VoiceOver on iPhone vs iPad

By Scott Duck, 1 March, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I use my Mac for all tasks that require any kind of writing of any length, including texts and E-mails. I have always found the text editing experience on IOS with VoiceOver to be somewhat lacking. Therefore, I have not used a keyboard with my iPhone in many years. I recently pared my Magic Keyboard with my iPhone, to see if and how things have changed. I have gotten mixed results. Everything works as expected in Messages. In Notes, when editing, when arrowing up and down, VO reads the entire paragraph, not the lines. In Pages, I cannot get any feedback at all when trying to navigate in a document while editing. What I am wondering is if the experience is any different on a iPad. I have a iPhone SE Second Generation. I could get a iPad 9th generation for about $250. It would have the same processor as my iPhone and so should have similar performance. I have thought about getting one, just to see how I like the experience. However, if the text editing experience is the same on both, then there would be little point. I would think that VO would act exactly the same when editing text, on both IOS and iPad OS. However, I don't like to just make assumptions, which is why I am asking the question here. For those who have a iPhone and iPad, running the latest OS, does your experience with editing text differ between the two and, if so, in what way?

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Comments

By Justin Harris on Friday, March 1, 2024 - 21:18

I find them to be pretty much the same. More keyboard commands for the iPad, but that’s it really. Plus, Braille screen input on the ipad is pretty nice in table top mode, where on the phone, the only way I could ever use BSI is screen away mode. But that is specifically down to the biggger size, not Voiceover specific.

By Maldalain on Friday, March 1, 2024 - 21:18

BSI might be the only reason, as it supports 8-dot braille input and the screen size is better on the iPad for text entry in general. A keyboard case would be ideal on the iPad for writers and other note taking.

By TheBllindGuy07 on Friday, March 1, 2024 - 21:18

Hey guys!
I am a blind student at a college level who bought a mac in summer 2023 because windows laptop batteries just suck in every way possible. My experience with the mac for math stuff and just minimum text editing with word was... not good, as you can guess by the numerous threads on this very website. I have 2 iPhones and an iPod touch 7th gen (not selling it unless you put the price......). My understanding is that voiceover on iPad os and voiceover on iOS are pretty much the same vs voiceover on mac os which feels lonely in its own poor world with users (understandably) having more complaints than prays....
Does Voiceover on iPadOS actually supports math interaction with the rotor at the same level than iOS? Are the app store apps for Microsoft 365 and google docs and etc actually useful, accessible / better than word on mac, at least compared to mac where google docs is weird in safari but useless on chrome and word being sluggish and slow?
Put in other words... Is buying any iPad / trying it extensively at Apple Stores worth it if it can solve at least some of the VO problems on the Mac?
Thanks!

By Justin Harris on Friday, March 1, 2024 - 21:18

If you are familiar with VO on iOS, then you know it on iPad OS. I can’t speak to your use cases, as while I had an iPad back in college, it was just for fun, never tried to use it for education. However, I did use it a few times when I was at a different church, and they were having me help out teaching Bible classes. It worked fine for that, just using Pages. Can’t talk math, because, channeling the mom off of the Water Boy, “MATH IS THE DEVIL!!!!” lol Never tried it on any kind of computer, don’t know how I would have pullled that off.