Apple has today released macOS Sonoma 14.4, watchOS 10.4, and tvOS 17.4 to the public.
In macOS Sonoma 14.4, Apple has replaced the "Allow toggling of arrow-key Quick Nav using left and right arrow keys" checkbox in VoiceOver Utility > Commanders > Quick Nav with a new popup menu that determines what happens when the left and right arrow keys are pressed together, with options to toggle Arrow-key Quick Nav, single-key Quick Nav, or both. This may be useful for those who prefer the behavior of Quick Nav in versions of macOS prior to Sonoma, where both Arrow-key and single-key Quick Nav were toggled with a single command.
While we have not identified any accessibility fixes in our testing of macOS Sonoma 14.4, user reports indicate that the issue that causes VMware Fusion to crash when starting a virtual machine if VoiceOver was on has been resolved. In addition, we are currently aware of two new bugs introduced in this release:
- It is not possible to use first-letter navigation in app tables and lists when single-key Quick Nav is on with the “Always allow typing in text fields while using single-key Quick Nav” checkbox in VoiceOver Utility selected, as VoiceOver interprets key presses as navigation commands. In order to use first-letter navigation when focused on a table or list, you must first turn single-key Quick Nav off.
- When pressing VO-Globe-Left-Arrow to jump to the toolbar in Dictionary, VoiceOver sometimes announces “No action available,” and does not move focus to the toolbar as expected. To reproduce this issue, open Dictionary and type something in the search field. Then, navigate to the content and attempt to jump back to the toolbar with VO-Globe-Left-Arrow.
We are currently unaware of any additional fixes, new bugs or regressions for blind and low vision users in macOS Sonoma 14.4, watchOS 10.4, or tvOS 17.4.
With our small team, it's impossible to test every device, configuration, app, and use case. We can't claim our lists of new and resolved bugs are comprehensive or that our assessments are infallible. Some issues may manifest only under specific conditions. You likely won't experience every bug. Also, expect to encounter problems not listed that we missed in our testing. Please let us know in the comments if you encounter any other improvements or new bugs introduced in these updates. Community feedback is invaluable in helping us keep this page up-to-date and accurate.
Release Notes
macOS Sonoma 14.4
macOS Sonoma 14.4 introduces new emoji as well as other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your Mac.
Emoji
- New mushroom, phoenix, lime, broken chain, and shaking heads emoji are now available in emoji keyboard
- 18 people and body emoji support facing the opposite direction
This update also includes the following improvements and bug fixes:
- Podcasts Episode text can be read in full, searched for a word or phrase, clicked to play from a specific point and used with accessibility features such as Text Size, Increase Contrast, and VoiceOver
- Business Updates in Messages for Business let you get updates that you've opted into, like order status, flight notifications, fraud alerts or other transactions from trusted businesses
- Safari Favorites Bar adds an option to show only icons for websites
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices.
For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222
watchOS 10.4
watchOS 10.4 includes new features, improvements, and bug fixes, including:
- Tap to Show Full Notification setting now allows you to double tap to expand the notification
- Using Apple Pay with Confirm with AssistiveTouch will require a passcode for additional security and will not support double clicking the side button
- Resolves an issue that causes some users to experience false touches on the display
- Fixes an issue that prevents contacts from syncing to Apple Watch for some users
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222
tvOS 17.4
Release notes for tvOS 17.4 are not currently available. We will update this post if this changes or if anything of note is discovered or reported.
How to Update
To install macOS Sonoma 14.4, choose System Settings from the Apple menu, select General in the table, click Software Update in the scroll area, and click the Update Now button to begin the update process. If other updates are available, you can click "More info" to see details about them and select specific updates to install.
watchOS 10.4 is available via Over-the-Air Update (Settings > General > Software Update) or by going to the Watch app on your iPhone and navigating to General> Software Update. To install the update, your Watch must be connected to its charger and have at least 50% battery power.
To install tvOS 17.4 on Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD, go to the Settings channel, then look for the System section near the bottom. From here, look for Software Updates under Maintenance, then select Update Software and Download and Install. Wait for your Apple TV to download the update. Don't disconnect or unplug your Apple TV until the update completes.
We'd love to hear your thoughts after you've had a chance to install the updates. What new features do you find most useful? Are there any changes you don't like? Please share your feedback in the comments below. Let us know what Apple got right with each release and where you think there's still room for improvement.
Comments
Anyone else get kicked to the bottom of an article?
Someone mentioned wickipedia, in safari, I'll start reading then out of nowhere, be way at the bottom of the article. Anyone else? very annoying to say the least. Running 14.4 on an m1 Macbook pro
Handful of recently discussed issues
I'm definitely experiencing sluggish Safari + VoiceOver on sizeable websites. You can experience it with this very thread, now that we've passed 50 comments. Navigating page 1 is sluggish. Navigating page 2 is entirely responsive. It's not a lot of sluggishness, maybe a fraction of a second per VO command. But when you're hitting VO+Right multiple times to find some content, it feels like molasses mode.
With VO set to come on at the login screen not working for years, I've given up using it. I power up my Mac, go get a cup of coffee, return, and silently enter my password.
VO focus jumping around, well, not seeing that exactly, though I have seen it in the past with Ventura. I mentioned something similar a few comments back with navigating Google search results.
I've got an issue in Scrivener that I'm still collecting data on. When I hit a specific combination of conditions, VoiceOver seems to stall for several seconds, as if hung. Then, rather suddenly,it comes back to life and appears to very rapidly process all of the keystrokes I hit while it was taking its little cat nap.
I emailed Apple accessibility about a couple of other issues.
Issue #1 is that VO+J in Finder used to jump between the sidebar and list of files. I swear it has worked this way in MacOS going back 10 years. But in Sonoma, VO+J now cycles between the sidebar, the search button, the toolbar, and the list of files. Apple accessibility replied that if there are no linked items, VO+J cycles through window spots. No explanation for why the list of files and the sidebar aren't considered linked items. No explanation for why the behavior suddenly changed. So I emailed them back and expressed some confusion.
Issue #2. With Finder view set to As List, sometimes VoiceOver fails to say anything as you press up and down arrow to navigate the list of files. Command+Tab to some other app and back, and suddenly everything is fine. You can also use Quick Nav arrow keys as a workaround. We're still in discussion on this issue, as clearly Quick Nav should not be required to arrow through the list of files.
Anyhow, these issues all seem fairly minor, and I'm spending the vast majority of my time getting some writing and research completed. I'm a happy 14.4 customer.
Sluggishness in Safari
I can't reproduce the reported sliggishness in Safari under MacOS 14.4. For reference, I'm using a 2021 MacBook Pro (M1 Pro chip, 10-core CPU).
More on sluggishness
I notice the sluggishness only occurs while navigating toward the bottom of large websites. So, in this AppleVis thread, go to page 1 which has fifty comments. Press VO+Command+H to move through headings. The first several headings will be quite responsive. But as you navigate through 50+ headings and approach the bottom, you should notice an increasing sluggishness.
I'm on a 2019 Mac Mini.
Voice over help and voice over command menu
Paul, Not sure how you can get to that because VO H brings me to help menu and voice over command menu respectively. I did however, go to page 1 and arrow through the headings using the roter and didn't have an issue. So I guess the problem's between the Mac and the couch? By the way, on a mac 2021 M1 chip. weird how this comes up. Only time i get the sluggish one is when I'm impatient, when am I not? Like as in I put in the address and hope it goes fast because I want to read it now. :) Maybe others can have more ideas. Update to this comment, it's VO command or shift, H. And I did this all through page one and didn't have any issues. still, of course this needs attending. Sorry I couldn't reproduce this.
Sluggishness
A 2019 Mac Mini is an Intel-based device, so I'm not surprised that there might be performance issues. I expect Apple will continue to optimize code for Apple Silicon hardware; at some point, Intel machines will stop receiving updates, and that will mark the end of the architectural transition.
Good catch Jason
I didn't even think of performance issues for older Macs. Oops? again, problem between Mac and couch. And i have coffee as well... :)
Navigation jumping in Spotify
I'm seeing the problem with focus getting shunted to the top in Spotify, which is a web app (not sure if it is using WebKit or Chromium though)
I usually VO+F, type Connect and jump to the button that allows me to connect to a speaker. I press VO+Space. This opens up a popup and as long as I'm not too quick I can use VO+right to go into the list and choose my speaker. But not any more. Now when I open the popup, the focus gets shunted to the top of the screen. If I jump back to the button I can't then find the popup. But I can if I VO+F for something I know is in the menu.
This wasn't happening before Sonoma 14.4 but I can't say for sure that the Spotify client has updated itself. Given what has been said above I presume this is another stupid little present from the gods of VO sent to test our patience.
Sluggishness
Sorry, Siobhan, as you figured out, I mistyped the keyboard shortcut. It's VO+Command+H. I've corrected my original text.
Before we just say, well, Paul, you're on an Intel Mac, I'd like to share some thoughts that are worth considering.
One, we're talking about browsing the web. We've been doing it since the days of the 386. It's not a computationally expensive task.
Two, it's a noted slowdown since prior releases. Something changed in the code.
Three, if the issue is in Webkit, that's cross-platform software that should be well-supported on all hardware.
Four, if you don't notice the slowdown on this discussion, here's an alternate website you can try.
Five, since the problem is more severe when navigating elements toward the bottom, this is indicative of a VoiceOver issue. It's as if, to navigate from element N to element N plus 1, VoiceOver has to, for some reason, iterate over all elements 1 to N minus 1. That's a bug.
I understand the temptation to say this is just an Intel issue. My gut tells me it isn't. So if you folks with the cool new hardware could try the alternate website, I'd love to be able to include the results in my email to Apple. Thanks.
Wow!
I wasn't aware of this bug but I confirm that the sluggishness is a real thing. I tried this website on my m2 pro 14 inch mac base model with sonoma 14.4 and the more I descend in the page the more slower Voiceover becomes. Maybe because of apple silicon it's not as significant as it might be on intel based systems but it is definitely there. If at the top of that page the delay between pressing vo command h is 2ms before vo respond this increases to 8-9ms at the very bottom of the page.
Randomly changed voice
OK this is weird. So I switched to my Slow Down activity which uses Siri UK voice 1 (well the female one). And I was just navigating about in Spotify and then suddenly it's Jamie. And it's just changed the voice.
I'm pretty sure I didn't do the 45 finger key combination needed to change voices as I was using the num pad commander so nowhere near the cmd, ctrl, option, shift and arrow keys or whatever ludicrous combination is needed to change them on the fly.
So I went into VO Utility and selected the activity, it said I was using Serena Premium, which is my default VO voice. So I changed it to Siri voice 1 and when I press enter from the menu, no it's Jamie.
I remember reading on here about Siri voices disappearing from the iPhone, but this is on the Mac and actually when I was using it. Wtf?
Don't really have time to mess about with it now. Anyone else seen this??
Weird pt2
OK so when I came out of the VO Utility it did switch to Siri Voice 1 after all.
Who the hell knows...
It's disappointing that the Siri voice is just not usable for day to day work. For example, typing in here is just so pathetically slow. I've mentioned it before somewhere else but it is just crazy. If it wasn't for its inability to read single characters without sounding like it's been on an all-weekend bender then it would be quite good. Providing it could actually stay on the same voice of course.
Questions
Firstly, for those experiencing the issue with the mouse within menu controls, did my suggestion above help anyone? Secondly, with all of these reported issues with Sonoma, is it even feasible as a resource for productivity in an educational environment?
Because, Sonoma is reminding me of when OS X Yosemite first launched. Does anyone remember how botched that build was originally? 🫤
Finally, are there any known workarounds for some, if not all, of these recently discovered issues?
VoiceOver goes quiet too often
I reported the Safari sluggishness and Apple accessibility quickly responded that they had reproduced it and passed it on.
One of the other issues I mentioned was VoiceOver not reading file names in Finder under certain conditions. I'm seeing other similar behavior in many other situations, places where the UI works fine (according to my sighted spouse) but VoiceOver says nothing.
* I've got a website with popup menus and VoiceOver refuses to read the menu entries. The entries are present, and I can get to them using the VO+U web rotor.
* Press VO+M to go to the menubar and everything is fine. But press Control+F2 to go to the menubar, and VoiceOver doesn't announce anything until you open a menu.
* And there's the problem I noted with Scrivener, where VoiceOver goes silent for maybe 5 or 10 seconds, then rapidly announces all the keys I had been pressing to no effect.
Nothing is really a showstopper. But the time I'm spending marveling at the seemingly pointless changes in behavior, trying to find workarounds, and reporting issues is totally killing my productivity. That's why I waited until now to upgrade.
Yosemite, indeed
Since obtaining my Ryzen-based laptop for my Certs programs, I have removed Bootcamp Windows from my old MBP, wiped the SSD completely, and reinstalled macOS 12.7.4 (Monterey). I do not think I will touch Software Update again until 2025, when/if some of the kinks of macOS 15 have been worked out. As it stands now, Monterey is running like my MBP was made for it, so I am happy enough with a stable, albeit dated, Mac. 🤷🏼♂️
Then again, maybe macOS 14.5 will see better days.
voiceover on the login window
Has anyone else noticed voiceover randomly deciding not to turn on at the login screen?
I find I often need to reenable this setting every so often which is pretty irritating.
Also, I wanted to thank mr grieves for changing the mouse pointer settings in macos.
That menu issue was going to be the death of me.
Re: voiceover on the login window
If you're talking about going into System Settings, Lock Screen, Accessibility, and turning on VoiceOver at the lock screen, that setting has been ignored or dysfunctional for as long as I can remember. I leave it off, and usually just enter my password without VoiceOver. Or, if I want it, manually turn it on with Command+F5.
Re: login
I never had much of a problem with the login screen on my Intel iMac running Ventura, but once I started using an M2 Macbook the login screen was all over the place from Ventura onwards. This was about the only Ventura bug that I noticed Applevis listed as fixed (well ok unless you count SNR but let's not go there). And I think maybe for 14.1 it wasn't too bad but it seems just as broken as always now.
I've noticed it is slightly worse with a bluetooth keyboard. When it is working, Daniel prattles on for hours about how characters won't be shown in the password box. I can interrupt this sooner using the laptop keyboard than my MX keys. But usually the focus is god knows where. Sometimes I can move it into the password box. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I get stuck in some kind of hidden wifi screen (or wee-fee as Daniel says).
I've not confirmed this but I think if you have to turn VO on and off again (which I do most days) then it will turn it off in system settings for the lock screen.
And there's also the problem of not being able to use numpad commander with the password box, which you get used to I suppose but is still irritating.
It feels that logging in from a reboot should be about as simple as things get. No other apps running, nothing else to do. And yet still all sorts of problems.
Mac Mini, Menus, and Terminal
All caught up.
There's no such thing as a Mac Mini 2019, as it turns out. Before the Apple Silicon Mini appeared in 2020, the latest Intel Mac Mini was from late 2018. I have this. It's fine, as it goes.
Menus. I just learned to live with the new behaviour. For some reason I can't make Control-F2 work to open them, but VO-M always works, now with added automatic menu opening. Sure I can fix it, I just don't want to give up the not infrequent utility of mouse tracking. Or so I seem to find, anyroad.
And then at last there's the poor, poor Terminal. It's painful to work over a screen share on my Ventura Mini server where everything works perfectly—well, as perfectly as one can reasonably expect nowadays. It's just broken on Sonoma. Sigh.
Concerning various and sundry other issues on the login screen, I can only say that I hear you. My favourite is that when the FileVault screen appears, it takes a good few seconds of Samantha whittering on before I can even begin to type on my MBP's internal keyboard. Again, sigh. What can you do, really?
Re: Login screen
@Sebbi are you able to stop Samantha from talking by pressing the Control key? This works for me to stop speech on the login screen on my M2 MacBook Air with Filevault enabled.
Login screen
Thanks, Sebby! I *do* have a 2018 Mac Mini. Now if you could just make me a year younger ... .
I turned VoiceOver off in System Settings, Lock Screen, Accessibility, then restarted (a.k.a. rebooted in computer parlance). Then I turned this setting back on and restarted again. Wow! It worked flawlessly, VoiceOver on at the login prompt just as I would expect.
Then I restarted one more time, and here's where things went wrong. VoiceOver came on at the login prompt, but it announced "Installer progress." And, no, it was not installing anything. It was a normal login screen as confirmed by Be My AI. VoiceOver wouldn't let me bring focus to the password field, though. It complained "installer progress has no windows."
At that point, I Command+F5 turned VoiceOver off, typed my password, and pressed enter, and that logged me in.
Pronouncing things with context
This is maybe not new at all, but I could swear this has never been the case before....
Take these two sentences:
I don't know how to read.
Have you read that book?
VoiceOver is pronouncing read as reed in the first sentence and red in the second.
And similarly with live:
What a world we live in
Careful that wire is live
So now live in the two sentence is pronounced differently.
Maybe it's been doing this for ages and I've just never noticed. Can someone with a better memory than me confirm?