Apple has today released macOS 15 Sequoia to the public. As usual, we won’t cover the mainstream features here, concentrating instead on what's new and changed for blind and low vision users. For an overview of the mainstream changes, we recommend this in-depth review by MacStories.
Please remember to check the section about bugs to see if now is the right time to upgrade. There’s no harm in holding off a few weeks or months to let Apple address a problem you may find too disruptive to deal with.
A note to braille users: the AppleVis team members doing testing with macOS Sequoia are not heavy braille users. We have no information as to how well braille works in this release, so please keep this in mind when upgrading. If you are a braille user who has experience with Sequoia, please share your findings in the comments to help the community.
Changes for Blind and Low Vision Users
Last year Apple brought Quick Nav changes, per voice settings, and Siri voice improvements to macOS Sonoma. This year, macOS Sequoia brings some more changes and a handful of bug fixes.
Command customization
With macOS Sequoia, VoiceOver commands have become vastly more customizable, with the ability to change the assignments of many commands, and create your own assignments using the VoiceOver modifier in addition to the numpad, trackpad, left or right Option key, and single keys. An extensive list of commands can be viewed and changed in VoiceOver Utility > Commands. This new command customization facility replaces the distinct "Commanders" found in prior versions of macOS.
For an audio demonstration of this feature, check out the AppleVis Podcast episode "A Demonstration and Walkthrough of VoiceOver Command Customization on macOS."
Customizable voice rotor
As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia allows you to change the voices that appear in the voice rotor, one of the speech rotors accessed by pressing VO-Command-Shift-left or right arrow. You can add or remove voices in any language in VoiceOver Utility > Speech > Voices.
Personal voice for VoiceOver and Spoken Content
As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, you can now use your personal voice as the voice for VoiceOver and Spoken Content in macOS Sequoia. Your personal voice can be set up by going to System Settings > Accessibility > Personal Voice.
New language support
As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia adds new Kazakh and Lithuanian voices that can be used with VoiceOver and Spoken Content.
New VoiceOver tutorial
In macOS Sequoia, the longstanding VoiceOver Quick Start has been replaced by a new VoiceOver tutorial, similar to that found on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Like the VoiceOver Quick Start in prior versions of macOS, the new VoiceOver tutorial can be accessed by going to System Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver, or by pressing VO-Command-F8 from anywhere in the operating system.
Braille Improvements
While it is not something we have been able to test, we are aware of the following improvement for braille users in macOS Sequoia:
- As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, you can now specify different braille tables for input and output in macOS Sequoia. This can be configured by going to VoiceOver Utility > Braille > Translation, deselecting the "Match input and output tables" checkbox, and choosing your desired tables from the respective "input" and "output" popup menus. Note that you may need to first add the tables to the braille table rotor by clicking the Add button in voiceOver Utility > Braille > Translation before they will appear in the popup menus.
Improvements for Low Vision Users
While it is not something we have been able to test, we are aware of the following improvements for low vision users:
- As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, you can now turn off the blinking cursor in macOS Sequoia. Just go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display, and toggle the "Prefer non-blinking cursor" switch on.
- The number of apps supporting custom text sizes has expanded to include Books, News, Stocks, and Weather. These settings can be found in System Settings > Accessibility > Display.
If you are a low vision Mac user, we would love to hear in the comments your experience and thoughts on these and any additional enhancements you encounter in macOS Sequoia.
Other Changes
- The speech rates for many voices have been altered slightly in macOS Sequoia, meaning you may need to readjust the rate for your preferred voice after installing the upgrade to make it comfortable for you. In addition, it is no longer possible to adjust the speech rate by any interval other than five. It is not currently known whether this change is intensional or not.
- As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, new "Night" and "fire" background sounds have been introduced in macOS Sequoia. These, and other background sounds, can be found in System Settings > Accessibility > Audio.
- As on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, custom phrases or utterances, known as Vocal Shortcuts, can be configured in macOS Sequoia to perform a variety of tasks on your Mac. Apple touts this feature as being useful for those with atypical speech.
Change List
In its support documentation, Apple lists the following changes for VoiceOver users in macOS Sequoia:
- The Languages rotor is now called the Voice rotor. Use the Voice rotor to switch between voices, regardless of language. VoiceOver also offers new voices for Arabic, Chinese, English, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean.
- The Commanders category in VoiceOver Utility is now called the Commands category. You can use it to customize the commands you use to control VoiceOver. You can customize the commands you use with the VoiceOver modifier, as well as the commands you use with NumPad keys, Option keys, Quick Nav, or trackpad gestures.
- When you interact with nested content, you sometimes need to press VO-Shift-Down Arrow multiple times to drill down into, for example, a group contained inside another group. When you’re done exploring nested content in an app, you can now press VO-Shift-Escape to jump to the app’s top level, instead of needing to press VO-Shift-Up Arrow multiple times.
- You can now start VoiceOver in Recovery Mode so you can temporarily use VoiceOver with the default settings. This can be useful if you change a setting by mistake and VoiceOver no longer works as you expect. In Recovery Mode, you can use VoiceOver Utility to change settings as needed or restore VoiceOver settings to their defaults.
- If your Mac has a built-in trackpad, you can now set an option to disable it when VoiceOver is on. This may be useful if you want to avoid accidentally performing gestures on the trackpad.
- VoiceOver offers a redesigned interactive tutorial.
- VoiceOver offers support for two additional languages—Kazakh and Lithuanian.
Bug Fixes and New Bugs for VoiceOver Users
Below are lists of the bugs we believe to have been resolved in macOS Sequoia, as well as new bugs introduced in this release. We strongly recommend that you read through the list of new bugs and any replies before updating; as this will allow you to make an informed decision on whether to install macOS Sequoia or wait for a future release.
With our small team, it's impossible to test every Mac model, configuration, application, and use case. We can't claim our bug list is 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.
To ensure the information here is as complete and accurate as possible, we welcome feedback below from those who have installed macOS Sequoia. Please confirm if you're encountering the same problems listed or if you've found workarounds. Also let us know about any additional issues not mentioned here. Of course, it's even more important that you report any new bugs directly to Apple - they're already aware of the ones listed here. For an explanation of why and how to report bugs to Apple, see this post.
Accessibility Bugs Resolved in macOS Sequoia
Our testing indicates that Apple has resolved the following bugs in macOS Sequoia:
- The process for generating a strong password in Safari has changed, with VoiceOver no longer losing focus after clicking the "Use strong password" button in password fields. Now, to generate a strong password in Safari, focus on a password field, press the Down-Arrow key to focus on the "Use strong password" option, and press Return.
- When focusing on a message in the Messages app and pressing VO-Shift-M, the "Tapback" submenu is now accessible with VoiceOver.
- Widget suggestions in the "Edit widgets" interface are now clearly labeled.
New Bugs for VoiceOver Users in macOS Sequoia
Our testing suggests that the following bugs have been introduced in macOS Sequoia:
- During regular use such as email or web browsing, VoiceOver will frequently crash and restart itself. This appears to be limited to Intel based Macs.
- iPhone Mirroring is completely inaccessible with VoiceOver. Even when turning VoiceOver off in order to pass keyboard commands to the iPhone, only the iOS VoiceOver navigation sounds are played through the Mac, not speech as would be expected. As audio from the iPhone can be played to the Mac, and the Mac’s keyboard can be used to control the iPhone, it is our position that the user should be able to hear iOS VoiceOver audio through their Mac, and use their Mac’s keyboard to navigate the iOS user interface.
- Nothing happens when pressing VO-Space on the “Page menu” and “show Reader appearance customization options” buttons in Safari's toolbar. To click this button, Focus on it, route the mouse pointer to it by pressing VO-Command-F5, and press VO-Shift-Space to click the mouse.
- When focusing on a shared group in the Passwords sidebar table, the number of items in the group are spoken, but not the group’s name. Pressing VO-F2 will cause VoiceOver to speak the window title, which is named after the currently selected group.
- When focusing on an account in the table in Passwords and pressing VO-J, VoiceOver focus sometimes moves to the search field in the toolbar, rather than the scroll area displaying information for that account. When this occurs, pressing VO-J a second time will move VoiceOver focus from the search field to the scroll area.
- When performing VoiceOver’s “Speak Wi-Fi status” command, (VO-F7 three times by default) the signal strength is spoken, but not the name of the connected network.
macOS Sequoia release notes
macOS Sequoia introduces new features to help you be more productive and creative on Mac. With the latest Continuity feature, iPhone Mirroring, you can access your entire iPhone on Mac. It’s easy to tile windows to quickly create your ideal workspace, and you can even see what you’re about to share while presenting with Presenter Overlay. A big update to Safari features Distraction Control, Highlights, and a redesigned Reader, making it easy to get things done while you browse the web. macOS Sequoia also brings text effects and emoji Tapbacks to Messages, Math Notes to Calculator, the ability to plan a hike in Maps, and so much more.
iPhone Mirroring
- iPhone Mirroring lets you access and control your iPhone on Mac, giving you a convenient way to browse your Home Screen, launch iPhone apps, and interact with them on Mac
- Keyboard and trackpad support enables you to type and use Multi-Touch gestures to swipe through apps on your Home Screen, pinch to zoom, and scroll in apps
- iPhone Notifications on Mac allow you to view and take action on notifications from iPhone right on your Mac
Easier window tiling
- Tiled window enhancements make it easier to arrange windows by dragging them to the screen’s edge to place them side-by-side or in corners on your desktop
- Keyboard and menu shortcuts can be used to arrange windows into tiled positions even faster
Safari
- Distraction Control helps you hide items on a webpage that you find disruptive to your browsing
- Highlights surface key information from the webpage you’re visiting with summaries, locations, and more
- Redesigned Reader offers even more ways to enjoy articles with a streamlined view of the article you’re reading, a summary, and a table of contents for longer articles
- Viewer lets you watch videos without distractions, and automatically moves videos into Picture-in-Picture when you click away from the page
Passwords
- Passwords app lets you see all your credentials for websites and apps in one place, making it even easier to access your passwords, passkeys, Wi-Fi passwords, and verification codes
- Verification codes can be set up right in Passwords so you can easily copy them or autofill them into Safari without even having to open the app
- Secure syncing ensures your accounts saved in Passwords sync seamlessly with iCloud with end-to-end encryption so you can access them on your other devices
- Windows support through the iCloud Passwords app so you can access your passwords on Windows devices
Video Conferencing
- Presenter Overlay lets you preview your screen before sharing it in video calls
- Play preview gives you a preview of where your content and presenter notes will be when you click Play in Keynote
- Background replacement allows you to upload your own photo or choose from several built-in options to use as your video call background
Messages
- Text effects bring your conversations to life by visually amplifying any letter, word, phrase, or emoji in iMessage with dynamic, animated effects like explode, ripple, and nod
- Text formatting lets you add bold, underline, italics, and strikethrough to any letter, word, or phrase in iMessage
- Emoji and sticker Tapbacks let you react to a message using any emoji or sticker, giving you access to the Tapbacks you and your friends send the most with just a swipe
- Send Later lets you compose a message now and schedule it to send later
Maps
- Topographic maps display features like trails, contour lines, elevation, and points of interest
- Hikes are available across all U.S. national parks and can be saved to your device to access while offline
- Custom walking and hiking routes can be created for hikes in the park, regular exercise routines in your neighborhood, walking tours while on vacation, and more
- Places Library combines all your saved places, guides, and hiking routes into one location for easy access
Notes
- Audio recordings can be started right from inside a note, and kept with related comments, checklists, and documents
- Live transcriptions show as you record audio, and transcripts are fully searchable so you can always find what you need
- Math in Notes let you enter expressions in your note to have them solve instantly
- Collapsible sections help you simplify and hide text in long notes; just click next to a section header to lighten up your most text-heavy notes
- Highlight text in your note with a choice of five colors allows you to make your text standout
Photos
- Collections automatically organize your library by helpful topics in the sidebar, like Days, Trips, People & Pets, and Featured Photos
- Groups in People & Pets include photos of your favorite people or pets who frequently appear together
- Video speed control lets you slow down high frame rate video content with in and out points
- Utilities includes additional helpful collections like Documents, Receipts, and more, and items you’ve recently edited, viewed, and shared
- Recovered album in Utilities surfaces images that are on your device but were not previously visible due to database corruption in a locked album
Apple TV app
- Subtitles automatically appear at just the right times, like when the content language doesn’t match your device language, when you mute the audio, or when you skip back while watching a program
AirPods
- Hands-free Siri Interactions let you respond to Siri announcements with AirPods by simply nodding your head ‘yes’ or shaking your head ‘no’
- Voice Isolation on AirPods Pro provides clearer call quality for those you are speaking with, even in windy conditions or places with loud background noise
- Personalized Spatial Audio for gaming with AirPods puts you in the middle of the action with sound that surrounds you combined with a new API for developers that makes it easier than ever to enable
This release also includes other features and improvements:
- Updated basic and scientific calculators in Calculator app can now solve expressions, convert units, and access a history of past calculations
- Reminders in Calendar lets you create, view, edit and complete reminders alongside your meetings and appointments
- Recently Deleted list in Reminders lets you view and retrieve deleted reminders
- Scenes in Freeform allow you to organize your content into sections, then save, label and order them as you like
- Feels Like temperature in Weather app is displayed prominently near the actual temperature when they differ significantly
- Guest access in Home app lets you provide visitors with date and time- based access to locks, garage doors, and alarm systems
- Electricity usage and rate plan information in Home app are displayed for eligible customers when connecting their utility account, starting with Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California
- Accessibility Vocal Shortcuts help people with severe atypical speech record custom utterances that trigger specific actions on Mac
Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices.
For more information, please visit this website: https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-sequoia
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: https://support.apple.com/100100
In Closing
macOS Sequoia is a solid upgrade that adds a few new features and enhancements for blind and low vision users. We encountered no show-stopping bugs in this version of macOS. Our recommendation is to update when you're ready. You may want to give developers time to update their apps and others opportunity to find the bugs or other problems we missed, but we believe most users should be okay to update now.
We'd love to hear your thoughts after you've had a chance to install the upgrade. 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 this release and where you think there's still room for improvement.
In closing, we thank Apple's Accessibility team for their prompt response in fixing many of the bugs reported during the macOS Sequoia beta cycle. However, some problems remain unresolved, and we find the fact that a headlining feature of this release, iPhone Mirroring, is completely inaccessible with VoiceOver incredibly disappointing. We encourage Apple to promptly address this and other outstanding accessibility issues discussed in this post and the comments below so that macOS can be as accessible, usable, and enjoyable as possible for all users.
To install macOS Sequoia, choose System Settings from the Apple menu, select General in the table, click Software Update in the scroll area, and click the Upgrade Now button to begin the upgrade process. If other updates are available, you can click "More info" to see details about them and select specific updates to install.
More information on how to update the software on your Mac is available on this Apple Support page.
Comments
Mac OS Sequoia
I joined this year's public beta program and tested the new version and today I updated my M 1 Mac Mini As well. For me Mac OS Sequoia is a great update. Especially because they resolved the preview and voiceover bugs. But I would like to see Mac Voiceover as improved as it's İOS Counterpart. Sequoia brings voiceover to a more stable situation. Despite this, Apple doesn't give the atention to Mac OS Voiceover as it does with İOS Voiceover. I really like my mac and this new update but as I said, Apple should give more atention to Mac OS Voiceover. Think about this, there are some voiceover features on İOS which Mac OS Voiceover Haven't.
Comment title: Mac OS Sequoia
@Cankut Değerli
a few thoughts:
1 if this were a feedback report in my opinion it is incomplete.
It doesn't say what you can do on the iPhone you can't do on the mac.
It doesn't have accompanying feedback numbers.
I would also attach screen recordings of you accomplanishing tasks on your iPhone. I would also turn on the Microphone when recording and state I can no do this task on the Mac and would like to be able to do so.
Quick Nav sound and Reader Available
A handful of bugs/changes
In Preview, depending on your position in a page, when you interact down in a paragraph you can't read with vo + arrow keys this paragraph. I discovered this today and am now writing on windows, so will report this and the feedback number asap. Plus there is a weird bug with lists in pdf sometimes, very hard to describe but basically you have to reinteract in the list and replace your cursor on the specific list element you were on...
Mathml content navigation, as detailed in more detail in an entire other post which also has the fb#, is completely broken, as of sequoia rc (I haven't get the update yet, or I am completely misunderstanding something). This is also the case on the latest stable of Sonoma (14.6.1).
iPhone mirroring completely unusable for us: Come on apple, it's the key feature of this update and we can't even use it?
The arrow key behaving weirdly is as much of an annoyance on this version as it previously was, you can find its fb on applevis, going back in 2017 or so.
Unlike some people might think, at least for me, safari does not respond hasn't disappear, it's just very slightly, sometimes, less worst. Lots of fb# with this. And as I will always remind, it's not (1) specific to safari but other browsers as well, and (2) in other apps when there is a lot of processing / big content being displayed. At least they corrected this bug in the license page when updating for example it does not trigger appname does not respond.
Sometimes when downloading a file in safari it's impossible to hear the file/folder the cursor is on in column view, as well as in the file name edit field. Very, very annoying, the best workaround is to get the file path either by typing or option command c on another finder window open and then press command shift g to get the go to window.
The announce groups navigation setting of voiceover has too many bugs to be listed in this current post, although it's my default way of navigating. Not sure if that's related but in imessage when you interact in the message list and your sent message is the last element in the list (whether or not that message is a reply, or there are other messages of you or the other person before that last element( voiceover interact completely down in that message (the level where we can read the text with vo arrows), the workaround for this is to press vo-cmd-h/shift-h to go to a heading, generally delivered or a time.
A nice touch is the addition of a new shortcut and script (vo shift escape I think) to deinteract and go to the top element, in safari in a web page it will place you at the web content level for example.
Voiceover announces again after god knows how many year the element in the doc when you first enter in it with vo-d!
The new calculator does not have this horrible scam of an accessibility for blind user with the system tts. Voiceover however announces everything from the beginning as we type, like 1, then 11, then 11+1... you see? And you still have to be in a very specific zone, this time reachable with tab and shift tab, before left perent and after equals, it's not announced at all by voiceover (as of rc build). So doing sin90 does still take ages despite the request to add keyboard shortcut for such functions being suggested many times, like on windows, or similar mechanisms, so blind people can be as productive with it than sighted ones.
Minor improvements with option left and right arrow and how symbols are announced with voices such as alison, with an added bug that when verbosity rotor is set to announce text attributes, with each character voiceover will do vo-t in the background and reread everything.
Trackpad three fingers scroll gestures are still still horribly recognized.
You can see other bugs / bug corrections on the beta topic of sequoia.
I definitely agree that macos voiceover is more and more........ neglected and bugs and just (the opposite of quality of life) gliches are becoming a real psychological burdun when doing anything on the mac. My speed to go on the dev beta 1 was iPhone mirroring which we are still waiting and I fear we stay like that for an infinite / very long indefinite amount of time, that's how little my trust towards macos accessibility is now. Like the real big feature for them to implement on sequoia was shortcuts!? This is hart breaking. The rest of it was probably worked on by the ios and ipad os team that's why they actually work. 😂😒
Weird authentication window
Every time I quit an app, voiceover says authentication, and I get stuck in this unknown window. The only way to get away from it is to command tab. This seems to have started after I tried to set my primary voice to personal voice, something that didn't work. VO seems to think I am Samantha for some reason. Might have had nothing to do with that, but it definitely happened for the first time after I quit voiceover utility. And now it does it for everything and I can't get rid of it.
Mix case processing of Eloquence
I'm a software engineer who heavily relies on mixed-case words and prefers the Eloquence voice for screen reading. In the past, macOS 13 and 14 had an odd issue where Eloquence did not handle mixed-case words properly (unlike iOS). This caused words like InitializeApplicationEntry to be read incorrectly, which significantly impacted my productivity. I’ve already reported this to Apple.
Can anyone confirm if this issue persists in macOS 15?
personal voice uses samantha instead of actual personal voice
When trying to use your personal voice with voiceover on the mac, it uses samantha instead of your personal voice.
I've tried this on 15.1 RC and 15.1 dev beta 3.
Is anyone else having this issue?
Change Log
Here's Apple's Change Log. There's some interesting stuff in here, including a recovery mode which temporarily starts VoiceOver with the default settings. Maybe Apple is taking VoiceOver seriously again like they should have done a decade ago. Maybe I'll dip my toes back into Mac land one of these years if management changes and they continue this trend.
https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/whats-new-in-voiceover-vo15627/mac
Unable to add widgets to desktop
In Sonoma I was able to add widgets to the desktop, but can't anymore. I interact with the widgets list, find the app I want, vo space, then interact with the widgets list for that app, and previously vo space would drag said widget to my desktop. No longer the case. I've also tried drag and drop, and no luck. M1 Macbook Air.
Major bug if numbers verbosity is set to Digits
There is what I'd describe as a P1 bug with VoiceOver in Sequoia if you have the Numbers verbosity set to Digits. If you read text containing a digit followed by a punctuation character followed by another digit, then the entire string gets garbled with a lot of nonsensical text-to-speech thrown in. This happens with every English voice. In other words, text like dates, times, and other places where you have punctuation surrounded on both sides by digits will trigger this bug. This does not happen when the Numbers verbosity is set to Words.
Great post! One question though
Whenever I restart or power on my mac and i'm at the logon screen or in recovery etc, samantha gets used which is a bit annoying but its not a problem. Although I do find it odd. I mean, on ios if I restart etc, the voice I use for voiceover reed, will be used, unless I install a update, in which case the voice will revert back to samantha for a bit. I do have filevault enabled, so maybe that's why, but as said, not a big problem, I got off track. Anyway The thing is... the rate is just, abismally slow, 45%. This happens regardless if I increase the rate to 80%. The next time I restart, go into recovery, boot picker etc; the rate is back down to 45%, anyone know how to fix this so that the rate is at what I set it to I.e, 70% and so that it doesn't revert to 45% every-time I restart my mac etc?
Igna Triay
Samantha has always been used in recovery mode since i think ever since Apple Silicon came out.
As for it being used on the login screen, I'm not too sure about that. My login voice is Karen, which I'm fine with.
Reply to Dennis Logn
This was not a feedback to apple, just my overall thoughts about the situation. About features İos Voiceover have and Mac OS Voiceover haven't, for example İOS Voiceover can read the subtitles and you can control this with a rotor action, where as Mac OS Voiceover can not.
Also have the personal voice issue
For me also personal voice is using samantha.
A disappointing release in my view
I avoided the betas this year as I no-longer have secondary devices that I don't rely on. I installed the public releases of iOS 18 and MacOS sequoia last night and the difference is once again striking. iOS 18 is more responsive and generally a pleasure to use, with useful new features. MacOS once again is lagging far behind, with voiceover features from iOS still nowhere to be found. Where is screen recognician for example, or the ability to read subtitles. The lack of accessibility in iPhone mirroring, arguably sequoia's biggest feature, is frustrating especially since having iPhone notifications on the Mac would otherwise be quite useful. Apple need to have a release of MacOS like Snow Leopard was to Leopard, where they ocus solely in fixing bugs, cleaning up code and drasttically improving performance. And as part of that, bring Voiceover on the Mac in line with iOS.
Yeah, I agree @Ashley
I agree, and I'm running the beaters on my main device. There was a whole circus about it, and I had to reset my computer, which I don't want to talk about, or else I might go way off topic, and then ramble for like 10 minutes, but yeah.
Overall this is one of the most stable ish beaters I've tested. I'm currently testing 15.1.
Remember that nobody asked…
Remember that nobody asked apple to put these features on ios. Whereas we've been asking for at least real world bug dcorrection for years and it's not there at all. Terminal is broken.
One question for touchbar users and a confirmation
Hi guys, writing from Italy.
When reading the bugs section I found out that there is one in Safari concerning the impossibility to click "Page menu" and "show reader appearance customization" buttons. I am finding an issue performing your workaround. Since I use a Macbook with touchbar, how can I replace vo+cmd+f5?
I also confirm that after installing Sequoia I needed to reconfigure VoiceOver rate, I am now using Eloquence in Reed variant.
Bye!
Barbuz
vo cmd fn 5. Remember all…
vo cmd fn 5. Remember all the function keys, and escape, can we emulated with voiceover on and the function key + the number row, 1 to =, and fn tab for escape.
You might wanna use caps lock as your modifier key to prevent any finger injury. Just suggestin :)
When updating to sequoia 15…
When updating to sequoia 15.0 from the latest sonoma 14.7, it's impossible to read the terms of use before disagree button. When interacting and doing vo down arrow just once it triggers system settings does not respond and replace the cursor back to disagree button. This is beyond words.
Impossible to use spell…
Impossible to use spell-check in safari or any other web view. The best you can hope is voiceover announcing a word is misspelled, but you can't correct it in that same window. Moreover when trying to navigate by misspelled with the rotor it won't work and the rotor will default to another rotor element and go to that previous/next element (whatever the case is), for me, heading.
In terminal, when you…
In terminal, when you navigate by up or down arrow, voiceover will start reading from the top, which means that if you haven't done anything in .bashrc you will hear the from last login til the your last command output, each time you navigate in your command history with up and down arrow. Calculator being what it is, you will find python to use as a calculator a horrible experience. Guess what? I discovered this in my math class, again!
@Ashley
So while screen mirroring is not accessible, I can report that I do get iPhone notifications read out on the mac, and at least that part works. But yeah they really should have made it work.
How is this compared to the first Sonoma?
When the first Sonoma version came along the comments in here made it sound pretty solid, so I installed it and had a terrible time. Now it's usable but still new bugs persist that have not been fixed.
So I'm wondering, for anyone else who had a bad time with Sonoma - how are you finding this new version? The two big issues mentioned above are the problem with numbers and punctuation which sounds maddening, and the additional problems in terminal. Considering terminal in Sonoma is still not as good as it was in Ventura it sounds like another huge step backwards.
I'm also concerned about the new speech rate option. So I can now only change it by 5 at a time? From time to time I try to bump my speech rate up by a tiny amount to see if I can cope, and I had been hoping to be able to continue with that. But 5 is a big jump either way. What are the new speeds like? I think Ventura changed the speech rates which I really hated. As someone still trying to get to grips with a screen reader then, having to dial back the speed was really demoralising.
Did I read it correctly that they have got rid of commanders and just smooshed all the options together? So is this one enormous table with everything in it? Firstly, this sounds like a nightmare in terms of information overload. I find editing in tables can be a bit unwieldy anyway and having smaller tables at least felt like I was less likely to screw up too much. Does this also mean that you can no longer switch off numpad commander? I use it for almost all my VO commands, but just occasionally it's nice to turn it off so I can actually type numbers on it. Is this still possible?
@Mr Grieves
There is a checkbox that says also control voiceover with numpad, so you could turn it off completely if you wanted to. And there is a key command called toggle numpad key commands on or off, so you could assign whatever shortcut you like. The new way of organising commands is pretty good once you figure out how it works. There are two options, column view, and table view. Don't switch to table view if you value your sanity hehehe. In column view, you have all the command categories like general, navigation, hotspots etc, in the left column. So you arrow down to the one you want, then arrow right to the list of tasks. Arrow down to the one you want then arrow right, and it'll tell you whatever shortcut is assigned. At this point you can either hit command k and press whatever shortcut you like, or click it, and choose from a standard menu/submenu.
Having an Issue Updating
I, too, am not able to read the terms. I clicked "Agree" and then immediately got "settings not responding". Do we perhaps have to upgrade to iOS 18 first? I'm happy to do that but just wondering. I attempted twice to upgrade on my M1 MacBook Air, but not happening.
Update: The update/upgrade is now being prepared. Not exactly sure what happened there, but everything seems to be working now.
@BNatural
Thanks for the details. I'm glad you can still toggle numpad for VO on/off.
The way of entering commands sounds useful. But is there also a way to see it the other way around - e.g. see everything assigned to numpad+cmd?
For example, I recently experimented with setting heading nav on numpad so with Cmd+num pad 1, 2, 3 etc it would skip forward by that heading level, then same with Option would go backwards. It was handy to be able to review what was on those commands before committing to this.
Anyway I guess it's not a showstopper. But I don't fancy upgrading with that punctuation/numbers bug.
Why does Apple have such problems with punctuation and text? Nothing would make me happier than if they announced that they were putting all that work in the bin and starting from scratch.
@TheBllingGuy
First of all, thanks for your recommendations about function key and so on. Secondly, did you manage to upgrade to Sonoma 14.7 prior to updating to Sequoia? I needed to use double upgrade, and also a friend of mine, because when we found "Sonoma 14.7 and 1 more" it wasn't a button, so trying to click there nothing obvious happened.
@Michele Barbi
Even myself don't know how I did, I had the same thought oh this is not a button. I think you click somewhere on or around it and it opens a popup with 14.7. After you can just hit upgrade for 14.7 to 15.0.
@BNatural
I first hated grid view, I was only using table view and, as you so eloquently put, lost my mind. But yes it's very conveniant after.
Braille
When clicking add in braille display settings, and when you interact with the column having the name of your braille display to connect it it will shift focus back on the cancel button. You just re interact with the table (only) and then tab should help you focus on connect button and then just click.
Apple didn't even bother adding the very useful ios equivalent of reconnect braille display as mine disconnected several time from bluetooth. Maybe it's just another bug going on with mathml as I would press one of the routing cursor and then the right pan button (focus blue 40 4th gen) to se e the rest of an equation and it would disconnect both times. Again! In my math class guys! YAY.
Re: How is this compared to the first Sonoma?
Aside the bugs, it's honestly much much much more stable than sonoma. I was so traumatized back then with the caps lock mess. To put into prospective it was the half of my 2nd month with macos then. I let you imagine.
A note on recovery mode.
Very simple to enable in fact. Just turn off VO, do again command f5, and after releasing all keys hold shift, voiceover will tell keep holding shift to enter recovery mode (or something like that). In it, the speech settings, the voice, and the keyboard shortcuts are left like your own, but all the behavioural ones like standard vs announce groups mode, etc, those sort of things, are at factory default. I think the verbosity is default too. It's not the same thing as a full reset to default, rather it's very very handy for bug tracking actually in a given ui element. It's just the default skin but your own customization. Very hard to describe in fact you have to try it yourselfe.
Thanks blind guy
Thanks again for your response, as far as you could of course...
Hi guys, I don't know if I'm…
Hi guys,
I don't know if I'm using the computer in some special way, but the new trivial errors are driving me crazy:
1. If I have actions assigned to an application or page, and they include options related to voice changes (speed, volume), such changes do not work after activating that action.
2. There is some problem with changing voice parameters using shortcuts (CMD, OPT, CTRL + touchpad).
3. I have cursor wrapping set. When navigating with certain shortcuts like jumping through headers or using the tab key, I reach the end and don't return to the beginning. Quick navigation, however, wraps around.
4. VoiceOver keeps restarting, it happened 3 times while reading this thread. In the VoiceOver settings, it happens frequently.
I've had this system for 30 minutes and it's driving me insane. Really, does no one else have these problems? They don't even appear in this thread. So tell me, what is the problem?
**Cursor blinking correction** very very disappointed
Quote from the other thread on ios:
Now Being a Cursor Doesn't Require Blinking
I'm not referring to a foul-mouthed Scott Davert, but the cursor on the braille display which is represented by dots 7 and 8. Though this isn't a specific setting for braille display users, it impacts the braille experience in the same way it does for those with vision. It is now possible to turn off the blinking cursor. If this is your preference, you can head to Settings>Accessibility>Motion>Prefer Non-Blinking Cursor and turn this off.
This is not true on macos. If I turn off cursor blinking in accessibility --> display, the cursor on my braille display does still insanely blinks. I hoped, I hoped apple would be intelligent and put at least the blinking option for macos (assuming on ios this actually works as described above an in the other thread), or yet the reconnect braille display as a script, but we have none of these.
Have you noticed guys how iphone miroring is the first element in the official what's new and it's not at all compatible with voiceover? If this release doesn't convince the community or Apple that something is very very wrong on macos, then I don't know what will.
VoiceOver change list
Apple's change list for what's new in VoiceOver in macOS Sequoia has now been added to this post, and pasted from Apple's website for your convenience:
Disabling trackpad
I like this idea, but haven't seen it in any options. Any chance we can assign a command to toggle it? That way we can enable/disable as needed.
So Far So Good on My End
Well...As previously mentioned here the upgrade finally worked after 3 tries, 3rd try is a charm! I've been playing around a bit and this is yet another very nice release. However, I haven't been able to locate the musical haptic thing. Or did it not make it into the initial release of Sequoia? Also I don't believe I've found any of the new voices but will keep looking. I'm planning to upgrade to iOS 18 tomorrow or Thursday. Nice job once again though Apple!
Music haptics
are only for iPhones.
Problems with QuickNav
Is anyone else experiencing a problem with Quick Nav on some websites?
I can't always move heading to heading or link to link. Quick Nav just stops even though it is still toggled on. I need to toggle it off and on again to make it work.
Problem is occurring with quick key navigation and arrow key navigation. Strangely it does not happen on all websites.
Re: Music Haptics
Yeah, don't exactly know how they would have done that on the Mac, with no haptic engine in there, no vibrations. I don't think it would be possible.
MathML
The mathml bug is so terrible that I again resorted to bring my old hp laptop with a crappy battery life and inexistant heat dissipation in college to be able to work in class. Gonna just find an outlet. That's how terrible it is. Accessibility is a scam on macos.
@TheBllindGuy07
Nice to hear that it is more stable. Although "aside from the bugs" should really be part of VoiceOver's tagline. There's definitely a great screen reader under there somewhere.
weird issue with hotspots since updating
I'm not sure if this is a Voiceover issue related to the update, or an issue with a particular app since updating, but I'm posting it here to be safe.
I updated to Mac OS Sequoia last night. After fighting with Loopback from Rogue Amiba for a while today, I got it to work the way it should. However, I had set a variety of hotspots within loopback for my sanity, as navigating the app can be a lot. Ever since the update, none of my hotspots actually stick. Voiceover will say that it saved hotspot 0, 6, 7, etc. However, when I press those hotspots later, it jumps to a random part of Loopback that is not at all where i set the hotspot. Also, if I press VO+Shift7, for example, it will say saved hotspot 7, even if I press it a second time. It's like the hotspots aren't actually saving for some reason.
Anybody else seeing anything similar or have any explanation for this?
Thanks in advance!!
Do you find this issue is…
Do you find this issue is limited to Loopback, or can it be reproduced in other apps? I only use hotspots in the Messages app, and that works as expected for me.
Re: Tyler
I find this issue in Loopback itself. However, once the issue occurs in Loopback, my other Hotspots seem to be affected as well. The hotspots in other apps I can fix no problem, but as soon as I try to use a hotspot in Loopback it breaks all of them again. I think it may be a loopback issue directly, but it's weird that it then proceeds to break all of my hotspots regardless of app.
Voice Over crashing.
I've noticed if you go thru anything quickly, like a web page, voice over just crashes. It does come back though.
Comboboxes Now Read Correctly, Maybe...
I just discovered something this morning, which is a fix for a longstanding issue. At least it now works properly on one website. I recently checked out http://www.gratefulness.org after several years of inactivity on there, which is now also available by going to http://www.grateful.org . The website went from accessible to inaccessible back to accessible . To cut a long story short, one of the features on that website is eCards, and there is a combobox for choosing the type of card to be sent out. Well...much to my surprise, VoiceOver read aloud instructions for working with said combobox. I followed the spoken prompt and low and behold, it worked. I was using speech at the time, as I spent the night at my parents' place again and didn't want to take along my Braille display. But I'll try to find out how this performs in Braille. Additionally, that was the only website I visited thus far with a combobox, and I have yet to test this out on my iPhone.
Hotspots / window spots seem indeed broken
I Tried to put one in the code editor area of vscode yesterday and it indeed doesn't seem to work, it would either put in a some random place or on the close buttun and then I had to remove it from the close button. Anyone else experiencing this?
I'd again say that aside some wow bugs some had (see topics on this sites :) ) sequoia is much much more stable at launch than sonoma ever was.