Voiceover volume on 5S

Hi, I received an e-mail today from the Apple Accessibility rep I spoke to on Monday night regarding the VO volume. She simply asked that I contact her back but she did not offer any additional information. I left her a voice message but I still have not heard back from her. I will keep you all posted when and if I speak to her. hopefully she will have some good news. Update.... So I heard back from the Apple rep. although she was very pleasant she did not have any good news for me. Let me take the time right now to say that I am in no way frustrated with the rep I spoke to , I understand her hands are tied and she was just giving me instructions based on what she was told to do. Basically Apple wants me to send in my phone so they can look at it to determine what the problem is. this means I will either have to go without a phone for a while in order for apple to be in receipt of my phone before they send me a replacement. The other alternative is that they express ship me a new phone in which I have to secure it on my credit card first and they will reimburse me once I send my phone. I told her I did not want an extra charge on my card even though they will reimburse me once I send in my "old" phone. stranger things have happened and I don't want a mix up or anything to go wrong with the mailing back of the phone and then have to deal with the credit card charge. I explained to her that the issue was not just my phone but apparently with the new 5S phones. I offered to walk her through the steps in order for Apple to replicate the issue on one of their phones. As I expressed to her several times it did not make sense that I send in my phone in order to receive a new phone that has the exact same issue. I explained that this was tested on several 5S's at the Apple store where I bought the phone (look at my first post). I can understand if they were not able to replicate the VO volume on their end and therefore wanted to inspect my phone, but this is not the case. They have apparently not even looked into the issue. I expressed to her that I was not upset with her specifically and I asked if I could speak with the person that directed her to request my phone. she claimed that she could not provide me with that and that sending in my phone was a necessary step. I of course disputed that as I feel they can simply access one of their own phones to replicate this issue. anyway, she is going to contact the Apple store where I bought the phone because I believe they wrote a ticket on this issue. I told her I was willing to go back to the Apple store to exchange my phone so my current 5S could be sent to Apple, even though it will be an exercise in futility. She is going to report back to whomever she reports back to and get back to me with any feedback or updates. So I can't stress the importance of anyone experiencing the VO volume issue on the 5S to please contact Apple. The more people that report this bug the more likely Apple will consider it a software issue across all 5S's and not on one or two phones. Yes I did explain to her that others were experiencing the same issue. I will keep you all posted. take care.

Hey all, thanks so much for posting about this. Voiceover volume only going up to 35% is definitely stopping me from getting an Iphone 5S. I am curious if this issue is only on Verizon, as I didn't notice a volume problem on Michael Hansen's podcast. Thanks

My dad has an AT&T 5S and it's happening to him,so I know for a fact it's happening with other carriers.

I had that issue, the going to 35% one. Can't you just use the volume buttons to adjust the Vo Volume? I know that everything is going to change, but is n't that easier than having to restore the settings back to factory defaults? Just thought I'd point it out. Also, running on a verizon iPhone 5S.

Hey all, Kind of curious as this issue would prevent me from getting the 5S. When you adjust VO volume using the volume buttons on the side of the phone does that work? I never use VO volume in the rotor which sounds like where the problem is. Just want to make sure I can hear voiceover and if the volume buttons work than that would be fine with me. Thanks for confirming

To be honest, I forgot that setting even existed; I've always adjusted the VO volume with the volume buttons on the side of the phone. That would explain why I didn't notice this bug when I was playing with an iPhone 5S yesterday. Seems like using the volume buttons should be a decent work-around.

Hi Greg, If you can, maybe back up the settings, and restore them from iCloud? Just thought I'd ask. I just get rid of the Vo volume setting in the rotor and just use the volume buttons. And, yes, I do understand that, the system sounds would then be too loud for Vo. Ahh, but what about the turning off of the use volume buttons to adjust system sounds in the sounds pain of the settings screen? Just thought I'd put my two sense in.

Hi Rob, You shouldn't have to exchange your iPhone 5S. I don't think it is an iPhone 5S issue, but something went wrong with the coding with VoiceOver. That is my hypothesis. I have an iPhone 5S and have that issue, however I just use the volume buttons on the phone itself. I deleted the volume function in the VO rotor, os now I do not have to worry about this anymore. Good luck.

Like was mentioned above, go to settings and uncheck control volume with volume buttons. Set phone volume where you like it and then control VO with the buttons. Problem solved. I agree that exchanging the phone is unnecessary since it seems every 5S has the rotor issue. Yes, it's frustrating but there's a work around and an easy one.

When adjusting voice over volume with the volume buttons what happens during a phone call? Are you still able to increase the volume of the call with the buttons and if so how does that affect voice over? To be honest I just want Apple to finally look at the issue to see what can be done. I appreciate the workarounds, but honestly it's something that is not functioning properly and I think they need to take a look at it. I like to be able to adjust the system sound volume on the fly, so I'm not sure how much I will enjoy the workaround. But it's good to know in the event that I am may be going into a noisy place. So I would first need to reset my settings in order to have a voice over volume increase initially up to 100%? Then going to settings and uncheck use volume buttons for system volume? Is this correct? Because if I do this right now might VO volume is At 35%. Do you happen to know what other settings are affected by the reset? Thanks for the advice.

I'm not sure what my VO volume is but it's loud, I know that much. Adjusting with the buttons I don't hear a volume percentage. I never change VO volume while on a call so I can't answer that. And I haven't done a reset so I can't answer that. All I know is I've always used volume buttons to adjust VO since I got my 4 and first iPhone. I get that Apple should look at the problem, I'm just always so afraid they're going to get completely annoyed by the blind and impatience.

I get the whole blind in inpatient thing to a certain degree, however Apple has refused to even recognize that this is an issue. The truth is I'm not asking them to fix the issue right away, just to confirm that there is a bug. They are seemingly refusing to do that at this point. I'm sure you and others will agree that being able to hear voice over outloud and noisy place is critical for us blind users. Frankly they should look to fix the issue right away. believe me I have not been demanding in anyway just simply have told them how ridiculous it is for me to have to exchange my phone just so they can begin to look at the issue. I will keep you all posted after my exchange. Take care

all settings are reset to the factory defaults. If I were you, make a backup of your setting using iCloud, I believe that theres a podcast or an article somewhere for that. Anyway, if you need to reset your settings, they ail be set back to factory defaults, except the premium voice is still active. Hope this helps

Hi Jim and all, I've had this bug before even beginning to populate the device, setting it up as new, nothing new on it and wham. also, we've got the individual voices volume issue where positioning the slider does not change the behavior of the volume. Apple accessibility and apple are aware of both but have no current solution and do not have a time table for one as usual. In the mean time, we've got deffective devices we payed for as far as VO is concerned which unfortunately, we need in order to use the phones. The individual voices bug I can live with but the 35 percent issue is driving me nuts because I often cannot hear vo when I need do.

There's no way round this, even though volume is in the rotor, it does not go above 35% and this brings all audio out of balance. try turning the rotor volume all the way down and notice that it will not raise again past 35%.

I did this tonight. I did the "reset all settings" on my phone. After a couple of moments, Voiceover came back on and it was if I were turning it on for the first time. I immediately then tried raising the volume with the rocker on the side of the phone. Much to my happiness, it worked. I made sure and turned the volume way up so that Voiceover would have lots of wiggle room, then went about resetting all of those settings I liked. What the "reset settings" doesnt' do. IT does not erase content like mail settings and other individual program settings. What "reset settings" does do. You will need to reset your Voiceover settings, and any settings under the Settings app (including pass code, lock screen, and fingerprints), your Wi fi settings, control center, and basically any other systemwide settings that you may have tweaked. Things I would advise. Don't put volume in your roter. Use the buttons on the side of your phone for volume control. Also, make sure that under "sounds", the "change sound volume" button is turned off. I hope this helps someone out there. Please remember that I am not an expert, and any changes you make following these instructions are at your own risk. Hah. Sorry, always wanted to write that.

If you choose to reset your settings, make sure you double tap on "reset settings". Do not ... not ... NOT ... hit "erase content and settings."

Does this vo volume in rotor only going to 35 percent only happen on iPhone 5s or does it happen on other devices as well?

Hi. Has iOS 7.0.3 fixed these volume problems?