Apple released iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 on Monday, September 16, 2024. This post contains a summary of new bugs impacting VoiceOver and braille support that we have identified during testing of these releases. We have also included details on preexisting bugs that our testing suggests have been fixed in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18.
As is our routine practice, each newly identified bug has been given a severity rating. These ratings are based upon what we believe to be the implications for accessing and using features and functionality for the average user; the level of impact on the overall user experience; and whether or not there is an effective workaround for the issue. However, as these ratings are subjective, it is very possible that they may not reflect your own opinion or use case.
With our small team, it is impossible to test every device, configuration, app, and use case. We do not claim that our bug list is definitive or that our assessments are infallible. Some issues may manifest only under specific conditions. You likely will not experience every bug that we list, and you likely will not agree with every severity rating for the bugs on our list that you do experience. And as is the nature with all software, it is also likely that you will encounter issues that we did not experience during our own testing.
We strongly recommend reading this full post and replies before updating to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. This will help you make an informed decision on whether to install iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 at the current time or to wait for a future release.
To ensure the information here is as complete and accurate as possible, we would appreciate input from those who have installed iOS 18 or iPadOS 18. Please confirm if you are encountering the same problems listed or if you have found workarounds. Please also let us know about any additional issues not mentioned here. Of course, it is even more important that you report any new bugs directly to Apple - they are already aware of the ones listed here. For an explanation of why and how to report bugs to Apple, see this post.
With all of the preamble out of the way, here are the new bugs for VoiceOver and braille users which we believe to be present in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18:
Serious Bugs
At the time of publication, we have not independently identified any bugs in iOS 18 that we would classify as 'serious'. We encourage readers to review all replies to this post, in the event that community experiences differ from our own. We will also be reviewing and replicating bug reports shared on the AppleVis website in the coming days and will update this section accordingly if any serious bugs are identified.
Moderate Bugs
- When using the new 'When Speaking' Audio Ducking option in iOS 18, VoiceOver volume can change randomly. The other Audio Ducking options ('Off' and 'Always') work as expected.
- When rearranging items in the Control Center (a feature new in iOS 18) using the VoiceOver rotor, the "Drop" actions do nothing when selected, with controls remaining in their original locations despite VoiceOver reporting "drop complete." To move a control, once in Edit Mode, double-tap and hold on the control; then move it to where you want it to be.
- When encountering a precipitation chart in the Weather app, there is a delay between swiping left or right and hearing VoiceOver speak the contents of the focused element. In some cases, after swiping several times, VoiceOver focus may move to the "Show map" button near the bottom of the screen. To get past the precipitation chart, set the VoiceOver Rotor to 'Containers' and swipe down to another container, such as hourly forecast.
- There are multiple issues with button labeling in the redesigned iOS 18 Photos app.
- When reviewing notifications on the Lock Screen, VoiceOver always speaks "Collapsed Stack" even when there is only a single notification.
- When focused on a contact or phone number in the 'Recent' tab of the Phone app, selecting the 'Call' option in the VoiceOver Rotor has no effect. We recommend that users utilize the 'Activate' Rotor option, as 'Call' is the default action.
Minor Bugs
- When replying to a message in the Mail App and typing on a Perkins-style keyboard, letters immediately following the Spacebar are sometimes dropped. We recommend that braille display users type emails in another app (such as Notes or Drafts) until this issue is resolved.
- When VoiceOver announcements arrive on a braille display, they Often appear in uncontracted braille, even with contracted braille enabled. To read the announcement history in contracted braille (if enabled), press Space with Dots 1-3-4-5.
- When moving Home Screen icons to non-linear positions, it is not possible to use the VoiceOver Rotor's Drag and Drop method. Users can still move icons to non-linear positions by Hold and Drag.
- In the App Library, the Rotor option to navigate by Container does not work.
- When editing the Lock Screen actions (a feature new in iOS 18) and choosing an app shortcut to be opened, there is no obvious way to exit the screen for choosing an app. To exit the Choose App screen, we recommend that users utilize the Two-Finger Scrub gesture. This will place VoiceOver focus in the previous screen.
- VoiceOver labels on Lock Screen Quick Action Shortcut buttons include the word "Off," even if the quick action is not an on/off toggle.
- When opening the App Switcher from the Home Screen, VoiceOver focus is initially inconsistent and unreliable. After opening the App Switcher from the Home Screen, we recommend that users wait a few seconds to let focus settle before continuing.
- When navigating to the Voices Rotor that is new in iOS 18, the currently selected voice is not automatically announced.
- When searching for contacts using the T9 method from the keypad of the Phone app, VoiceOver does not speak the search results.
- The buttons related to creating widgets in the context menu for Home Screen app icons are not properly labeled.
Other Issues
- While we are unsure if this is specifically related to the use of VoiceOver, one of our team reports that sounds do not play consistently when a notification is received. A Feedback report has been submitted regarding this issue. Even if the issue is unrelated to VoiceOver, we mention it here as sounds play a critical role in the user experience for many blind or visually impaired users.
VoiceOver and Braille Improvements in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18
Our testing suggests that the following pre-existing accessibility bugs have been resolved or significantly addressed in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17:
- There is significant improvement in the issue where Braille Screen Input crashed when going to a new line or deleting by word.
- When braille output is set to Uncontracted and input is set to Contracted, typed contractions are now translated correctly in the Mail and Messages apps.
- The Misspelled Words Rotor option now works as expected when composing a message in the Mail App.
- USB HID braille displays now wake reliably after the screen is unlocked.
- VoiceOver focus behaves as expected when composing an email in the Mail app.
In Closing
Our team has compiled lists of new accessibility bugs for every major iOS and iPadOS release since iOS 7. No software is completely free of bugs. With this in mind, when compared to major releases in recent years, we believe that iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 have introduced fewer issues for VoiceOver and braille users overall.
If you have not already upgraded to iOS 18 or iPadOS 18, we would strongly recommend that you take a few moments to read through any replies to this post before doing so in case other users' experiences differ from our own. Also consider that historically, Apple has delivered fixes for many accessibility bugs within the first few x.x.1 updates following major releases. Our testing suggests that upgrading to iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 appears low risk for most use cases, but waiting briefly may allow Apple to resolve initial problems reported after the public release.
In the event that you do encounter an issue that is particularly bothersome, there are some troubleshooting steps you can take. Sometimes, simply toggling VoiceOver off and on again or restarting your device can resolve some issues that may arise following an OS update. Therefore, we highly recommend including these steps as part of your standard troubleshooting process.
If, despite these actions, you continue to encounter new problems that haven't been reported by others, it might be worth considering a reset of your device's OS settings to their original defaults. While this approach requires manually restoring your customised settings, including those related to accessibility, it's worth noting that a reset has proven effective for numerous individuals in resolving various issues. This suggests that occasionally, problems can be attributed to local factors rather than being OS bugs. If you choose to perform a reset and find that it doesn't address the problems, you have the option to restore your device from an iCloud backup, eliminating the need for manual reconfiguration of your settings."
When commenting below, please keep the discussion focused on accessibility issues specifically introduced or fixed in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Our release posts tend to be widely-read and garner many helpful responses, so it is all the more important that readers can easily find relevant details.
Also, please remember that upgrade decisions are personal with each user's situation unique - there is no right or wrong choice. Comments criticizing others' decisions are not constructive and do nothing to add to the discussion; but they do set a negative tone and get in the way of readers finding helpful information. Furthermore, not experiencing an issue yourself does not mean that it doesn't exist for others, as bugs can be configuration-specific. Stating an issue doesn't exist simply because you haven't encountered it is unhelpful. Our aim with these posts is to provide a forum for respectful, constructive, and honest sharing of experiences to inform decisions and empower people.
In closing, we would like to commend Apple's Accessibility team for their prompt response in fixing many of the bugs reported during the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 beta period. Their dedication to addressing the issues raised by our community during the beta cycle shows that Apple continues to prioritize accessibility. However, some problems remain unresolved. We encourage Apple to promptly address the outstanding accessibility issues discussed in this post and the comments below so that iOS and iPadOS can be as accessible, usable, and enjoyable as possible for all users.
Comments
I would call 2 bugs major
I would call the incorrect labeling of buttons and the weather bug major bugs but that’s just me
Issue with the Brailliant BI14
I have the Brailliant BI14 and I need to unpair and re-pair each time the screen is locked and unlocked. The braille does not reconnect at all after unlocking, and when I tap on the device in the Braille settings it announces that the Brailliant is not connected.
A few more observations
Here are a few issues I experienced and reported during the beta cycle that haven't been addressed so far.
I can also confirm the lack of labels on the T9 searching feature in the phone app.
Dynamic Island issue
I encountered a bug during the beta cycle where users with a Dynamic Island can't access it from the home screen or within a folder. When VoiceOver is enabled, attempting to do so causes VoiceOver to crash and returns the user to the lock screen. I’ve already provided feedback on this issue. Unfortunately, I can't test if this also affects older phone models that only support live activities.
Automatic language detection is not working
Hello Apple, vis team this is Kaushik from India. I am from Southern part of India where I read Telugu Kannada books, but they have given the voice but the automatic language detection is not happening in VoiceOver. As soon as Kannada or Telugu text comes. This is the issue I’m facing.
VO don't see images in…
VO don't see images in photos app or any other app that has images when swiping left or right, you'll have to use explor by touch to see them and it's not convenient, especially if you're going through a lot of images and what not. Note, this is also happening to videos too. Anyone else having this? I'm on the 13. This has been a thing cense IOS 17.6 or so at least for me.
Editing lock screen
I have found no reliable way to edit the lock screen with VoiceOver. There appear to be two hidden controls, one for the lock screen, and the other for the home screen, which can only be identified if screen recognition is enabled, but even that method is unreliable. During beta, I opened a feedback issue describing the problem, and apple responded saying it would be addressed in a future release.
re: editing the lock screen
What phone are you doing this on? I just made a bunch of edits to my lock screen, including removing my camera and flashlight, as well as adding the Just Press Record wigit thing instead, and had no real issues to speak of. I am using an iPhone 15 pro, and no screen recognition.
iPhone 15
I’m glad it works for you.
I reported the issue on an iPhone 15. I wake the phone, hear it authenticate Face ID, then I triple-tap the time display. This opens up a new screen with four mysterious controls. I hear: Page 1 of 2 adjustable, Customize button, Add button, and Show Notifications button. Add button takes me to a screen to add wallpaper, which isn't what I want. Customize button takes me to a screen that mysteriously only contains a Show Notifications button.
If I turn on screen recognition, it’s different, but still not really intuitive. And apparently Apple agrees, as they said they planned to fix this in a future release.
VO does not announce numbers...
VO is not announcing the keypad numbers on the lock screen with Siri voice 4 on iPhone SE3 running iOS 18.0. Will troubleshoot with other voices and report back. 😣
Issues in the calendar app:…
Issues in the calendar app:
1. Illogical presentation of information. Instead of the event name and the rest, it first provides the travel time. It doesn’t make sense.
2. Furthermore, when we set the travel time in the edit mode, there is no label indicating which time option pertains to travel by car, on foot, or by public transport.
3. Events in the calendar currently do not have labels indicating which calendar they belong to.
Editing lock screen, again
I upgraded from the last beta to the 18.0 release, and this is slightly improved. It's still not intuitive, but at least it's reliable.
Triple-tap date or time display, find the Customize button and select it, find the Customize Lock Screen Wallpaper button and select it, four-finger tap at the bottom, then swipe left to find buttons to remove the flashlight and camera.
Re: VO does not announce numbers...
*Update*
The Alex voice has no problem reading numbers on the lock screen keypad. So, I am guessing it is a Siri voice thing. Hope this helps anyone who, like me, had a mild panic attack when they couldn't unlock their iPhone after the update. 😓
Uncontracted braille can't be removed
I primarily use the UEB Contracted system table for input and output. iOS 18 added uncontracted and eight-dot tables for English to my listing of braille tables I use. I could remove the eight-dot one by using the Delete option in the Actions rotor, but I couldn't remove the uncontracted table using the same method. I really hope that this is a bug and Apple not deciding that all users need to have the uncontracted table available—as UEB creates no ambiguity with either forward or back translation, there should be no need to have it available if a user is comfortable using contracted braille.
Workaround: Remove the contracted braille table, then go into the screen for the uncontracted table and set it to contracted.
Dot 6 in BSI inconsistent
As the subject line suggests, I'm finding with BSI that dot 6 isn't being registered the majority of times I attempt to use it. I've recalibrated my finger positions several times, but it seems to me that the region of the screen where it will be registered is quite small.
@Brian
Thanks for posting what you did and preventing my panic attack. I have one of the Siri voices set, along with a few others, but think I'll avoid that for the time being and stick with either Eloquence or Zoe for now! Hope you've recovered, Lol.
Voiceover reads notifications fine for me.
It's so odd to me how I can have an experience that is so diffirent from others on the exact same phone moddle as me.
The amount of bugs in this new release of IOS is concerning.
Sadly, it's not concerning enough for me to go and work for apple, I don't like them enough for that, but it's still something I think about when reading posts like this.
Some bugs will get squoshed over the coming months but they really should have a team of actual disabled people who get paid good money to go over this stuff.
Re: VO does not announce numbers...
When I first updated to iOS 18, my Siri voice indeed didn't read numbers. But after a few minutes, the voice itself got updated, and now it reads numbers normally. I can enter my passcode and phone numbers without any problems.
@brad
Brad even if they had a team of testers that were disabled and we don't know they don't it is imposible to catch every bug. Everyone has different apps different configurations ETC. there is just no way you will catch everything or even close to everything.
Siri takes double turns to open an app,
I am using IPhone 14pro with English singapore Siri
When I ask it to open an app, say, "open pocket cast", it will subsequently say "which app?" then, if I just let it be, it will open the app after that. Previously, it just opens the mentioned app without asking which app. i have tested multiple times by turning off wifi and connecting to mobile data, but it still occurs for me.
Did anyone have the same issue?
thanks
Apple Mail keep losing focus after inserting contact
When composing an email in Apple Mail on iPhone 15 Pro Max with the released version of iOS 18, if I type the first few letter of a contact and then choose it from the Auto complete list after the contact is inserted to the two line. The focus suddenly jumps to The message body text. I then need to double tap the To line again to insert another contact and yet after the contact is inserted from the Auto complete list the focus jumps to the message body yet again. Not the end of the world, but super annoying.
Volume in rotor
At least for me I encountored that while using the volumen control in the rotor, nothing happens and the voice keeps in the same volumen, so I have to go to voiceover-voices-current voice to change it.
Button labeling
Hello,
honestly, it's really disappointing that there are so many bugs related to button labeling in this release.
I can perfectly understand when a bug is difficult to catch, can't always be reproduced, etc... But button labeling falls under accessibility basics, and Apple should be setting an example for other developers wanting to make their app accessible. To me, this is a real failure, and I hope it stops happening. It's really annoying that I can't use the new T9 dialing feature only because someone didn't add a VoiceOver label tu a button. To be clear, it is not entirely unusable, the phone number edit box updates to tell you who you're calling when you activate the button, but it's much less efficient.
On the other hand, they deserve praises for the fact there are no major bugs this year.
Keyboard speech Feedback
Has anyone noticed that while typing on a normal IOS Soft-keyboard, VO now announces each letter in a very slow speech-rate, regardless of what speech you've set for your voiceover speech.
It's not a deal-breaker, but a bit annoying.
Control center issue
Hit a huge issue in the control center. After adding a control the whole thing has stopped responding. No amount of shutting VO off and on helps, nor exiting and re-entering the control center is bringingX back. I can move around the upper items (wifi, power button, etc) but can't interact with anything.
Hopefully restarting my phone will help. I use the control center constantly.
I am loving having typing sounds in BSI though, no lie. Would put up with any issues for how good this is. And I can type "for" again, finally!
Edit: Restarting solved this one, phew!
Update regarding VO reading numbers
@Brooke,
You are welcome. That was one of the most interesting iOS experiences I have had this week (see: Terrifying).
@ David Lai,
Hmm, I did not even think to reinstall my preferred Siri voice. I did find that other Siri voices read numbers just fine, those downloaded post update, that is. Will have to try redownloading Siri Voice 4 (US) and cross some fingers.
...and maybe a toe or 3. 😇
Confused about the speech issue
So I'm a little bit confused about the issue some people are facing. some people say that when they updated their devices were silent when using Siri voices, like it wouldn't read out numbers or when entering your passcode on first boot? Does this just affect the siri voices or other voices affected too.
This reminds me of iOS 13, when speech literally wouldn't work for like a day after the installation. That was at least in my experience, not sure if other people had that issue, but it was happening on an iPhone SE and an iPhone 7. Pretty sure it got resolved after awhile, but it was scary.
@blindxqe
So, my experience was as follows. I had my iPhone SE3 plugged in, and updated to iOS 18. Once I got passed the usual screens we have to endure after every major update, I was on my lock screen. Normally pressing the Home button, or double tapping the 'Click to open' message at the bottom will pull up the keypad for typing in your passcode.
I have used Siri voice 4 (US) for a little while now, and that is the voice that was set in this instance.
The issue was when I attempted to type numbers, it was making the sound effect like VO does when typing on a keyboard with the voice itself muted.
And yes, I tried the 3 finger double tap to check if I did in fact mute the voice.
I had not.
For whatever reason the US Siri voices within VO are not reading numbers properly. There is a possibility that reinstalling said voices will fix this.
We shall see.
HTH.
Oh
I don't use US voices, as long as they don't affect Australian voices I'm fine. But hopefully the issue gets resolved from people who used those voices. Can anybody confirm that that issue doesn't affect non-Siri voices? Thank you.
No worries
Australian English and UK English Siri voices worked fine for me. 👍
Activities broken?
I've created several activities that change VO's voice when I open certain apps. This no longer works in iOS 18. I even deleted and recreated the activity but no luck. Is this broken or has something changed?
Braille Screen Input and text replacement
I'm not sure when this functionality stopped working, but my Braille Screen Input no longer expands my text replacement shortcuts set in the keyboard preferences. Does anyone have a way of turning this on again? I find it's an excellent way to type emoji from BSI.
Activities and text replacements
Both my activity that changes VO's voice and the ability to use text replacements with BSI are completely unaltered in iOS 18.
Re: Text Replacement
Thanks for the heads-up about text replacement. I seem to have fixed it now, and it might or might not have something to do with multilingual keyboards - what I did was:
Make sure the multilingual keyboard is set up properly including the needed iCloud download in general>keyboard
Made sure my text replacements carried over in the keyboard settings
Reboot iPhone
IOS 18 update not received, IOS 17.7 updated
Just got the security update with IOS 17.7 as of today. Will check tomorrow if IOS 18 is available. I am from India. I am still haunted by many bugs which I am reluctant to report here as I have already escalated to apple and I have not received any reverts
Magic Retina
Control is not working with VO. Added magnifier and everything well until I finished, could not move around the other apps, VO stop working, needed to restart phone to make it work and did checked to see if magnifier was added. It was. Bug.
Re: Keyboard speech Feedback
Is this using a Siri voice? I had a similar thing happen with MacOs Sonoma where the Siri voice became unbearably slow to read letters, to the point where I was no longer able to use it. Could try swapping it out if so.
The Living Blindfully podcast did a very detailed breakdown of iOS 18 new features and it looked like there was an option on the Siri voices for VoiceOver where you could change between the normal mode with all its inflections and a fast mode that seemed more appropriate for a screen reader. It's possible it was 18.1 but you could also try looking for that.
Sorry I'm not quite brave enough for iOS 18 yet. I was tempted but the posts above have put me off.
My experience on a spare iPhone 12
So I just tried out iOS 18 on my spare iPhone 12, and...the mentioned bug regarding the control center doesn't seem to be true. I was able to use VO's rotor to rearrange control center items.
Also, from my observation, it seems that all buttons in the photos app are properly labeled by VO.
The bug where VO announcing of "off" on custom controls, such as opening an app, is true though, as well as the inability to use VO's rotor to move home screen icons to a non-linear position. There is also indeed no way to close out of the choose app screen in the lock screen customization screen without using the 2-finger scrub gesture.
Also, from my tests with a test podcast file, VO's volume seems to behave normally when the "when speaking" is selected in the audio ducking option.
The VO's announcement of "Collapsed Stack" seems to be true, though I can't really reproduce this constantly on my spare iPhone 12 since that phone is not linked with my Apple ID, and the spare phone doesn't have any third-party apps installed where I can reliably reproduce this bug.
So all in all, I think I'm going to go ahead and upgrade my iPhone 15 ProMax and see how it goes. But so far based on my tests using my spare iPhone 12 things are looking positive.
Edit: The bug where the buttons for creating a widget from a home screen icon seems to be true. There is one button with a pretty weird VO label followed by "small", "medium" and "L" which I assume is for large.
Re: collapsed stack
I do not get this on my notifications. I did go into the notification settings and insured. I had my option set to list. Not sure if that did anything, but again I do not get the “collapsed stack“ message when listening to notifications on my lock screen.
iPhone SE3 running iOS 18.0.
Collapsed stack
Has been there for me since I think public beta 3. So long in fact I've got used to it. Oh and yes set to list in settings. iPhone15 pro.
Users using Simplified Chinese will encounter a serious bug
Hi all ,
I read all the posts and found that no one has mentioned the bug I encountered yet.If you are using Simplified Chinese, you will encounter a serious bug in iOS18.When you navigate most pages using "Character" in the rotor, VoiceOver won't read out the explanation for each character.Maybe you don't use simplified Chinese and may not understand what I'm saying. For example, when browsing English content, if you select the character rotor, VoiceOver can match each letter with a word as an explanation. For example, if you browse to the letter "g", VoiceOver may say "G, Good".There is a similar function in the simplified Chinese interface, but the reading method is different. Now this function is almost broken.Why do I say almost broken? Because it works as expected in very few pages, such as the home screen view or the settings app, but this feature is not available in most Apple-developed apps or third-party apps.This function is a very frequently used function by Simplified Chinese users. If it is damaged, it will greatly affect the daily use of users. Therefore, I suggest that if you use Simplified Chinese, please do not update iOS18.0 for the time being.
Nut
Perhaps is not for you but for some of us it is. 13 pro.
Yesterday notifications worked fine.
Now they don't, not even when I double tap on the notification. If this is behaving like stacked notifications, how do I get them to work?
To Jo
When you have more than 1 notification certainly for me anyway flick right past the first one that will speak and there is a button to show notifications. Double tap and it expands thhem all like it would as a list.
Spotlight
Well this is weird.
today i tried to get spotlight but wen I do the three finger gesture to invoque it, nothing happens, voiceover only says Spotlight, but nothing appears. What is more weird is that inmediatly I tried to open my settings to see if there was something missing about it and just then was when the spotlight searching box appeared as well as the keyboard to type there.
I repeated this action with other apps and it was the same. It seams that to openthe spotlight, i have to do the three fingers gesture and then click on any app to open the searching box (it doesn't happen with folders).
where to find the mic modes for facetime/phone calls?
Hi there, does anyone know where to find the mic modes for facetime/phone calls? I looked in control center, but I cannot sceme to find it anywhere.
A question about Braille screen input.
Whenever my face ID doesn't work, I've used Braille screen input to type in my passcode, but now it doesn't come up. I took Braille screen input out of the rotor because I set it up to turn on automatically, and having both seemed redundant, and a little confusing. Is this a bug, or am I not doing something right?
New jesture to bring up type to siri
Hi, I am unable to use the new gesture to type to Siri. How would one go about activating this gesture?
Entering Password With Braille Screen Input
All you need to do is double-tap with 2 fingers. You need to put 1 finger at each edge of the screen to enter Braille Screen Input mode. Then you can just Braille your password like you normally would.
Finding Mic Modes
To find the mic modes you need to be in a face time call or a phone call. Go into the control centre and find the services in use icon. Double-tap on it and you will see the different mic modes.