A thought on iOS 17's double tap issue

Hi,

I am finding this issue on my watch as well.

I have lengthened the double tap timeout, which did help on the phone, though this seems not to be doable on the watch.

Interesting observation on the staccato tapping. I could, maybe get the haptic time vibration thing to work 1 in a hundred attempts, but now that I've implemented the staccato tapping thing, it seems to work just fine.

Thank you.

Whether they are aware of it, or not, it is occurring. Unfortunately, Use cases are different for everyone using voiceover. Some people have greater awareness. Some people have more dexterity. Some people have ability to pay attention a little bit more. If I picked up another iPhone, running iOS 17, I would be able to detect the issue. And that’s across the world. Anyone that says that they’re not experiencing it or either able to ignore it or are unaware of it. I really wouldn’t trust too much that people on this website say.

No issues with it or in my watch. Using iOS 17.02 and OS 10.01

I can't reproduce this issue either. iPhone 13 running iOS 17.0.2, Apple Watch Ultra running watchOS 10.0.1.
What are the exact reproduction steps? How long has the waiting time to be between the two taps? How has the settings for double tap speed to be set?
On my phone, it's 0.2 seconds.

this popped up both with my iPad Pro 2018 and my new iPhone 13, both running iOS 17.1. As for how to reproduce, simply try swiping your way to the app you want. More often than not, if you don't double tap quickly enough, it will seem as if you tapped, once, on another app entirely. I can verify that the poster is correct on the way to get around this issue, although I'm inclined to think it's a bug and not a feature.

I followed your steps and I don't get this bug to occur. Has someone already tried to revert all settings to facotry default (General > Reset > Reset all settings)? It would be interesting whether this can "fix" the issue. Maybe it has to do with a specific VoiceOver configuration, maybe a set of commands that you changed or anything else.
For example, I'm encountereing a strange issue that seems only to occur once a Braille display has been connected. I speak about the issue that link image elements disappear when passing them with a swipe gesture and then trying to get back to such an image link element with swipe left.

Go to double tap time out in settings>accessibility (at the very bottom) and change the setting to a higher number. Doing so will give you more time to complete the double tap. Strangely, when I upgraded to IOS 17 and switched to an iPhone 15 Pro, my double tap time out setting changed itself to 0.25 seconds. When I changed this setting back to 0.45 seconds, the double tap time out problem went away. smile

Try it.

Joy!

Bruce

Like I said, everybody’s going through this issue whether they’re aware of it or not. It’s not subjective. It is a voiceover sensitivity issue. For people to say they’re not going through It is wasting everyone else’s time. The people that say they are not going through it are not noticing it because of the way they are using the devices. It’s not because it doesn’t exist on their device.

I’ve recently messed with several different peoples iPhones and iPads, and Apple watches. I’ve been able to reproduce every single bug on every single device. Again, voiceover is the problem. People saying that they are not going through. It are making it impossible to push resolutions. I could take everybody who posts on this website devices and reproduce the same bugs.

How do you know that for certain? You can’t just go saying, oh everybody has this problem. Not everybody has this problem. Personally, I don’t have this problem. Using several devices, including iPhone 11, and iPhone SE 2022, an iPad sixth generation, and several others. I do not have this double tap issue.

I also noticed that a double tap on the watch was taking me to strange places. Yes, a more staccato touch and a quicker second touch seems to work better, but not perfect.

What I finally did was to set a finger pinch gesture to perform the single finger double tap. Now I'm a happy camper and it always works!

--Pete

So I didn't have this problem on my old iPhone 12 or on my new 15 model. But on my Apple Watch 5. I almost couldn't use the watch, it was that bad. Now I have found a setting that helped me. In the Watch app under Settings, Accessibility and Touch Adjustments. Here I activated the Holding Duration switch and then increased the value. Greetings

to keep my post charitable this tone, and with your assertion of a small use case sample size to make a definitive statement is illogical. To at least presume that when others say they have understood the problem and yet are not experiencing it is to call them a liar at best and, incapable of following your point, due to their intelligence at worst. having done systems administration work for a few decades, I can myself definitively say that some issues simply do not make sense, and need further investigation of the particular instance involved, rather than simply dismissing it with a blanket statement.

My experience matches Brandt's exactly so just wanted to +1. Also using same workaround for Watch as Peter. For me, it takes a lot of effort to be able to tap fast enough for the double tap to work on the Watch.… And not sure I could do it at all while moving or walking. and it affects the other double tap and triple tap gestures, making them extra hard to do. (Magic tap, screen curtain toggle, speech toggle, digital crown navigation toggle)

I don’t want anyone to be charitable or kind. If somebody decides to be that way, that’s their choice. I’m not here to make friends. I’m not here to be friendly. I’m here for very specific reasons. Namely, to get information on how other people are either experiencing an issue or how they believe it’s triggered. The truth is that this exists as an issue throughout iOS. More specifically it is a bug contained within voiceover. It is reproducible in every case. For someone to come on this website and say that they’re not going through it is False. They don’t notice it because of their specific usage patterns. Or, they’ve trained themselves to somehow ignore it. I’m not questioning intelligence. I’m questioning awareness. There’s a big difference. It’s a small sampling because I’m one person. However, I can literally grab somebody’s iPhone, turn on voiceover, and reproduce the bug every single time. And fundamentally I have been working on voiceover bugs for 12 years. With the exception of specific things like braille, I know the ins and outs of the software.

I am the only one I know that has an iPhone 15 Pro Max. And yes it’s reproducible.

I'm able to swipe to an app and then tap and tap again to open it. I've always done it that way and haven't experienced any ddifferences so to me this issue doesn't exist.

Perhaps it does for those who tap a bit slower than I do but I've not come across it at all.

I thought tapping and then tapping again was the way you always do it, but for those experiencing this issue that seams not to be the case. This to me isn't a bug because it's how i've always done it, tap and then wait about a milisecond and tap again, so, 1 2, instead of, 1, 2.

What are the steps to reproduce this bug? i'll try it out and let people know if I do experience it.

I haven't found the double tap issue since I updated my iPhone 14 to iOS 17.0.3 a few days ago. Is everybody seeing the same result after this update?

I'm not a coder/computer expert, so sorry I won't be able to correctly describe what's going on. I notice it on the lock screen of my iPhone SE 3D gen at this time. A notification for mail or something wakes the phone, and lately stutters over itself. At that time, I reach over to the phone, swipe up to clear the notification. This does not interrupt the reading of the notification, so I wait for the phone to shut up and find out if the swipe actually moved the actions to clear, or I have to touch the screen again to try to stop the speaking of the notification. After I go through all that and have the actions set to clear, I then double-tap with one finger. The phone wants a slightly faster double-tap, so I have to start all over again because it's moved focus to somewhere else on the screen.
I've raised the double-tap time, but the lock screen doesn't seem to respond to that. I doubt I always tap in the same speed range every time. If I remember to tap faster, it usually works though. Kind of makes me feel slow.
Other than the stuttering notification, this has been going on for so long that I can't remember when it started, and it might have been going on with my iPhone 7 on iOS 15. I don't think I have too much of a problem with the double-tap when the phone is unlocked in iOS 17.

Never had it and do not want it. For all of you who are having issues, feel for you. I had issues with iOS 13 and I called it unlucky 13 and people jump all over me for talking about the many issues I had. Hope whatever it is it gets fix for you. Using 13 pro at this time and Series 7. Sane for watch, no issues.

The steps to reproduce the double tap problem are as follows:

1. Open IOS settings>accessibility>VoiceOver.
2. Go to the bottom where it says double tap time out.
3. One finger double tap the button.
4. Change the number to a smaller number, such as 0.15 seconds or less.
5. Exit settings.
6. Perform a one finger double tap wherever you like. Good luck.

I keep my double tap time out number at 0.45 seconds to avoid having the time out problem.

I never even touch it. Do not want just in case get the sane problem that some of you are having.

How do you know, Holger Fiallo, that you won't get it from just reading this thread? Your iPhone might be reading the thread too, and feel embarrassed that it isn't like all the other iPhones.
Anyway, I've had to clear a few more notifications since my post, and it really does seem like it is the fastness and crispness of the double tap that causes the problem. I have no idea how to translate that into the proper, techno jargon.

My big screen is on a desk and I am using a Wireless keyboard so my iPhone is not watching the screen.

See, that's what I mean. I had to think about what you wrote to figure out how you could be using a big screen, a bluetooth keyboard, and your phone doesn't know what your writing. The only thing I can come up with is that you're using some other computer to write and read the forum, but I still don't know that for sure.
If we don't even know what the Apple engineers call all these double-tap times and the techno-terms to use, then I think we're not going to be understood. Tap interval, maybe? What's the official Apple-engineer term for this? I'm not even sure the screen is called a screen at Apple.

greetings to you. I can certainly understand not knowing what techno jargon is needed for all the various situations One might encounter. Ha. Thank you for having a bit of fun with it. what keeps me humble as a retired professional tech is when I have to have my car worked on. I simply tell them in language I do understand what it seems to be doing and get out of their way. Sadly, this does not always work with computer techs in the patients and civility with how they interact with persons asking them a question.

Using a window PC and not the iPhone.

It didn't really make a diffirence for me, Perhaps it was a bit slower but i honestly didn't notice so I put it back to normal or a bit higher and left it alone.

Disclaimer: I am not running iOS 17.anything at the time of posting.

Regarding this double tap issue, is it happening:
1. When a user flicks with 1 finger left or right, and then double taps on the item they want, such as Mail, Phone, whatever's clever?
2. When a user is "exploring by touch" and then finds what they want and double taps on it? i.e. dragging 1 finger around the screen until something is found, lets say "Calendar", and then double tapping?
3. OR does it happen in both situations?

Thanks in advance. 😆

Within your original post, you said,
"So I experimented a bit and found the following.
I was able to almost get rid of the problem by slitely changing my gesture habits.
To Begin with, , I found that if you explore the screen first and focus on the item you want to click on, double tap always works. What doesn't always work is when you swipe to grab the item in question. Then the first hit of your double-tap takes you back to a place on the screen that could be random, or it could be exactly where your finger is, I don't really know."

My question was for the community as a whole, that is to say, those who have iOS 17.x and are, or have been, experiencing this issue. I was hoping to get more feed back on the specifics, you see.

As I mentioned above, you said, "To Begin with, , I found that if you explore the screen first and focus on the item you want to click on, double tap always works."

That is wonderful news, and I bet that works well. . . for you. How does that work for everyone else? Perhaps, when reviewing replies in the future, you take a moment to critically think about the context of the reply in which you wish to comment on?

"Thanks for reading"

Ash raign might say it happens to everyone but it's either not happend to me or I'm just used to tapping in a way that always works.

I flick to the utilities folder, for example, double tap on it,, then either flick to or find youtube on the screen and then double tap to open it, both flicking and finding it on the screen works with no issues.

I think my friend did mention it happened to him but he just changed the settings in the voiceover settings to be a bit higher. I wonder why I didn't notice it, perhaps I'm just used to tapping fast.

Although increasing the double tap timeout from 0.4 to 0.7 worked for me, I realize this issue is still a problem for many users.

Does everyone remember the old split tap gesture? Drag with one finger to find a control, then tap once with a second finger. It seems like this would work around the double-tap issue 90% of the time, but I don't see anyone mentioning it.

Obviously there are the remaining 10%. For example, you can't use split tap as a substitute for the 2-finger double tap. And there are other cases where a split tap is not a substitute. And we still want the double-tap issue to be resolved. But I still thought split-tap was worth a mention.

I have an iPhone 13 mini and a Series 9 Apple Watch. Out of the box,when the watch was new I had the single finger double tap issue. After upgrading my phone to 17.0 and then all the way to 17.0.3, I had the same problem. Both became close to unusable. I have reported both problems in depth to accessibility@apple.com. They acknowledged that they are working on the iPhone issue and gathered more data from me about the watch.

What frequently does not work:

Before changing the double tap timing to 0.45, as documented elsewhere, I had trouble swiping to an item and then double-tapping. I also had trouble choosing an item, by moving a finger about, selecting the desired item, lifting the finger, and then double-tapping. Same was true for my Apple Watch.

What worked:

If I find the item I want to tap by moving my finger about on the screen and then leaving that finger on the screen in that spot, while I tap a different finger anywhere on the screen, that would almost always work. The key is to leave the first finger on the screen, over the target, and then tap with a different finger a single time. Not nearly as convenient, but it usually works.

After I changed the timing for tapping (the default was 0.25 and I brought it up to 0.45), normal single finger double tap works more frequently, but is still not as good as it used to be.

By the way, I took out my old iPhone 12 mini, which was running 16.7 (or whatever the latest build of 16 was) and it still worked well with all my tapping. I took a chance, upgraded it to 17.0.3 and now that phone has the same problem. Probably not the best move on my part, but I was curious. So, I changed the timing on the 12 mini and it works better, but not perfect.

On my Apple Watch, I went to the accessibility gestures that allow you to introduced clenched fist, double clenched fist, and what is now being called a double tap, but is really tapping thumb and forefinger together once or twice to initiate an action. It is a tad awkward, but it works pretty well. I use a single clenched fist to perform the equivalent of a single finger double tap.. This ought to get me through this hiccup until Apple fixes the tapping gotcha.

An important note: My Bluetooth keyboard works as always with my phone, so that is a great way to use my phone when sitting in a chair. I've also taken another old Bluetooth keyboard and attached it to my Apple Watch and it also works well, although using a keyboard with a watch does seem a bit odd, but it does work. I think, but am unsure, that this hardware keyboard attached to Apple Watch feature first came out in the Series 7, but I could be very wrong. My old watch was a Series 4.

Now, just to introduce another mystery... When I upgraded to 17.0.3, the Control center on my phone suddenly had label changes that I had heard about, but not experienced. The Screen Locked feature switched to just "Locked" and the item for battery saving went to just "Disabled." I don't believe tthe feature is actually disabled, rather the battery saving option just isn't turned on.

Good luck to all of you!

It is a solution for some situations, and I've seen it in other posts in other threads. The issue is that it doesn't work when you have to swipe left and right to find an item. I don't really know why, like if those items aren't on the screen or just too small, but there seem to be more and more items that require swiping to find.
One issue I've had for a long time is that my fingertip, can occasionally touch two parts of the grid of sensors on the screen at one time, and VO makes some kind of two-tone noise, like a tin can lid being pulled off, for two-finger-press and hold or some other action that I can't identify. I've just come to assume I have sloppy hand posture, and resent those who can go through life without ever slouching even the slightest.

Agreed this is an issue. The iOS 17 Podcast app, in particular, has player controls that can only be found with a swipe. Fortunately, most controls don't have this issue.

14. Plus handset! absolutely, ain't non-issue! I have good hands though! personally, I enjoy the sensitivity of a good iPhone, touch interface! my pixel seven not so much! Sluggish, slow to react terrible! Go, apple!

why I'm not experiencing this at all, whilst others are? Double tapping works for me every single time and has never jumped me to another section of the phone or selected text or whatever.

I think my friend experienced the double tap issue but I'm now wondering if it's a device/screen thing? I honestly don't know because for me; my iphone is completely fine.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the double tap issue in the iOS 17.1 beta. I hope you're right that it's been fully fixed now. However, many users during the iOS 17 beta cycle reported that this issue would seem improved or fixed right after an update, only for it to return to previous behavior within a day or so. Fingers crossed that your positive experience holds up over time, but I wouldn't be surprised if the double tap issue resurfaces again for you. Keep us updated!

So far I was able to reproduce the issue in the recent call tab. I don’t think it’s fixed yet.

Thank you JPR! Until Apple resolves this new anomaly, the staccato double tap method works very well for now.

Morgan Watkins Post from nearly 4 weeks ago gave me hopes that they would be fixing this issue on the watch.

However, I just received a polite but apathetic return email from Apple Accessibility today that suggests they are treating my complaint about the Watch double tap speed as a feature request. (I was told they are passing along my request for consideration.)

This is extremely frustrating given how hard it is now to toggle the speech, screen curtain, and digital crown navigation. There are no workarounds for these. Plus we should not have to rely on workarounds for a basic double tap or a magic tap!

I have an Apple Watch series 9 running watchOS 10.1.

Well, assuming I got the point right, and know the definition of the word "staccato", there would already have to be some time between the first and second taps that together make up a double-tap especially if one wishes to call them, or perform, staccato taps. So this should be why increasing the double-tap timeout value could but help.

So does the term "staccato" not have in its very definition the state of being short but also apart from one another with some time in between?