I hate the Rotor

There is a way in VoiceOver Settings to assign a different gesture for rotoring. I have a friend whose wife has only the use of one hand, and she's got a different gesture for rotoring because she can't physically perform the two-finger twisty gesture thing. Settings -> Accessibility -> VoiceOver -> Commands -> Touch Gestures. Have fun. 😁

Just as on Android... But one thing Android lacks, as far as I know, is the fact that all those gestures are performed with one single finger. So if Apple really wishes to stand out and keep iOS a step ahead of Android, as it allegedly always is, it can also let us use gestures like multi-finger multi-swipe (two-finger swipe up+right etc.).

hi,

as a former Android user, hoping to get back intl Android OS, I could never do the TalkBack gestures required. keeping in mind, my last version of Android used was 7.1.1. on a Nexus 6. anyway, back then there were no multi finger gestures and keyboard access which was not the most intuitive or complete. this was TalkBack 7.0. I'm sure things have improved. anyway, you can define a gesture for the router, and it can be anything! Feedbac, submitted to Apple on this suggestion will be good. beta testing you can select suggestion in the what type of feedback are you reporting field. I've reported this and my feedback number is:
FB13465951

There are not enough finger gestures to make the touch screen as efficient as keyboard control, and perhaps, having app specific gestures configurable in separate app profiles in VO settings would be an answer. I don't like having to go through half the functions assigned to my rotor to do something like switch from navigating by heading, to navigating by graphics, then half way back to switch to links. Switches that are completely vital if you use the Amazon app, for example. I have the heading navigation assigned to a gesture, and it helps somewhat, but I quickly started running out of available gestures when I started down that path.

Hi,
I've seen an app to make all kinds of custom gestures on the touchpad for Mac. I even tried it and created all kinds of gestures to do all kinds of things, but I never used it on my Mac because I'm so much faster on my keyboard. Anyway, maybe there's a third party app that allows VoiceOver IOS users to create custom gestures on their Phone screens? Or to pair a touch pad to your iPhone and use it instead of or in addition to your screen?

Remember that you can also assign actions to the back tap gestures.

Also, as someone already said, as accessible as iOS devices are with hand gestures, there is really no substitute for having a keyboard and using hotkeys. Many more options there.

Another great suggestion that someone made was to have the gestures customized for each app (sort of like how hotkeys with Windows screen readers can be assigned on a per device basis - Imagine that!.

--Pete

Don't know why, but they just don't work.

I understand where you're coming from but I doubt they'll upgrade gestures just yet, perhaps if you give them a year or two they might get around to it.

You know how apple is when it comes to inventing things that have already been invented and acting like they came out with it first.

At least we would be given 8 more gestures to play with. Also, if Voice Control was on iOS, as it is on Android 14, that would open up a whole new world of possibilities.

I can see both good and bad things with multi-touch angle gestures. I mean, it would be interesting to have a 2 finger swipe up, then left gesture to do something, but can you imagine doing that with 4 or 5 fingers? Yikes! 😮

I think it's under accessibility.

Is the Android one better/diffirent?

Yes, multi swipe gestures like those on Android is something I’ve wanted for a long time. I have fed back to Apple and will do so again.
Multi finger gestures have their place of course, but often I just want to use my phone one handed

Dave

I sympathize with the frustrations here about the rotor but overall I think it keeps with the Apple ethos of just keeping things simple. It’s worth going into your rotor settings and disabling any options you don’t find yourself using regularly. I do this every now and then and I find it keeps the rotor scrolling pretty manageable. as somebody else noted, this is partly just down to the limitations of a small screen with a touch interface versus a full computer with a keyboard. Some things will always be more comfortable and intuitive to do on the latter. As for new gestures, I’ve got no problem with that so long as they are completely optional, as in my opinion, I think it would Complicate what I still find to be a pretty streamlined interface, limitations aside

I find twisting through all the options very tiresome: especially when voiceover, just decides to switch the rotor to a different position when I land on certain types of elements.

It would also be nice to assign rotor setups to different activities.

I'm just experimenting with using different gestures for the rotor too.

It’s two separate things for me really.
I would love those additional one finger gestures so I could move the rotor one-handed, but also for other actions.
The rotor gesture itself doesn’t bother me when I am using the phone with two hands though. I understand that some people hate it, but I think this is partly because some people have a misunderstanding about how to do it.
It drives me crazy when I hear people being taught that the rotor is like twisting a knob, or to twist and turn their fingers on the screen. All you need to do is to place two fingers on the screen, then slide one up and one down, voila.
Dave

You can actually just leave one fingertip in place and slide the other fingertip up or down. A time back before you could change gestures, I hurt the muscles in my right thumb, which is usually my phone gesture hand, and had to experiment with using my index and middle fingers to perform the gesture.
I'm all in favor of adding more gestures, and much less "Apple knows best."
* I keep trying to edit that to make sense. It's slightly different than sliding one finger up and the other finger down, as Dave describes. One finger doesn't move during the gesture, and it's a little easier to do with one hand while holding your phone with your thumb and pinky.

Another suggestion I haven't seen here is, try toggling "change rotor with item" to off.

it's a new feature in 17 and stops the rotor jumping back to actions all the time. Might help some people a bit.

I'd like to change it to swipe down with two fingers to read down and up with two fingers to read up? That sounds wierd.

Voice Control exists in iOS. I am aware. However, VO tends to interact with it, throwing it for a loop. On the Android side, there is an angle gesture that, when used, will toggle on Voice Control and allow you to give a single voice command and then deactivate itself. TalkBack does not interfere, which makes it seriously useful for those who are both visually and mobility impaired.

Tried the new Rotor feature mentioned above. Pretty neat, though like all new things takes some getting used to.

@Brad,
- Yes. You can have 2 finger swipe up and down move to next (or previous, respectively) character, word, sentence, and paragraph. Note when I say 'move to' I mean it will focus on the next or previous item, i.e. sentence, and read that.

HTH. 😎

I tried looking in voiceover gestures but couldn't find it.

1. Settings > VoiceOver.
2. Commands > Touch gestures.
3. Rotor to 'Headings', then swipe down to '2 finger swipe.
4. Swipe right one time with 1 finger, then double-tap 2 finger swipe left.
5. While still on the headings rotor, swipe down with 1 finger until you land on the 4th heading, labeled 'Advanced Navigation'.
- Note: You may or may not be able to swipe down 4 times, as there is a weird bug with scrolling on this screen. Simply swipe down two times (2nd heading), then swipe right once with 1 finger, then heading down two more times.
6. Once on the 4th heading, swipe left with 1 finger and you will be on the 'Previous' options for word, sentence, paragraph, and character (reverse alphabetical order, since we are going backward here).
7. Double-tap on whichever you want, let us say 'sentence', and you will be back on the screen under the 2 finger swipe heading.
8. Rinse and repeat for '2 finger swipe right'.

Luck~. ✌🏻

I'll look into that, thanks.

It works but you can only change the heading up to the level it finds on a page. What I mean is if you navigate and find a level one heading, you'll only be able to navigate by level one headings.

I don't mind to much, I can just use the roter and find headings and flick down but it's a bit odd to have that as a screen reader option.

Brad,

Not sure I am understanding your post. If you wanted to navigate by previous and next heading, using a dedicated gesture, you certainly can do that. Your comment about only Headings at level 1 confuses me. 😕

Just for clarification, on my old SE2, running iOS 16, I used to have the following custom gestures:

• 2 finger swipe left, Previous Control.
• 2 finger swipe right, Next Control.
• 2 finger swipe up, Previous Heading.
• 2 finger swipe down, Next Heading.

These would find any/all controls and headings on a web page, in an app, etc.

HTH.

the option I had was something like, find previous heading at that level, and find next heading at that level. I don't think there's one that finds all headings?

Can you take a look and see if there is? I think I'll stick to the roter but it would be nice to know if I'm wrong.

Brad,

Under 'Advanced Navigation', there are a ton of commands. There is a 'move to Previous Same Heading' and 'move to Next Same Heading.

However!

There is also 'Move to Previous and Next Heading.

So the TLDR version is, you picked the wrong option.

You're welcome.

Thanks for explaining, I'll stick to the roter for now.