iOS 27 and iPadOS 27: A Summary of VoiceOver and Braille Issues and Improvements

By AppleVis, 14 September, 2026

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 were released to the public on Monday, September 14, 2026. This post contains a summary of new bugs and fixes impacting VoiceOver and Braille support that the AppleVis Editorial Team has independently validated during our use and testing of these releases.

The information contained in this post is compiled from our own use and testing of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 during the beta period from June to September 2026; as well as from validated reports submitted by others through our Community Bug Program and shared on the AppleVis Forum. Our sincere appreciation goes to everyone who so generously took the time to share their findings with us.

At the outset, we need to state explicitly that the bug list contained in this post is not definitive and that our assessments are not infallible. While we are confident in the presence of the issues discussed in this post, there are many other reports shared on the AppleVis Forum by members of our community that we have not been able to independently replicate with the available information. Many of these reports represented use cases that are different from those of our team; and a small number were issues that, despite understanding how to reproduce them, we did not get the same results. We say all of this so that readers understand the limits of our own testing, and that others' experiences may be different from ours. An issue not being present in our bug list does not mean the issue does not exist; it simply means that we are either unaware of or unable to reproduce it.

As is our routine practice, each bug in this post 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 to an extent, it is very possible that they may not reflect your own opinion or use case. With this in mind, we strongly recommend reading this full post and any replies before updating to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27; as we believe this will help you make an informed decision on whether to install the software at the current time or to wait for a future release. We also strongly recommend that you read this Megathread about the iOS 27 RC, as it contains a wealth of community reports about and experiences with the Release Candidate version of the software.

Some issues listed in this post and on the Forum may manifest only under specific conditions; this is all the more likely as software continues to add more features and the number of devices, available configurations, and use cases in Apple's ecosystem continues to grow. You likely will not experience every bug that we list, and you likely will not agree with every severity rating for the bugs that you do experience. While we wish it were otherwise, this is to be expected. And as is the nature with all software, it is also likely that you will encounter issues that are not reported in this post.

To ensure the information in this post is as complete and accurate as possible, we would appreciate input from those who have installed iOS 27 or iPadOS 27. 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 in this post. For an explanation of why and how to report bugs to Apple, see this post.

With all of the preamble out of the way, below are the new bugs for VoiceOver and Braille users which members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have personally experienced and believe to be present in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27:

A Major Change to VoiceOver's Audio Profile

In iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, there is a significant change in the sound profile of VoiceOver when the device's internal speaker is used. When compared to iOS 26, VoiceOver audio in iOS 27 has significantly less bass, particularly at lower volume levels. The resulting sound might best be described as 'neutral' or 'flat', with significantly less of the low-end emphasis and other processing that has characterized VoiceOver audio in recent versions of iOS/iPadOS.

If you have not yet upgraded to iOS 27, we believe that you can get a reasonable approximation of how VoiceOver will sound on your device by making a phone call, putting the call on speaker, and then using VoiceOver to navigate around the screen; as the flatter, more neutral sound profile that VoiceOver uses during a phone call sounds very similar to what we are hearing in iOS 27.

At the time of publication, we do not know whether the change to VoiceOver's sound profile is expected behavior; thus, we are not including it in our bug list. Nevertheless, we feel that users should be aware of this change before upgrading. If we receive additional information, we will update this post accordingly.

Serious Bugs

Moderate Bugs

Minor Bugs

Improvements for VoiceOver and Braille in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27

To the best of our knowledge, Apple does not routinely publish lists of bug fixes for VoiceOver or braille across releases; thus, it is difficult to get a complete accounting of every issue that has been resolved or what fixes users can expect to see upon upgrading to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27. With this in mind, our testing suggests that the following issues present in iOS/iPadOS 26 have been resolved or meaningfully improved in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27:

In Conclusion

Our team has compiled lists of new vision accessibility bugs for every major iOS and iPadOS release since iOS 7 in 2013. No software from any manufacturer is completely free of bugs. That said, the number of bugs - particularly those classified as "serious" and involving core VoiceOver and braille functionality - in iOS/iPadOS 27 is deeply concerning. We call on Apple to urgently prioritize fixing the bugs listed in this post, as well as those on The AppleVis Bug Tracker.

If you have not already upgraded to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, 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, and waiting briefly may allow Apple to resolve any 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 restarting VoiceOver and/or your device does not resolve the issue, it might be worth considering a reset of your VoiceOver Settings; to do this, navigate to Settings> Accessibility> VoiceOver> Reset VoiceOver Settings. While this approach requires manually reconfiguring your customized VoiceOver settings, we have heard of multiple instances where a VoiceOver settings reset resolved issues since this feature became available in last year's iOS 26. This suggests that occasionally, problems can be attributed to local factors rather than being OS bugs.

Finally, when commenting below, we ask that you please keep the discussion focused on accessibility issues specifically introduced or fixed in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. 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 information.

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 that 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 that inform decisions and empower people.

In closing, we would like to again thank everyone in our community who contributed to AppleVis' testing and bug-reporting efforts during the iOS/iPadOS 27 beta cycle - be it through our Community Bug Program or just by posting on our Forum. Our information about this release is more complete because of you, and we are very grateful to all who took the time to contribute.

Updates to this post

Following initial publication, this post has been updated to more accurately reflect our current knowledge of iOS 27/iPadOS 27 bugs and workarounds. Specific changes include:

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Comments

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 00:14

Mine always says this, even though I have my punctuation set to none. And it doesn’t regardless of what Voice I use. I am still on iOS 26.6.2. But this is kind of always happened since I’ve had iPhones so it’s like the punctuation settings aren’t really being honored. I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing but I hope we are.

By MivaBeats on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 01:54

Hello, just wondering if anyone has encountered this issue after upgrading, when I use my wired apple air buds with the USBC connection the volume of everything is much lower then it was in IOS 26. When trying with my air pods the volume is like it should be. Has anyone ran into this issue or knows of anyway to fix it, thinking of downgrading back to IOS 26 since its not the biggest deal breaker but it is off from how it should sound.

By Oliver on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 06:42

Which is nice. Hold on a few weeks and it should be fine. At least we know that fixes are coming down the road. I guess we have to have our own new launch day for OS, only when 27.1 comes out can we really be confident it's going to be the polished OS we pay for.

I guess accessibility problems take less priority than issues for the greater user base.

This new audio profile is making my phone sound like a cheap secondhand Motorola. It’s put me off on purchasing the latest iPhone as I don’t want to splash out Ā£1279 on a phone which now sounds like a budget Android

If you depend on your phone, Mac or whatever else, then installing a x.0 release is always a bad idea. I am sure many of us have learned that the hard way - for me it was Sonoma. It's sad - I would love to get as excited as everyone else by shiny new releases but in te real world they are often more problematic than helpful.

Although it sounds like 27 is a particularly bad update, which is odd because it felt like this year we were getting quality of life updates instead of new features which is what we've all been crying out for.

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 08:39

What device are you using with your wired USB-C EarPods? And is it happening with VoiceOver speech or is it everything in any audio volume? Thanks. Wanna check before I update my iPhone 15. :-)

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 10:55

I see this in my iPad 9. Started with iOS 27. Also using my airpod pro 2 with the new firmware VO does not read notification. Get the sound when you get one but VO does not do anything.

By Tommaso Nonis on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 11:59

I tried a beta of this, and the audio profile problem was quite disturbing, let alone the lag with Air Pods Pro 2. Plus, no Siri AI in the European union. So...am quite scheptical

Just chiming in to say I used to use a Moto G04s. The audio wasn't half bad from talkback. But actual audio wasn't overly great.
could someone send an audio demo of how bad the ios 27 audio is if posible

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 16:21

Does it matter what devices anybody is on while they’re experiencing VoiceOver audio quality issues on their internal speakers? I guess I’m wondering if it matters if it’s an older visor if it’s newer devices or if it’s just across the world of iOS 27? Thanks. My speech volume is at 100 100% for both of my devices. That’s why I’m asking.

By techluver on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 16:53

I think it’s across most devices. I’m getting it with my iPhone 15 Pro but honestly, it seems to be improving, either that or I’m just getting used to it. It really doesn’t bother me to be honest.

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 17:09

OK, thanks. That’s good to know. It’s kind of like one of the things I was hesitant to update for. Yeah I haven’t updated either of my devices yet. I mean I’ll probably update my secondary device first when I do update so yeah most likely wait for a point one release though. I think the only update I’m gonna do right now is the 26.7 release.

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 18:02

iOS 27.2 is coming out. Apple went from iOS 27 to 27.2.

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 18:28

OK, that’s cool. I guess that’s the one I’ll be waiting for them. :-) Hopefully the issue with wired EarPods will be fixed too. Because I do use those enough that would be really annoying if there was audio issues with both.

Hello, for me its with all audio, for example if I have my phone volume at 44 percent the actual output sounds like its at 38 percent, the level below it. Its less notable once your around 38- 50 percent range but its more noticeable at lower volumes. Everything sounded normal when I tried with my Airpods, only thing is mines are old and on there way out so I cant use them at the moment.

By Singer Girl on Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 21:37

Hey, I’m on an iPhone SE 2022 secondary and an iPhone 15 primary. So maybe this is just an overall issue with all of iOS 27? Cool. That means you’ve got the lightning headphones last year using the EarPods. I mean AirPods. I don’t have AirPods. Thanks.

By Davy Kager on Friday, September 18, 2026 - 18:22

In reply to by Davy Kager

Concerning my second issue: I was not aware earlier that there is now a setting under VoiceOver -> Verbosity that allows you to control the output of Numbers to be either Words or Digits. It seems very likely that this is (part of) what causes the issue. It would also be good, although perhaps not as ingenius, to have an option here to trust the voice's number processing.

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, September 18, 2026 - 18:29

16 pro max and iOS 27. Using current version of the firmware for airpods. When using it, Siri does not read notification, I get the sound that I got a notification and whatever I am listening stop and nothing happens. Anyone is having issues? Thanks.

By Kayaker on Friday, September 18, 2026 - 19:51

I am dumbfounded that there is no mention on the list of serious bugs about that all audio routing just stops randomly when using Air Pods. This often happens after using dictation or after hanging up an audio call, but also while just switching apps or flicking around the screen. It is completely maddening to me. It will sometimes fix itself in 5 to 30 seconds or you can pull out your air pods and reconnect. I know it's not just me since they already had an open ticket with my symptoms when I called Apple Accessibility Support. I urge everyone to call and offer up your story to them too and add your voice if you are experiencing the same issue.

There is nothing more serious to me than the sudden loss of all audio feedback from my phone. I absolutely regret updating.

By James O'Dell on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 10:28

Hi everyone. I have upgraded and encountered a strange issue. I usually use the standard Daniel voice at a rate of 85 percent, but after the upgrade my phone switched to the enhanced Daniel voice at about 50 percent. Regardless of what I did to try and resolve this - toggling VO, rebooting the phone, it remained stuck. If I tried to switch Voice over to a different voice, Voice Over would say the name of the different voice, but wouldn't actually switch to that voice. In the end, I couldn't carry on with the wrong voice and slow speech rate, so I used the option in Voice Over settings to reset all Voice Over settings. That did resolve the issue, but obviously I had to reconfigure Voice Over from scratch with all the settings I use. I don't think I have done that for a long time, if at all. It has taken quite a while to get things up and running with Voice Over and some people may struggle to do this if they have the same issue. I would suggest to anyone thinking of upgrading that they at least put aside some time to do the upgrade in case this happens to them.

I have also noticed the different voice profile and like most people on here I prefer how it was before IoS27, but it is manageable for me for now and it is good to see it has been changed in the developer beta.

Overall I am glad I upgraded for the new features, but just wanted to mention the Voice Over settings issue I experienced.

Thanks to the Applevis team and everyone on here for all of the useful updates and comments.

By Singer Girl on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 10:54

You’re not the only one having the issue with your voice is getting stuck on a certain one. I think it came up earlier in this post as well that somebody else was having the same issue where they were trying to switch your voices and it would play the one that they wanted in the sample but then it wouldn’t select it or something so yeah unfortunately that is so kind of weird issue. Hopefully that’s going to get fixed with the file release for the 27.2. I’m glad you were able to get it fixed by resetting the voiceover settings. That feature has saved me from a lot of weird voice things. I’m glad that they finally put that in iOS.

By bexgray01 on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 17:43

My iPhone 16 updated to 27 when I didn't intend it to, and I'm very glad that so far I don't seem to be getting any of the bugs! It's interesting how some users get them and some users don't, and I'm not sure why that is or how to control it. I'm really sorry to everyone who does have the bugs though, and I'm honestly not trying to show off that I don't have them.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 18:10

Good luck and don't count your chickens yet. Bugs tend to come out when you do not want.

By Singer Girl on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 18:53

Everything looks good on here so far with my iPhone SE 2022 running iOS 26.7. Just wanted to come on here and say that just in case anybody hasn’t done that update yet. It’s just a security update but sometimes weird stuff happens with those updates too so you just never know so I just figured I would come on here and let people know that this one’s pretty good. Lucky to anybody who hasn’t had any iOS 27 bugs. That’s pretty awesome. I think the reason that some people get a bunch of bugs and some people don’t is literally a lot to do with either how they’re using their phones or the configurations that are set up. Software on behaves differently in different configurations it seems like. That’s what I’m getting from the things that I’ve ever done here. I’m not 100% sure on that but that’s what I’m guessing based on things that I’ve right here.

By Wayne Scott Jr on Saturday, September 19, 2026 - 21:33

I updated to IOS 27 a few days ago. When I use the rotor on the braille display, it doesn't work. I have to turn the speech on to do so. How do I get it to work on both?

Also, when I play Dice World, whenever I roll the dice, if I have the speech on, it will say the numbers I roll. But, not on the braille display. How do I fix this? it just started doing these two things this morning, September 19. I use an iPhone 16 Pro Max with VoiceOver, and a BI20X braille display.

By bexgray01 on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 05:08

In reply to by Holger Fiallo

Thanks, I'm hoping i haven't jinxed it!

By Singer Girl on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 05:20

Everythingā€˜s good on my iPhone 15. Also was iOS 26.7. Just wanted to say that in case anybody needed to update a 15 and hadn’t had a chance yet or didn’t want to or whatever. :-)

By shankar on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 10:49

  1. while using indian english siri voice1 it reads some jibberish instead of numbers.
  2. for indian language telugu no matter which voice you choose, content will be read in default voice for teleugu called geetha.
  3. in certain apps, content does not scroll automatically after reaching to the end of current screen.

but a very annoying bug where we cannot type using onscreen keyboard with indian english siri voices is fixed.

By Singer Girl on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 12:55

I think I may have seen something similar a couple of days ago on my iPhone SE 2022. I was using Veena as my voice voice and I was using the enhanced variant. I want to type something with a regular on screen keyboard and she was only speaking part of the letter so instead of saying the full letter A was almost like she was saying part of the letter and then cutting out speech, but the letter was definitely entered. This happened for every letter that I typed with that voice. That was on 26.6.2 so that was Friday night I think when I noticed that. I’m not sure if that’s quite the same issue, but there’s definitely something going on with the indeed English voice for sure. I guess I would have to keep reporting it to Apple Accessibility. There’s definitely bugged that I like Voice specific for sure.

Hi Singer Girl,

Please stay on-topic and keep all discussion on this thread related to iOS/iPadOS 27. I appreciate you are trying to be helpful, but iOS 26.7 is not really relevant here as this post is all about issues in the iOS/iPadOS 27 release.

By Singer Girl on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 15:27

Sorry. I wasn’t sure where else to put this. :-) That’s the only reason it was on here. And I really don’t know how to make a new topics or anything otherwise I would’ve done that. :-)

By techluver on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 15:35

Things seem to be a lot more stable on my new 18 pro vs. my old 15 pro. I was so excited to try ios27 that I put it on the old 15 pro knowing I was switching friday and that was quite unstable but I'm getting fewer of the weirdnesses with my 18 pro.

By Singer Girl on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 15:42

Oh wow, that’s interesting. Good to know. I guess maybe the iOS 27 maybe does run a bit differently on older devices. Thanks for the info.

By Missy Hoppe on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 16:04

Compared to some out here, I've been relatively lucky with iOS 27. However, I have 1 app which is completely unuseable, and at least one more that definitely isn't working as expected. In the case of Word Voyance, I actually deleted and redownloaded the app, just in case that might fix something. Sadly, it didn't. I'm not necessarily opposed to resetting my voiceover settings, but resetting my phone as new is a step further than I'm comfortable with, especially since I've got an e-sim. I remember setting up this iphone 16 in January of 2025. Suffice it to say that it was a major pain, and there are a few apps I can't risk losing access to, even if only temporarily. So, I hope that this upcoming 27.2, or whatever it's going to be called, sorts out some of these issues. I'm planning to call Apple Accessibility about the word voyance issue. A lot of VO users are having the same issues I am, but unfortunately, the developer has been unable to reproduce the issue on his end up to this point. I get the whole planned obsolesence thing, but the iphone 16 was supposedly designed for Apple Intelligence, so there's no way it should be having issues to the point that I can only regain full functionality by getting a new phone.

By Holger Fiallo on Sunday, September 20, 2026 - 16:14

Suggest waiting for iOS 27.2. It looks like it fix many bugs. iOS 27 is working well for me, bug with notification not clearing.

By Blue on Monday, September 21, 2026 - 03:52

Apologies if this has already been asked, I don’t want to go through 144 comments.
Throughout all of iOS 26, there has been a bug with Safari where the content of the webpage loads, but there is still the website loading sound and the haptic feedback. I was wondering if this was fixed on iOS 27?

By InfoRover on Monday, September 21, 2026 - 05:28

Another regression I’ve noticed is that VoiceOver now seems to be classifying various things as different languages far too aggressively.

I was reading an email this morning and VoiceOver read the entire thing using a French male voice, despite the email being in English. When I turned Detect Languages off, it read the email normally in English. However, when I selected text from that same email, VoiceOver announced the selected text using a female French voice.

This is also noticeable when typing characters such as α and β. Previously, in iOS 26, VoiceOver would simply announce their English names — ā€œalphaā€, ā€œbetaā€, etc. — even with Detect Languages enabled. In iOS 27, VoiceOver instead switches to a female Greek voice and reads them extremely slowly.

As a result, I’ve now turned Detect Languages off entirely. Unfortunately, this causes another problem: when I type characters such as α and β, VoiceOver simply announces ā€œunspeakable Greek textā€.

Now, although ā€œunspeakable Greek textā€ sounds very cool and would be fantastic in a fantasy novel, it’s rather less useful when it’s my screen reader.

I’ve filed feedback with Apple. Feedback number: FB24871286

By Singer Girl on Monday, September 21, 2026 - 05:59

I think this is a slightly different situation but in iOS 26.7 and even all the way before whatever detect language is ever came available, I feel like Voice doesn’t really honor our setting. I can have that setting off and still hear Text other languages. I use my phone only in English, but I feel like the setting is never really honored. Voiceover behave the same way regardless of whether the setting is honor often in my cases. So it’s still tries to speak. Text another language, even if the feature is off so the sudden just seems to never really be honored. And Then this is kind of happened since I’ve had an iPhone I guess because I don’t think that ever really worked properly. So right now like I just leave it on because turning it off really doesn’t change the setting at all.

In addition I found out that in certain cases the Italian voice (I'm using Luca Enhanced) reads numbers like 1.234 as one point two three four rather than one thousand two-hundred and thirty-four. The part before the thousands separator is read correctly, the part after it is read digit by digit.

By Singer Girl on Monday, September 21, 2026 - 10:03

Hey, I’ve seen the same issue with using Karen enhanced and Karen premium. I’ve actually seen it on this website before too. So instead of reading that something has 124 comments as like a whole number of 124 She’ll separate the digits and say that it’s 124 comments. If you use regular care, this doesn’t occur at all. I have no idea why there’s differences in different variance even within one Voice but they’re definitely is. It’s almost like enhanced voices and premium voices are trying to be smarter and then they don’t read things in proper context. I’m not sure why that would matter cause it’s literally just a file size difference but there’s definitely a difference in how they are reading things. The same thing happens with abbreviations being expanded and things like that. It definitely occurs more with premium and enhanced choices. I think it’s just a synthesize is trying to be too smart or Something.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, September 21, 2026 - 12:02

16 pro max, Airpod pro 2. Firmware is current for Airpod and current iOS 27. When using Airpods, notification is not read by Siri, Get the sound that tells you you got a notification but nothing happens. Anyone is having this issue? Thanks.