Now this is really difficult, every time there is an IOS update; something is sure to break in terms of accessibility with VoiceOver. It is not expected at least from the native apps like Mail.
Sometimes I feel that I am the only one on the planet that is bothered with such challenges with accessibility. Thanks to this forum; I can discuss and check with the community. However, I have already reported these issues to apple phone and mail support with solutions that are not convincing or do not actually help. I see no point in venting my frustration on the internet or on a support call but sometimes my mind gets the best of me.
So here are 2 issues that I am currently facing on my iPhone 12 running IOS 17.1.1; would appreciate if you could share in the comments if any of you are facing similar challenges.
1. Adding contact in the TO field of a new mail message: I would type in the first 3 letters of the contact in the TO field and I would get a list of contact suggestions by swiping right. For example I would type in John and then swipe right and get the email address for all the Johns I have in my contact list; if a John had an alternate email address I would get a chevron button tapping on which I would get the additional email addresses for John. Now John has a personal and a work email address. I was expecting for both addresses to be shown in the search suggested results but this is not the case. There is no Chevron button under the first search/ suggested result for the contact. But John has another email address and I can't get it to show up. So I have to end up typing John's work or personal email address. This is so not good and unproductive.
Solution offered by apple: Select the mail address you get to be added in the TO field; once the contact is added swipe right till you hear the email address as a button, swipe up and you will get an option that says something like other contact options. Tapping on that will show me all the email addresses for John. If I had all the time in the world I still would not appreciate this solution but according to apple accessibility; this is how it is as of now and I have to live with it or get an android phone!
2. Selecting text by line using the rotor: When you open a email message to read it, you want to select a few lines of the message to be able to copy it so that you can paste it elsewhere. So you change the rotor to Text Selection, swipe up to select the by line option and start swiping right to select the text line by line. This works great when you are reading or opening a mail and selecting Text using line selection from the Text Selection option of the rotor.
The challenge is when you are forwarding or replying to a email. In the edit field, say you want to remove your signature from the body of the email and you want to select the signature line by line, it does not happen. What happens is that it selects the first line and gives you that ding sound, indicating that there is no more text that can be copied after that line. Which is not true. This is when Line select option is selected from the Text Selection option on the rotor. However, word and character selection works well but is too time consuming. Steps to reproduce: Open any email, try to reply or forward it; in the email body using the rotor use line selection under Text selection and try swiping right to select line by line.
The other way is to unpinch from where you are to keep selecting text by word, line or character depending on your last rotor setting.
Solution offered by apple: Send screen recording, update phone to latest IOS version and it will fix itself. Sorry, but it still no work!
P.S. Last resort, reset all settings and restore to factory. Please...
Folks, I would really appreciate you taking some time out of your so free schedule to try and replicate the issues discussed above I am facing. Am I the only one? Thank you for the support, have a good one!
Comments
Your Mail Issues
I'm running iOS 17.1.1 and I can reply to an email and select line by line with no problems at all. I opened an email and chose to reply. I was able to rotor to text selection and choose lines. I was able to select my signature as well as the first couple of lines of the email just to make sure I could
select more than 1 line. I tried to compose a new email and I chose a contact with more than 1 email address. When I found the first address I did a swipe down to expand options and I was able to see the other addresses. This really didn't take any more time than hitting the down button like we used to do.
your issues
First issue number 1 isn't an issue you swipe to more double tap swipe once and there is the second email address. Double tap and done. Second I agree with Earle I haven't had an issue with your second problem.
I had this issue too
I had this issue too.
When I rite a message in the native mail app, I can't use autto compleetion to rite a message to the person who I want to rite.
I'll report to apple about that and will do a screen recording of this issue.
You come across as quite whiny to me.
Apple offered you what works for now for your first issue and you say it's not good enough? Well sorry but tough, that's what you've got, if you don't like it, try outlook, it's what I use.
As for your other issue, if you have to select words for now, then you do and there's not much that can be done; apart from changing your app.
Thank you all for your responses; I am afraid
Thank you all for your responses, I am afraid that I am the only one plagued with this issue. When I swipe down on the list of contacts suggested after swiping right I only get the last option that the rotor was set on, i.e. heading, character or word etc.
I might have to uninstall the mail app and reinstall it to see if it fixes the issue; and for some reason my downloaded Siri voices under Settings/ accessibility/ Vision/ Spoken Content although downloaded they show asking to download as if they were not downloaded!
@Brad, you are right
You see apple offered me a work around; a work around is not the solution it's a work around. I already have an Outlook app installed on my phone but that is only and can only be used for my work mail.
Is expecting a native app from apple too work the way it should with VoiceOver asking too much? Can I not seek the communities take on the issue?
And please don't tell me to settle for what I have and not getting what I was promised; an accessible experience. Stop wearing tight underwear, perhaps you can breathe lighter that way. Have a good one!
that's silly.
I'm able to add a GMail account and a live account to Outlook, why can't you do the same?
You'd have two inboxes to deal with but it's really not that hard once you know how.
As for me, if something works well enough to the extent where I can get things done, that's good enough.
Like for example, the router find a spellling mistake in outlook thing doesn't seam to work that wwell for me so I just try my best to not make spellling mistakes or I use the predictive text feature.
As for your work around, if you're talking about the adding an email thing, that's just the way it is, if you can't take a second to swipe up and tap then you're going to have to use another app.
You can ask the community but in return we are allowed to respond with our thoughts.
Perhaps my last post was a bit harsh, I apologise but it seamed like apple gave you the answer to your questions and you didn't like them so wanted to rant on here.
@Brad, I understand
I cannot add a personal account to Outlook because that app is managed by my organization and I dare not violate their IT policy.
Brad, I am not offended by your reply to the post but I fail to understand why one would think the way you did, if you bought a product, any product you were promised something and if that does not meet your expectations you would want to get it addressed.
For me the phone is a productive tool, and not having the functionality that I am accustomed to is really frustrating. I did try swiping down on the search results but like I mentioned in my earlier comment it did what the last setting was on the rotor. Changing the rotor setting did not give me any additional options for the contact.
I appreciate your point of view and of all those on this conversation; I am really humbled by the suggestions that the members of this community provide.
For now, I am going to try to uninstall the mail app and try reinstalling it, like I mentioned in my earlier comment. Keep the faith and more power to you!
I think denis mentioned tapping?
Perhaps you could try tapping on it?
You could phone up your job and ask them about their policy, explain the mail app isn't working for you.
Sorry they restrict you, I think that's really strange.
As for me, I dunno, I think it would depend how much I can get done on my own.
Requiring clarification
What does anything under "Spoken Content" have to do with Email? Genuinely curious here. ๐
I'm confused too.
I didn't mention that? Did someone else?
@Brad
Reply #6. Poster says, "I might have to uninstall the mail app and reinstall it to see if it fixes the issue; and for some reason my downloaded Siri voices under Settings/ accessibility/ Vision/ Spoken Content although downloaded they show asking to download as if they were not downloaded!".
I was just asking for clarification. ๐คท๐ผโโ๏ธ
Oh ok.
I didn't read all the posts.
Sorry for the confusion; an update
The Siri voices disappearing is another issue not related to the mail app.
I uninstalled the mail app and reinstalled it; had to set up all my mail accounts again. Luckily mail settings were not disturbed by this activity. However, this did not solve my challenge, on getting the search results for the contact swiping up does not give me options to select other email addresses for the contact. I need to add that contact in the TO field and then I get a button which is the email address for that contact and then I can swipe up to get the option to select other addresses for the contact.
I mean how productive is that!
it appears you need step by step instructions!
1 start to type the contact example John Smith.
swipe to john smith and swipe up double tap. You may have to swipe right once to that second email address. Then double tap. This is how it behaves if you don't like it find another email client. The fact your "bug" is not a bug at all.
I redownloaded the app to try and help you.
SO, it turns out, you can write the addresses in the two field.
So let's say the email is brad123@gmail.com, you'd type in brad, then suggestions come up near the top, find that suggestion, tap it, then tap on the to field again, making sure you're at the bottom of it, then start typing your next address and go from there.
Thank you @Brad
Thank you for that; so when I type in the name in the TO field and swipe right to the list of contact addresses in the search or suggested results I can get only one mail address for the contact. What I have to do is select that mail address for the contact and it is now added in the TO field. I need to get VO focus back to the TO field where the mail address of that contact is represented as a button. Here when I swipe up I get the option to see other mail addresses for the contact and here is where I can select the other mail address for the contact.
This process is not productive at all; unlike earlier I would get all the mail addresses in the search/ suggested results for the contact i.e. If I typed John in the TO field; and swiped right I would get John Smith jsmith@gmail.com and swiping right again would give me John Smith jsmith@yahoo.com and then all I had to do is tap the address I want to be entered in the TO field and I am done.
This mail behavior has changed after the update and I am not really happy with it amongst other issues I am having with the new IOS version...
Well there's not much that can be done.
The only thing would be to maybe switch to Outlook, perhaps phone your boss and see what they say.
My issue is unresponsive keyboard when replying
The challenge I am having on an imap account I have installed is that voice becomes extremely sluggish when composing a reply. I donโt think itโs that the keyboard itself is slow, because with VoiceOver off it seems to be pretty normal, but the effect is that the keyboard is really unresponsive.
iOS 17 is truly exasperating!
Ignorance is bliss!
Looks like everyone is happy with what apple is offereing them in terms of accessibility and functionality. Because apple knows all and they have many I mean many sight impaired techs who use apple products day in and day out, really?
For me ignorance is bliss and the point was, thank you for the IOS updates but why in the name of heavens break what was working well and like it should!?
For those who think apple is bigger than themselves, you really need to think here, who is the customer and who is paying for the product/ service?
I am not coming back here to listen to people telling me what I should be working around with, I don't have all the time in the world dealing with things that were working and are now broken and I have to spend that extra time in figuring out how to work around, contact apple support and share my issue on this forum; sorry rant about my issue here. Like they say, so long and thank you for the fish!