared for me with iOS 16.

Alex and Samantha

I didn't have that problem in IOS 16 but it's happening quite frequently in IOS 17. The explanation makes perfect sense, and now that I know why it's happening, it can happen all it wants, at least for now.

Speech stopping

VoiceOver speech stopped on my iPad whilst I was playing a game of Dice World. I had to triple click the home button to disable VoiceOver and then reenable it. This is disgraceful

Using Karen voice compact

Notifications

On my iPad notifications are being read when I press the power button, despite an iOS 16.6.1 I didn’t have this enabled! How was Apple supposed to change settings like that without permission

ringtones

Nope, you cannot assign custom ringtones or text tones at all, unfortunately.

Ringtones

Ok I take my comment back saying ringtones and text tones work. I already had text tones and ring tones I made in use. but testing it further when I try to assign a text or ring tone for someone it says default and its the same tone for everybody else. This sucks. Hopefully its fixed.

Serious: Braille Screen Input issue during editing text

I'm using Braille Screen Input to write long texts -even blog posts-.
My set up is Italian table, uncontracted. 6 dots on the iPhone.
What happens: when deleting a word with two-fingers-flick, VoiceOver no longer speaks the deleted word.
This happens when you delete a word in the middle of a text, not the last one in a sentence, if you delete the last, it works regularly.
Let's assume you write: "hello nice people", and want to edit the sentence to obtain just "hello people".
You place the insertion point on the "p" of people, and double-finger-flick backwards to delete the word "nice".
VoiceOver, instead of speaking the word "nice" with lower pitch indicating it deleted it, you hear it speaking the "p" of "people", where the cursor (insertion point) stands.
This creates a big problem during editing, especially if you need fast operations.
Work around: use advanced editing functions.
Hold a finger on the screen and, before it says "exploring mode", two-finger-flick up or down, with the other finger always held, and it will switch from characters, words, lines.
In words mode, just two-finger-flick back and forth till you get the word, and then three-finger-flick right, or left, depending on the cursor position, to select the word. And single flick left to delete it. Or, use the select/delete in traditional keyboard.
This slows it down.
Please, tell me if I should create a new post here, to report the bug so that I can get further feedbacks from input braille users all around the world, I doubt it's just a matter of Italian table.

@Elena Brescacin

While I am not a Braille user, I would recommend you make a new post on this issue, if someone else has not already done so. It might be a good idea for Braille Display users to have a dedicated thread to discuss issues and ideas when things like this arise. Not to single you guys out or anything, but rather just for convenience sake. 😅

Face ID

You still get haptic feedback with FaceID, but it's very, very soft. I also had to get used to it, but now I kinda like it

not display Braille, it's braille screen input

yes I'll write a new post but it's not dealing with hardware, but with software feature which allows to use touch screen like a Braille keyboard.
I'll write a new post later.

Grouped Notifications Not Expanding

Groupe notifications are not expandable from the Lock Screen whether the device is locked or unlocked. Furthermore, the bug seems to be consistent when activating Notification Center from elsewhere in iOS. This is different from the bug in iOS 16 that resulted in VoiceOver continuing to state that a notification was grouped even after it had been expanded with all notifications being visible.

image discription is not working

since updating to iOS 17 image discription is not working niether in safari nor in whatsapp. anybody is facing the same problem?

Not able to edit Home Screen widgets

While I am able to add and move widgets around the Home Screen, it would seem that I am not able to edit the parameters of an existing widget. In iOS 16, activating the widget while in Edit mode would bring up a sheet that would allow you to adjust the parameters of that particular widget, but performing this action does not render any results.

No serious bugs

Against all reason I updated to iOS 17 and, well, there are no serious bugs yet. Sure, the weird folders being created out of nowhere when you're editing your screens is annoying as freak, but it was there on iOS16 already so nothing new on this regard.
Does the new Siri calling method is language restricted? I can't find it on my settings.

I have more bugs, unable to tell if they are device specific...

Acknowledge this bug listed: When using the VoiceOver rotor to mark an email as read in the native Mail app, VoiceOver fails to provide clear confirmation feedback. Instead of announcing "read" to confirm the action, VoiceOver speaks an unclear and incomprehensible word or phrase.

Apart from this here is what is going on with my device iPhone 12 with VoiceOver running on IOS 17 and some of these bugs were on IOS 16.6.1 reported, acknowledged and still not fixed

1. VO focus moves to the status bar where time and battery information is read; this happens randomly when opening apps. from home screen, spotlight search but not app.switcher was on IOS 16 need to lock phone and unlock to be able to get back to the app.

2. When using the messaging link to apple, Safari OR Google Chrome same experience, allow microphone access when allowed VO is no longer heard. Feels like the system froze and is not responding when in actual the browser is still open and sighted user can see it but I can't interact with it after locking/ unlocking, turning VO on/ off the VO speech is actually heard in the inear speaker insted on the speaker / bluetooth headset

3. Reported an issue with the Shortcut app. where the speak text action is used, Siri voice is selected to speak and the voice of Siri is choppy visit here: https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/updated-trouble-automations-when-triggered-shortcuts-ios-166

4. Locked screen time sensitive notification: Keep/ disable when tapping the keep button the option does not go away it still stays there giving no acknowledgement that the time sensitive notification remains for the notification

5. VoiceOver makes that sound as if it's the end of the items on the app.or screen like nothing is there on the screen after reading the last element, but on exploring by touch there are more things shown on the screen which VO missed to read out

6. Dictation can't get any worse confuses words for The as They, them for there and likewise for so many words I speak clearly and slowly and change my voice to sound as clear in a non noise environment

7. Unable to delete downloaded Siri Voices settings/ accessibility/ spoken content/ voices any Siri voice, you click edit and delete the voices move away from the screen or restart your phone, voices are back!

contact posters?

Has anyone played with the contact posters?

I can sort of create them, but can't delete them.

Even following any online instructions doesn't work, because either I'm doing something wrong, or voiceover doesn't see any delete button.

Got nailed by double tap bug

Just installed iOS 17. The double tap bug became a really big problem from the start of my using iOS 17. I finally tried locating buttons to press with one finger staying on the screen and then using a second finger to select the button. Not terribly convenient, but it worked. I found my way to Settings, Accessibility, VoiceOver and then went to the double tap speed option. I'd read here onAppleVis that upping the value to 0.5 seconds cured at least one other users problem with the double tap bug. I finally incremented the value to 0.50 seconds and it seems to have worked. Now, I am having some difficulty moving to the bottom of the screen with the four finger tap, but I'll work on it. Ugh. The double tap is the one I had hoped to avoid, but thankfully, another AppleVis member saved my day. Cheers!

A different double tap bug workaround

Hi All,

No degree of precision tapping solves this problem, but there is a way to reduce it without having to change the time delay option. It is:

Once focus is on the element to be double tapped, tap a bit away from that element, and make your second tap even farther away. I've found that tapping twice in an upward direction spaced a quarter to a half inch apart works relatively well, taking an average of two attempts instead of 5 or 6 to get double tap to work.

I love Apple. Don't you?

Evil smile. I really can't wait for the next "aren't we wonderful" call in talk show with a live Apple representative, most especially if it's the head of there accessibility department.

Joy!

Bruce Harrell

The Secret About Double Tapping

I have learned over the years that on the iPhone or iPad, you do not ever have to perform a double tap precisely on the object that you want to activate. You can get VoiceOver to focus on the object or item you want activated, take your finger off of the screen, and double tap anywhere else on the screen to perform the activation. This approach has always worked for me even now--that I am updated to iOS 17.

St. Curtiss the blessed

I am very happy for you, Curtis. What you described has always worked for me, too, until today, when I upgraded to IOS 17.

May you always live a life filled with blessings!

Bruce Harrell
selected

ring tones/alert tones

The ring tones and text alert tones I've already assigned to contacts *seem* to be working as expected. However, I discovered that my new voice mail notification sound was still set on a Christmas Carrol; didn't notice before now because phone is almost always on silent and I get all important notifications on my watch. Anyway, when I tried to change the new voice mail sound, it would only allow me to pick from alert tones. Not a huge issue, except that I bought a bunch of alert tons from the iTunes store, and even after hitting the button to download tones, the only ones that show up are the two Christmas ones. I was using the Old Spice whistle for voice mail a while back, and would like to use it again. So, I will definitely be calling Apple about this one, although I have a much weirder non-accessibility issue that I'm hoping they can help me resolve first.

Just updated

The first thing I noticed upon installing the update was that my vo speed was faster. It was at 65% and still is, must've had something in the code that changed the speed
Of course, our good friend (not) braille enter key bugs still exist
And the braille find feature does not work, obviously, because I connected my braille display and on instinct just went into the find to search for Chrome, pressed enter and it just cleared it. That's it for me so far.

Speech sounding staticky with Karen

Looks like there are speech bugs all over with this update. After deleting all of my settings to try and fix the focus bug (which has kind of helped? It's still happening in a lot of places but not everywhere) I've been trying out my usual speech and it's a bit off. Karen has been my default for almost a decade with no issue. But since installing the update, if I'm flicking through items with any amount of speed she starts sounding like she would if the bluetooth was cutting out. Except this is coming from the phone speaker itself. It's very unpleasant. It sounds like radio static.

Two Braille issues but otherwise great

The Braille issues I have experienced are:

1. Find does not work and to date, I haven't discovered a way to make it work.
The good old Braille enter key bug is alive and well. The dots 2-7 followed by dot 8 work-around, however, works every time for me.

Other than that, and I realise that what I am about to write is just the annoying sort of comment that some people do not like to read, i am having no issues at all. Voiceover is snappy and responsive. The crashing and crashing bug is gone - a particular relief in my case. BSI works very well indeed - far better than I can remember in years. It doesn't even exit out of BSI anymore when I two-finger flick left to delete a word. I'm saying this not to annoy those of you who are experiencing genuine issues. Rather, for those reading this thread and thinking of updating, if your experience is anything like mine (and I can live with the Braille bugs I've listed above) you will be fine and really enjoy it. I should add that I haven't tried custom ringtones and that sort of thing as I tend not to bother with things like that, so I can't say whether I would have issues with it if I were a custom ringtones man.

A little sound update.

The notification sounds have changed. I know it's not a huge thing but i just thought i'd let people know.

I think I prefer the older one but then again I like this version because the sounds are either quieter or quicker.

Haptics?

Iphone se 2022, ios 17.0. My iphone's home button and side button now vibrate when I press them, can I turn that off?

VO swiping

Sometimes now when I swipe fast, vo speech seems to slur together almost, when I'm swiping to, for example "About text formats" then go to "Text format plain text ” and I swipe just before the word format should be spoken, I can hear vo start to say that word before reading the next thing? Using Nicky voice.

Loving this update!

Other than the things I've previously mentioned, I'm loving this update so far! Would definitely recommend!

Samantha is replacing Alex constantly.

It hardly ever happened with IOS 16, and Samantha never took over the way she is now. A friend told me that if I added US English to the languages rotor and put Alex in there, I won't have the problem. It's an extra step I don't want to take, but Samantha is driving me crazy, and I don't even get to hear the enhanced Samantha.

New Camera Level Feature...

This new leveling feature alone is going to be very good, if I'm reading things right. I've started to scan food and beverage items for nutritional content, but haven't been that successful primarily because I can't seem to get a good enough picture of said items. Hopefully between these 3rd-party scanning apps and this new camera feature, I'll eventually be more successful at health-related stuff. After all, I've been told that I need to lead a more healthy lifestyle and I agree with that assessment. I'm still using an iPhone 7 but hope to upgrade very soon.

Going for it

Hoping for as few bugs, and to dodge the lingering focus bug. I'm tired of having to worry about not having my phone up to date, and also seeing the software notification in settings.

Fast swiping, VO almost stutters

Curly mentioned this a few comments ago. Toward the end of iOS 16, it was only happening with Eloquence. But now it's happening with every voice. I haven't updated my phone, but have noticed this on my iPad, it's almost like VO stutters over part of the last line it read when it should have moved onto the next.

VIP list in Mail went nuts

I think all is well again, but just to make note of a hiccup I experienced late yesterday.

I noticed that I magically went from zero unread VIP messages to well over 9,000. I knew that wasnt right. I went into the info dialog for reviewing who was on the VIP list and found everyone that I could imagine. I took the time, trimmed the list back to those who are always on my VIP list and I was then back to zero unread VIP messages, although all of the previously read ones were still in the VIP folder. This morning, I noticed that I had no messages at all in the VIP folder. I suspect all of the read messages are safe and sound in my primary inbox, as I did a quick peek, but the behavior was unexpected.

Outside of the detour I took yesterday trying to claw my way out from under the double tap bug, which I seemed to have solved (and documented in this thread), I am also enjoying the upgrade. Not a perfect upgrade, but still amazingly smooth, so far.

Cheers!

It's Alive! It's Alive! It's Alive!

The phone rebooted and woke back up after the update. First major panic attack avoided. There doesn't seem to be any crashing and jumping... so far. Samantha default does sound a little fluttery on long speaking stents, but I can live with it. I haven't noticed any double tapping issues yet. It's nice to have one less item of techno-stress off my plate of worry.

Morgan Watkins

Hiccup! Put the phone down and without it looking at you give it a nice scare. Maybe it will make the hiccup go away.

SIRI back-to-back requests

Has anyone had any luck getting SIRI to respond to back-to-back requests? SIRI seems to ignore my second request, unless I prefix it with SIRI or Hey SIRI, but according to press releases, SIRI should hear and act upon my second request without the prefix. I've read a couple articles. I'm speaking the request at the right time. It just doesn't work. Any help would be appreciated.

PaulMartz

It works well. Using 13 pro.

Mostly good here

17 has been mostly good for me, apart from a few small issues, but they're really noticeable.

I haven't quite figured out a good way to work around the double tap bug. I even get it if I'm trying to do a multi-finger tap, like a three finger double tap to turn speech on and off. Hoping this can be addressed in a 17.1 or 17.2 update, as happens every year when little bugs get fixed later in the year.

I also dearly miss being able to three finger flick up in BSI to send an iMessage.

I like the new default "rebound" notification tone. I have some ringtones and alert tones on my phone that I created back in the day, but I haven't used them in a long time.

I also like some of the little tweaks they've made to eloquence. Reading numbers is much, much smoother. I agree with others and hope they can fix the higher sample rate though.

I love, love, love crossfade in Apple Music. I don't know why, but it makes listening to music just that little bit more enjoyable. I've been listening to my personal station a lot the last couple days without skipping too many songs. I only hope they can bring crossfade to air play soon.

Split-tap gesture workaround

I've been using the split-tap gesture to work around the double-tap bug, but this requires dragging around the screen to find controls.

The alex/samantha thing again

Hi! because of this reason and some others I'd rather not go into, I have decided to start using the new, much smaller Siri voice on my phone and watch. Unfortunately, it is not allowing me to delete Alex from the phone. He cleared off of the watch without issue, but no matter what I do, Alex will not delete from my phone. I have checked multiple, multiple times, and he's not being used for anything. It's not giving an error or anything; it just literally does nothing if I try to delete Alex, but I am able to delete other voices just fine. I wouldn't worry, but since the main reason I've switched to a different voice is to hopefully free up space on my phone, it's kind-a frustrating. I have already spoken to Apple Accessibility, but I think I'll call them back and try to officially get this filed as a bug. I don't want to do a factory reset on my phone if I don't have to, but between this and some other storage-related weirdness, I'm beginning to think that a factory reset is in my future at some point. Thankfully, I just got a physical sim card to replace the Esim I had which I think was causing some completely different types of hate and discontent. Anyway, if anyone knows of a way to force the Alex voice to delete, I would really appreciate it. I've gone to edit in both voice over and spoken content with the same lack of result.

Re: Speech sounding staticky with Karen

I'm having the same problem with Siri Voice 4 (US English). iPhone 13 pro.

Braille Screen Input tip

For those who need it, you can edit almost all of the commands for Braille Screen Input. I got so sick of the two finger scrub making BSI nearly unusable that I went in and replaced the three finger swipe left and right gestures with delete word and quick action so I can quickly send text messages. Also changed one finger swipe down to return/ new line and made it less easy to accitentally unlock the braille mode.

About the voices being all jumbled and staticky, it's a shame this is a bigger bug than it seemed but I'm glad it's not just me. I hope they fix it.

How is Sending iMessages with BSI supposed to work?

I've been using BSI since it came out however many iterations of the iOS software ago, but I've never heard of a shortcut to do it while in BSI mode. How is that supposed to work? Thanks.