Seeing AI issue

By Tom Paterson, 31 January, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Good afternoon, I have a student who has downloaded the latest version of Seeing AI, the mobile phone is an Apple SE and this issue has been ongoing since November of last year, the iphone has been updated regularly. The app is fine and it works fine if Voice Over is turned off. As Apple are constantly updating security, I had suggested waiting until the latest updates had been implemented, 17.1 had just been introduced at that time. We have downloaded the app from the official App Store. The problem is that when Voice Over is turned on, the ‘channel bar’ does not become active ie the buttons cannot be selected, there is no white line around the channel bar as it does on other iphones/ipads, when the screen is tapped, it, the screen, has a white line around it, scrolling a finger around the screen produce differing characters being read out. They do not make sense, as in sentences, they are random characters. When Voice Over is not use, Seeing AI app channels are accessible and the app works as it should. All of the students in the class use iphones and some have ipads as well, but none of these have this issue, only this one device. Can you give any suggestion as to how we can fix this issue please. Thank you for any assistance Tom

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Comments

By Malcolm13 on Friday, February 2, 2024 - 01:44

Make sure Screen Recognition is turned off, I’ve seen this mess up apps before!

By Brian on Friday, February 2, 2024 - 01:44

Hi Tom,

I may have a solution for you, as I am kind of able to reproduce this issue on my own iPhone SE2, or SE 2020 if you will. Below I will offer you some steps to try and resolve.

What I 'believe' is happening, is that your student may have inadvertently enabled a feature called "Screen Recognition". This feature is nice, when it works. What it does is allow for an app or website that is normally not accessible to the visually impaired, to be accessible.

The problem is when you use it on a natively accessible app, chaos ensues.

There are 2 headings below, each with a list of steps to fix the situation. Hope this helps your student out.

Using the Rotor

  1. Open the Seeing AI app.
  2. While VoiceOver is enabled, place 2 fingers on the screen, and rotate them clockwise or counter clockwise, like an old radio dial.
  3. You should eventually find the item labeled "Screen Recognition".
  4. Swipe up or down with 1 finger to enable/disable. You of course want it off.

If you cannot find Screen Recognition using the rotor then follow the steps for an alternative means of disabling it with Seeing AI.

Using Settings

  1. Open Settings, then Accessibility. Tap on VoiceOver.
  2. Tap on VoiceOver Recognition.
  3. Tap on Screen Recognition, Then 'Apply to Apps'
  4. Make sure Seeing AI is (not) selected.
  5. Back out of VoiceOver settings entirely, and then open/re-open Seeing AI.

If all went as intended, Seeing AI should work well with VoiceOver.

Best of luck. 😃

By Tom Paterson on Friday, February 2, 2024 - 01:44

Thank you both Malcolm 13 and Brian, I will try this in class tomorrow and let you know the result
Tom

By Tom Paterson on Friday, February 2, 2024 - 01:44

Has now been solved thanks to the information received, lesson learned as well, thank you, the help is very much appreciated
Tom

By Brian on Friday, February 2, 2024 - 01:44

Glad it worked out. 😎