Is it possible to set up talkback on an android phone such that it behaves just like VoiceOver?

It has been about a year since I touched an android device, and that device would have been a Pixel 8 Pro running Android OS 14.1. Having said that, there are a couple things that will potentially help you achieve your goal.
1. Customizable touch gestures. This is huge, and is in both iOS, and Android OS. This allows you to customize mini, if not all, of the touch and swipe gestures that both VoiceOver and TalkBack use.
2. The Rotor. While the gesture to activate this is different on iOS than it is on Android OS, it is very useful for providing additional actions based on the application you happen to be working in at the time.
3. Magic tap and split tap. These are in both operating systems, and are gestures that you will likely use often. Magic tap is where a two finger double tap performs the default action, and differs depending on application. For example, a Magic tap can answer a call coming in, or hang up a call that is already in progress. A Magic tap can play and pause media. Split tap on the other hand, is where you hold one finger on an item, and tap the screen with a second finger in order to activate that item. This is exceptionally useful for explore by touch, where you are dragging your finger around the screen to find a particular item, and when you find that item, keeping your finger there while tapping the screen with another finger to activate it is a lifesaver.
4. Launchers. One really cool thing about Android, is the ability to replace your default launcher with a custom one. Launchers are, for lack of a better description, your home screen interface or GUI. So chances are, you have an opportunity to find one that will lay out your home screen to be close, if not identical, to an iPhone layout.
5. Angled gestures. Exclusive to Android, these are unique swipe gestures that allow you to add additional actions via TalkBack. For example, a swipe up followed by left, can take you home, while a swipe down, followed by left can go back a page. I have read that these particular gestures can cause a little bit of delay, or lag, when interacting with the touchscreen interface. You can, of course, disable these, which may improve the overall accuracy and response time of other touch and swipe gestures.

I know there are more features and updates with the latest Android 15, but alas, I have not had an opportunity to play around with it. Nevertheless, I hope this information is useful for you.

Best of luck! 😎

I'm not really sure what you mean. Both screen readers let you explore by touch, swipe through the items, double tap to open ... they both have a way to change how you navigate with up and down swipes, in talkback it's the reading menu and we all know the rotor. So in that way yeah, they're quite similar ... but you wouldn't want talkback on an iPhone or voiceover on android, each OS has its own significant stuff to acommodate. In general talkback has fewer gestures and features but that usually means less bugs. They both have significant strengths the other lacks and glaring weaknesses, there's no way around just giving it a whirl and learning the hard way I'm afraid, not on either phone.

I will say, split tap on the Galaxy didn't work really well. Even on a nice phone like the S22 Ultra, talkback was the slightest bit laggy. Not a big deal at first, but over time, it started really getting on my nerves. Also, with a lot of newer Androids, you will be more limited with your TTS selection, as some engines straight up won't install on some newer phones, as they aren't compatible, due to them only being 32 bit apps. The S22 Ultra could still run Eloquence, but the S23 series onward can't, and the same applies to the newer Pixels. You will never have the two finger rotor gesture like in Voiceover, but three finger swipes up and down work nicely. My advice would be, play around with an Android extensively before you ever get rid of your iPhone. In fact, if you can do it financially, don't sell your iPhone for a few months. Just put it up, so you aren't tempted to keep going back to it, and really learn the ins and outs of Android. It's a good OS, but I felt, after having used it for about 6 months, that I was just faster on iOS. That ended up being very costly for me, because I sold off all my Apple gear, but then when some of Android's particular ins and outs started getting on my nerves, I had to buy replacements. So, make sure it is really what you want. Android is nice in that it is very customizable, including Talkback. I won't say that iOS and Voiceover are better, because it is really a matter of preference, and the best equipment is what works best for you. If you try Android and like it more, then that's awesome. But just learn from my mistake and don't get rid of anything until the newness wears off of the Android, and you can see if it is really what you want. As for me, I'm quite happy staying in the Apple ecosystem.

Thank you for that clarification, Justin. I forgot that the android version of the rotor is a 3 finger swipe, instead of 2 fingers. Going to edit my post above to reflect this.
As for android or iPhone, I have been using iPhone for the last 12 years, and while overall I love iOS, I was really excited when I got to play around with the pixelate pro last year. The pixel nine pro is currently out, and has a really great price tag with my current cellular provider. I am only holding out because I want to check out the iPhone SE 2025, before I make a final choice. There is a good chance, however, that my next "iPhone" will be the pixel nine pro.
That thing is just wicked, and I know iOS no longer uses TouchID, but I am loving how in Android 15 TalkBack will actually guide you to place your finger at the correct spot for the Android version of Touch ID. Since it is behind the screen and all that.
Also love how Android has that voice guidance for centering an item that you were trying to take a picture of, and automatically take the picture once you were lined up properly.

On my iPhone, I've set up 4 fingere left/right swipe to switch to previous/next app. It's like going through recent/opened apps menu without going in to the menu, or, alt-tabbing between apps. It's super useful.
On Android, I can't find any similar gesture.
Also, in an edit field, when keyboard is showing up, double-tap with 2 fingers doesn't start voice dictation. You have to find the voice input button on the corner of the keyboard.
There's no alternative for IOS's Braille Command mode yet on Android. You can input text with Braille, but you can't command entire phone with braille cords.
None of these are deal-breakers. Also, I keep 2 phones with me all the time. 1 is iPhone, 1 is Android.

Right out of the gate, you can find out what's new with TalkBack 15.1 by checking out this Accessible Android article. To the person asking about switching between apps with TalkBack, you can switch between 'Windows' (or what Commentary calls 'Screen Areas'), via gestures, but not apps themselves. Speaking about Android accessibility these days, I'm sure many will have lots to say here about the latest Android Accessibility Progress Report from the same place mentioned earlier. PS. Much of what has been talked about within that Progress Report, I did mention to Samsung directly over the phone, though the best place for submitting feedback among the Galaxy is via the Samsung Members Community

Hey Trenton,

From what I can remember, switching your windows is a four finger swipe up or down on the screen? Also, is it not possible to switch apps by adding the command to a custom gesture?
Thanks in advance.

Greetings Brian, The gesture is left-than-up to bring up the 'overview' or 'recent' screen. You can also do a right-than-up to speak an action such as 'recent' or 'overview' to bring them up as well. Yes, four-finger up/down swipes does indeed switch between windows. I myself stick to the 'Three-Button' Nav-bar, though I know with gesture navigation you can switch between apps on the fly. With the I should mention here as well, that saying the word 'Type' when doing that voice gesture with TalkBack, lets you dictate text into an edit box. For Commentary/Jieshuo screen reader users, there's a similar Voice Assistant feature among it too, and is well, 'Samsung Bixby-like'.

I've been reading a little bit on the Commentary screen reader, though I don't know much about Samsung's Bixby.

Not sure what the official Android name is for hiding the screen, but I am glad to hear TalkBack controls are now hidden when the rest of the screen is. I know of a few people in my world who hated the way it used to be. From what I read from the accessibleandroid.com page, it sounds as if it works like iOS screen curtain now.
Good stuff. 👍

Yes Brian, back in the day was originaly called 'Dim Screen', but now it only has the names of 'Hide Screen' & 'Show Screen' respectfully.

Hmmm... As for a guide to Bixby these days,
https://samsung.com/bixby/

is one... YouTube has several videos on it, from all the way back when it first came out durring the Galaxy S8/Note 8 days.

OK I checked out that link, and Bixby Voice sounds really cool. So this is like an AI assistant, but more powerful than Siri or Google Assistant, correct?

We'd really need the same kind of article on the mac voiceover side of things. It's exactly windows switchers should be know before making the decision whether the mac is worth it for them or not. Not that I am unhappy with my mac, but reading both articles make me... content? with still being on ios. I do use an old s20 ultra to play with androig here and there but it's just not the same thing and I can't update on the latest android there, not to mention talkback fragmantation; and for bot areas apple are relatively better at that. And we have betas everywhere. I can't imagine that we just got these "advanced" (rather standard expected) reading controls for the web on talkback 15.1? :)

I am surprised that chromevox on chromeos is overall a somehow better screen reader, and I speak from experience. Although chromeos also seems to be in a precarious position, maybe as I posted here.
https://groups.google.com/g/chromevox-discuss/c/JFCl4ttz-1M
A little off topic but I'd like to have an "other os" topic on applevis, and chromeos is closer than android to windows...

From what I understand, Chrome OS is actually being phased out, and replaced with Android, or at least that's the rumor. Would be interesting to see how Talkback changes working with a keyboard from now on, as when I was on Android, some of the keyboard commands made sense, but there was no quicknav equivalent and I wasn't a fan from what I remember..

Yeah that's what I posted in the google group, for blind users it's quite a loss in my opinion. I was just getting so much used to it and planning on buying a real chromebook for next year.

Disclaimer: had to edit this twice, because for some reason the AppleVis website is glitching out with Safari on iOS with 18.1.1.

I remember when the first Chromebook came out, more than a decade ago. I thought it was the worst invention ever, then a couple of years ago, I got to play around with a buddies Chromebook, and thought it was a very nicely put together laptop. His was a Lenovo model, and if I didn't know any better, I would've thought it was a typical PC.
I am guessing that the android laptops are meant to be a replacement for the Chromebook?

That's what the rumor seems to say for the moment. It's tipical of google to discontinue products here and there. Someone here or on the google groups pointed out that chromebooks are too important in education for google to be able to discontinue them like that, so maybe... Time only will tell what happens.
Anyways, back to topic, is it normal that on this old s20ultra I somehow have to be extra careful when performing swipe up/down? The gesture tends to be misinterpreted otherwise. It's almost the same kind of issue I have on macos trackpad with voiceover... Like a swipe can often be interpreted as an explore by touch thing instead.

@First comment above, for your point 3, it seems that at least on my android 13.5 ish with samsung talkback I don't have split touch but touch and then tap again on the same position after lifting the finger? It's not bad per se but I am not sure if I have the split touch gesture or something in the settings must be changed? Or I am just doing it wrong. For example when I find an element I want to click on with explore by touch I have enabled this option of re clicking at the same position with the finger as I couldn't find how to do split touch so this is at least an option.

If your TalkBack version, not Android, but TalkBack, is above version 8, you should have multi touch capability.

I have multi touch but not hold one finger and click with the other, or I am doing it wrong.

Yeah I'm not sure what version of TalkBack they added split-tap. It works pretty much how it works on iPhone, however. 🤷🏽‍♂️

How many type are there? Thought it just was one type for android. Just asking. Is like windows where you have jaws, NVDA and so on or like apple with voiceover. Thanks just curious.

Talkback is on the playstore and samsung's one, so my understanding is that it receives updates independently from the os? and we therefore have different versions. *I think*.

Not going to get into that debate, but yes there are at the very least two versions of talkback; google's, and Samsung's. There are, of course, older versions of each, which will not have as many features as the newer versions. Kind of like comparing an earlier version of iOS, to iOS 18.

HTH.

As I wrote above, when I was on Android, I had the latest Talkback, version 14 I believe it was, and split tap did not work. Multi-touch gestures worked just fine, but no actual split tap like on the iPhone. I used both Google and Samsung Talkback. No difference in this regard.

I think its disabled by default. Thought I read that somewhere.

Entirely possible, though I remember going through TB options pretty thoroughly and don't remember seeing it anywhere. But it has been a few months now.
Having said that, due to the fragmentation in Google vs Samsung Talkback, I think if you want Android, a Pixel is your best bet. I would love to see Guided Frame or something like it come to iPhone.

What's this guided frame thing??? Sounds cool just by its name.

Is a beautiful feature every iPhone wishes it had. It is exclusive for Android, as far as I know, and what it does is it gives you voice guidance to center on an object you wish to take a picture of. Once the object is centered, it automatically takes a picture for you. Help blind people become photographers. True story.

Seeing AI does something similar (found under the 'Person' tab.

Also I did talk to Samsung support to see if they will be able to add a similar guided frame-like feature.

Hi,

At the moment, I’m using an S24 with Google’s TalkBack, and I can confirm that Android/TalkBack does not have direct touch typing. As far as I know, it offers two typing modes: either you double-tap on the letter to input it, or you explore the screen and lift your finger when you find the letter you want. I haven’t found any other method. On iPhone, I use direct touch typing, but it doesn’t seem to exist on Android—or at least I can’t find it.

As for split tap, it only works for typing and not for navigating the system, opening apps, etc.

I’m only speaking about TalkBack here, as I haven’t tested other screen readers.

According to carryon accessibility YouTube channel, it does have direct touch.

That’s great news. I really can’t find it, and I’m using the latest version. But I’m glad to know it has Direct Touch—it’s my favorite way to type.

Thought iPhone had it. Recall seeing it. I might be mistaking but hope someone confirm if is true. Do not use the camera so not sure, did it by accident.

Hi.
Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t have Guided Frame; that’s exclusive to Google Pixel. The iPhone tells you how many faces there are and if they’re centered, etc., but Guided Frame is really cool because it recognizes other objects, animals, and when what you’re focusing on is centered, the phone takes the photo automatically. It’s super cool.
I hope that made sense.

Thanks. I am sure Apple will put it in iOS 111.

iOS 111. That's funny but scary because there's probably some truth in that somewhere.
Anyway, Voiceover will say how many faces, but yeah guided frame seems to do a lot more. Also, Voiceover's version of what is "centered" doesn't always give the most flattering angle, and often when I try to go by what VO says is centered, I end up with a case of selfie arm, where my arm shows up in the pic as being huge, and the focus is less on my face which is where I want it. Yet VO says it's centered. Or when I think I got it centered, just the act of pressing the button to take the photo messes it up.

That's too bad split tapping is, only, during typing. I was hoping for more of a system wide gesture, like it is on iOS. On a sidenote, I saw an interesting post on accessibleandroid.com, wherein someone was showing how they had their commentary screen reader gestures set up. Interestingly enough, they use the two finger single tap as they're activate gesture. In other words where we would normally double tap with a single finger, they have that, but they also have a single tap with two fingers to activate. Not sure if I could ever get used to that, but it's definitely interesting nonetheless. On my iPhone, I've been playing around with the single tap with two fingers at the edge of the screen. Kind of like how two finger double tap at the edges will bring up BSI, I have a single tap with two fingers as my activate gesture. It's, interesting, to say the least ...
I think if iOS got something like the auto frame feature, it would be very welcome. Justin is right though, currently the face centering feature is a bit broken as of iOS 18. Not sure if it was like this in iOS 17 as well.
Finally, Justin, be honest man, we all know you're just trying to take pictures of those "guns"! 😉🙄