The Accessibility Bugs in iOS 9: From Serious To Minor

By AppleVis, 16 September, 2015

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Detailed in this post are possible accessibility-related bugs which members of the AppleVis Editorial Team have identified during their testing of iOS 9. If you have not already updated your device to iOS 9, we strongly recommend that you read through this post and any comments before doing so, as we believe that there are some new bugs in this release which might have a negative impact on the user experience for some blind and low vision users.

As always, we do need to stress at the offset that our testing of iOS 9 has been somewhat limited. We are only a small team, and in most cases have only installed and used iOS 9 on a single device. Also, some of the bugs listed have not been encountered by all members of the Team. So, please bear in mind that it is possible that problems mentioned below will not be present on all devices or in all use cases. It is also possible that, in some instances, we are simply mistaken or that there are additional issues which we did not identify in our testing. Accordingly, we would really appreciate feedback from those who have installed iOS 9--to confirm whether they are encountering the same problems (or have found workarounds), as well as to let us know of any additional issues that are not on this list. Of course, it’s even more important that you let Apple know of any additional bugs that you find (they already know about the ones currently listed here). This post explains why you should report bugs directly to Apple, as well as the best ways to do so.

With all of the disclaimers out of the way, here are the problems that we have encountered to date. For this release, we have grouped them based upon what we believe to be there likely level of impact to the user experience:

Serious Bugs

  1. When receiving a phone call, the iPhone will occasionally become unresponsive. VoiceOver does not speak, and you cannot navigate around the screen to see who is calling or choose any options. This has happened when the phone is both muted or unmuted, and often happens to one user when using bluetooth audio. When this problem presents itself, it is not possible to answer the call. However, it is not something that occurs every time you receive a call. For example, one of our Team typically receives about 20 calls each day, but may only experience this problem once or twice in a week.
  2. If you enable both VoiceOver and Zoom at the same time, VoiceOver gestures and the rotor may not work, and VoiceOver may not focus correctly. We believe it may be related to having a very high magnification setting on some devices. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this particular issue, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.

Moderate Bugs

  1. Braille displays will disconnect if you are in Airplane mode and have re-enabled bluetooth. The display will work normally until the screen is locked; when you unlock the screen, you will find that your Braille display does nothing and needs to be reconnected.
  2. When using the Smart Beetle display from HIMS, while the display is supported, key mapping is not done correctly. For example, pressing f4 takes you to the home screen, which is supposed to be the function of f2. Pressing f2 will activate the eject key, which is supposed to be the function of f4. This can be verified by pressing space with K to launch VoiceOver help and pressing the keys as described above.
  3. The VoiceOver Actions rotor now includes a new tool for text selection. This may take some learning, and there appear to be some inconsistencies in its behaviour and use (particularly between static text and text that you are editing and wish to select text located to the left of the VoiceOver cursor). At this point, it is unclear whether this new tool should be considered as still being a ‘work in progress’, or whether Apple would say that it works as designed.
  4. In Safari and Chrome (and possibly other web browsers), you may find that the behaviour of VoiceOver when trying to enter text in text fields is inconsistent/misleading in some cases. Using either the onscreen keyboard or Braille Screen input, the feedback from VoiceOver may suggest that text is not being input and that the field is empty. However, the text may in fact have been entered. One place where we have seen this is in the Search field on AppleVis, where VoiceOver appears to indicate that no text has been entered--but actually completing the search proves otherwise.
  5. When sending an email in the Mail app, the device becomes unresponsive for 10 to 30 seconds. This appears to only happen when you send after replying to an email, not when sending after composing a new message.
  6. In the News app that’s new in iOS 9, a 2-finger swipe down (to have VoiceOver ‘read all’) inside a story will sometimes cause VoiceOver to crash and restart.
  7. If you have notifications set to be grouped by day in the Notifications Center, there may be inconsistencies in the behavior of the ‘Clear Section’ and ‘Confirm Clear Section’ buttons when there are notifications for multiple days on this screen. These can prevent you from clearing notifications. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
  8. VoiceOver becomes unresponsive after initiating a new recording in Voice Memos. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this, so it may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
  9. If you are using a bluetooth device and VoiceOver is turned off or crashes, you may find that you need to reconnect your audio device before VoiceOver will once again use it for output. Bluetooth devices also disconnect when other audio controls are activated such as the VoiceOver Rotor ‘Audio Ducking’ and ‘Audio Destination’.

Minor Bugs

  1. On the new Proactive Search screen, there is a row of 4 icons at the top of the list of ‘Siri Suggestions’ which is announced by VoiceOver as a single unlabeled button which does nothing when double-tapped. These icons are selected/favorite contacts. When VoiceOver is disabled, tapping on 1 of these icons will result in various contact options being displayed (phone, message, etc.), which you can then choose from. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this. For them, VoiceOver correctly locates and announces the contacts and the VoiceOver rotor can be used to access the options for contacting them. So, this behaviour may be the result of a specific combination of settings or use case.
  2. When you attach a file to a new email, VoiceOver does not provide any feedback as to where the file is in the message as you review the text using rotor navigation. Touching the "body" field will speak the attachment name, but only after reading the entire content of the body. You can, however, locate the attached file by touch if you first touch outside of the body field and then slide your finger around the screen.
  3. In the Mail app, VoiceOver no longer reports how many messages are in a thread when you touch or delete it. Instead of "x messages in thread," you hear "multiple messages in thread."
  4. In the Mail app, the label for the search field is no longer hidden to VoiceOver. Swiping right from the Edit button now says "Search, search text field" as normal, but another swipe causes VoiceOver to say "Search" again. Double tapping either the field or the "Search" label will activate the field.
  5. In the News app that’s new in iOS 9, the suggested channels and topics on the ‘Explore’ tab are displayed in horizontal scrolling bars. When you flick up/down on the screen element that allows you to scroll through this, you will need to locate the scroll bar by touch to see the suggestions which have just scrolled into display. If you swipe into this bar, you will go to either the first suggestion on the first page or the last suggestion on the last page.
  6. When adding a new event to the Calendar app, the names in the list of calendars that you can select to add the event have some extraneous text (the calendar name followed by something like "png, clear, crisp, image").
  7. During a phone call, showing or hiding the keypad works, but VoiceOver doesn't recognize that until you touch the screen. If you have the keypad visible and double-tap the button to hide it, then swipe left, you swipe through the keypad. If you instead touch the screen to explore it, VoiceOver reports what it should have all along--that the keypad is gone. The same happens in reverse when you show the keypad again.
  8. If you use Siri voices with VoiceOver, performance is rather sluggish in some situations - noticeably more so than using the Samantha or Alex voices. In particular, the Enhanced Quality voices exhibit more sluggishness than do the Default Quality voices. The Samantha and Alex voices appear to be largely unaffected and work as previously.
  9. There are some inconsistencies of behavior when switching voices in VoiceOver settings > Speech which can result in VoiceOver not automatically switching to your new selection. You may need to use the language rotor to force the switch or select a different voice and then reselect your first choice.
  10. In iOS 9 on an iPad, the Command key on a bluetooth keyboard shows all possible keyboard shortcuts. However, this feature appears to not work with VoiceOver, as no additional information or feedback is given when the Command key is pressed.
  11. When in the Notification Center, you can swipe left into the Status Bar. For consistency across the OS, this should not happen.
  12. Using the ‘Audio Destination’ option in the VoiceOver Actions rotor can cause bluetooth headsets to be disconnected and the rotor option to become hidden. Whilst this may be the way that this is designed to work, it would be better if the headset were to remain connected and the action could be used to change audio back from the iOS device to the headset without the need to reconnect.

Bug Fixes

As with most major iOS updates, there are also a number of accessibility-related fixes for existing bugs. Here is the list of bugs that we believe to have been fixed in iOS 9.

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Comments

By PaulMartz on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

1. On both my iPhone 5 and iPad 4, the upgrade dramatically lowered my screen brightness. I normally keep it set quite bright, 80% or 90%. On my iPhone 5, the upgrade set the brightness to 32%, and on my iPad, the upgrade set it to 15%. This is problematic for low vision users.

2. My iPad 4 is normally locked into landscape orientation. The upgrade seems to assume portrait orientation. All of the post-update setup stuff is presented in portrait. In the initial "Hello" screen, presented visually in portrait, I had to swipe DOWN with 3 fingers to initiate the setup, as if the iPad were actually in landscape. Very confusing.

Overall, some long-standing issues I've been tracking were finally resolved. The new iOS 9 is a little clunky and will take some getting used to, but overall it is a much better release than the initial iOS 8, and contains many nice new features like the new text selection. I like it.

By PaulMartz on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I use the Samantha US English enhanced voice for VoiceOver.

Occasionally, it seems to switch over to a more "hoarse" or sultry voice, as if Samantha has just enjoyed a cigarette.

As one example, when I enter the Notes app and tap the edit area, VO reads "system font regular, 21 point..." etc., all in this more hoarse version. Just that particular piece of content. And when it's done reading it, VO reverts back to using its normal Samantha voice.

Has anyone else seen this? Is it a bug or feature? JAWS, for example, uses voice changes to denote specific types of content being read.

This is on an iPhone 5.

By Blazingleman on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

After updating to iOS 9 I cannot hear people when I call them or when they call me. They also cannot hear me, if I put speakerphone on then audio comes through but it is all jumbled and incoherent.

By sockhopsinger on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Check under settings, general, accessibility, Voiceover, to make sure that the pitch change is turned off. That's the only thing I can think of that might cause the description that you are thinking about. Hope this helps.

By gary rogers on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I have not yet updated as yet, but a friend has. He is not happy with the upgrade. Is it possible to rollback to IOS 8.4? If so, I would appreciate either a link to a "how to" or some specific instructions.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.

By Syd on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I received a call within an hour of updating to IOS 9. Voiceover didn't crash as I expected from reading previous crash warnings but after hanging up the call voiceover was stuck in it's in call voice. While this is better than it used to be it's still not what we want. Turning voiceover off and on again didn't fix it. In the end I had to turn the whole phone off and on again! That's a pain! This happened to anyone else yet? For the sake of bug testing I got my partner to call me and after hanging up voiceover again stayed in the in call voice, however after I called her than hung up voiceover reverted... Bizarre?

By craig hicks on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

OK anyone else had this? when voiceover is on, and the phone is on mute, it only vibrates a couple of times on an in coming call, though when voiceover is off, vibrates as usual. already missed a handful of work calls due to lack of vibration. Total pain. Further to previous comment, i also find the repeating the last thing in a page or a menu really annoying to.

By Marvin on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

1 YEAR BIBLE. when I awoke this morning to read my daily passages it was stuck on yesterdays pasages. After fooling around for sometime to attempt to correct, I deleted the app. and re-installed it and now it works as it is suppose to.

By Darrell Hilliker on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hello Everyone,

Since upgrading to iOS 9, I have been experiencing a situation where recording of audio messages is unreliable. After the Record button has been double tapped and held, the message has been verbally recorded and the button has been released, sometimes, no message is sent, even though the recording length is shown.

I realize this comment is just a quick summarization of the bug. Has anyone else experienced this one, yet?

By 780KixxFan on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I installed iOS 9 on my iPad Mini. I am finding the rotor much tougher to operate. Finnicky, I guess, would be the word. A lot of left and right turning in order to cycle through the options. Also, I notice no improvement in VO responsiveness on my system as some had suggested there would be, and a rather significant lag when using the Siri female voice as some have mentioned on here. Performance in Safari is so sluggish as to render the browser impractical to use. All of these things may be specific to my device and user case. Nevertheless, overall I am disappointed that yet again we're here talking about dozens of silly bugs instead of enjoying new features on initial public release day. Bummer.

By Curtis Chong on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I, too, have found this to be a problem; and what's worse, you often don't know whether the message was sent or not.

When I first started working with this (after iOS 9 was installed) I also had a problem with the audio quality of the recording. Since then, however, that particular problem seems to have sorted itself out.

By Troy on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I like the siri voices, but I agree they do tend to mispronounce things incorrectly and you have to listen carefully and sometimes swipe down letter by letter or word to figure it out. As far as Samantha goes, yes I do think somewhere between 8.4 and 9.0 she must of gotten so stress she had to take on smoking. I wonder if Apple is using an updated version of vocalizer for ios9? As far as vibration patterns go yes I've noticed this as well but only when the phone is muted.

By Louise on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I am using an iphone 6 and just upgraded this morning. Most of the OS is working fine except when I try and use Siri, both the tone to let me know she is active and her responses are very quiet. If I have the bluetooth headset active, the sound switches to the speaker and is still really quiet.
Anyone else have this or a setting change that fixes it?
I'm going to let Apple know.

I'm responding to John's observations regarding the fact that we're no longer told about new items in app switcher. Similarly, we don't get this information when swiping through home screen icons and we definitely used to. Like John, I found this feature invaluable, and sincerely hope that it will be brought back ASAP.

By Chris on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Is it just me, or does the operating system download 2 copies of the Siri voices? I think 1 is for system TTS like VoiceOver and speak screen while the other one is for Siri itself. Is this a bug or am I mistaken? I am going to report this to Apple and see if it is indeed a bug. If it is, it should be resolved because I don't need 2 copies of the same voice data on my phone. I have a 16 GB 5S.

By Tim Hornik on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Regarding the concern in the Messages app, there is more to that bug than just recording an audio message. When using the iOS Braille onscreen keyboard with Voice Over's focus on a text field and Composing/replying to a message, one of several items might happen. These include:

• You hear the ding that an audio message is being recorded, and the Braille onscreen keyboard fails to work initially
• The Braille onscreen keyboard just completely fails to work, even if you calibrate positions or use explore mode

I am linking these two together since its interesting that the audio messaging ding sometimes sounds off and you are experiencing issues recording audio messages.

By Toonhead on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hi guys. I hope absolutely everyone reporting these bugs here will write to accessibility@apple.com and report your findings. if possible, the best way to report the bugs is to do it like this....

first, explain what the bug is. Next, if you can, give the exact steps you took which caused the problem to occur. Also, be sure to tell them if the problem is reproducible, and if it is, if it happens only some of the time, or every single time you take those steps. This will help the accessibility teamto try and replicate the problem and then they can report the problems to the developers who will, hopefully, find a fix. Mostly for me, it's little nagging issues like sounds from 3rd party apps not always playing. What seems to solve the problem is to open the app in question, and that seems to solve it. I've had no stability issues apart from the one phone call I took yesterday, all the phone calls I've taken today have worked flawlessly. I hope these suggestions will help squash some of these bugs. If you really, truly want them solved, you need to let Apple know. It'd be nice if they could come here to visit, but they have lots to do, so email seems to be the best way of contacting them.

By Tim Hornik on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

You are not the only one experiencing this issue. In my experience with the Beta, this bug takes on two forms:

• Stuck in in-call distortion mode for a minute or so
• Voice Over stuck in this distortion mode until a restart of some variety

In my experience with the beta, the bug does not happen every time. I have not tried to isolate this problem to see if it changes when conducting a wifi call or not, and might be worth it to conduct some testing to see if this complicates the issue. When it happens to me, a stronger predictor involves the usage of a bluetooth headset. Using a wired headset, like the Apple earbuds generally does not cause this issue to occur for me. Taking a call with no headset still causes this problem occasionally , but its unpredictable.

By Peter Holdstock on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Have you tried using the volume buttons while siri is talking. That should increase the volume of SIRI.

By Louise on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Pressing the volume button made Siri slightly louder, but made the rest of VO much much louder.
I reported this to apple and after a few trouble shooting tests, we tried restarting the phone. Voila loud Siri.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

When using Bluetooth to make call voiceover does not work. it happens not sometimes but all times when I make a call. After finishing the call Bluetooth disconnect and it goes to speaker. Is there away to fix this or do I need to wait for 9.1? I use Bluetooth all the times.

By VjOuttaSight on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Typing feedback no longer works whether or not typing feedback is said to characters, words or characters & words, typing feedback is no longer given in any app: messaging, emails, notes et cetera s.

By Andromache on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I haven't experienced the call answering issue on 5S and iOS 9.1. I think iOS 9.1 is actually faster than the 9.0, which is why I switched back after downgrading. Well, that and data loss that comes with downgrading.

I also don't experience the unlabeled button in the Proactive Search. I hear favorite contacts instead and can choose to call, text, etc. It's confusing because it's called Spotlight Search whether you swipe right or down with three fingers.

What I do experience is notification sounds not playing sometimes, which means I miss phone calls. Or else the sound will play but no notification shows on the lock screen. I do like that notification banners can easily be clicked with VO now and you go straight to the e-mail or whatever app sent the notice. But it's troubling to me to miss phone calls just because I don't hear the phone ringing.

I have Installed Apps turned off, but plugging in headphones still wakes my phone. But that's fine, since it saves me having to press the Wake or Home button.

I also enjoy the Proactive Search. I actually like seeing the Siri Suggestions. I've discovered interesting items that way, like things nearby or news articles. I don't see it so much as trying to think for me as trying to talk to me, and it's not like I'm being forced to look at the suggestions at all. I can still always type whatever I meant to look for.

By TheBlindDragon on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Is this a feature or bug? The Siri voices don't sound like Siri at all.
Does any one know how to get Siri voices to sound like Siri?
Thanks

By Bahzad on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

VoiceOver seems to have a tendency not to play certain effects in this version, but triple tapping the home button to disable and enable it generally resolves the problem. Hope that helps.

By Peter Holdstock on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

You can now delete all emails from a folder such as the inbox, sent items etc. Click on edit at the top of the screen then at the bottom of the screen there is a delete all button. Sorry if this has been answered later in the thread but so many posts I didnb't want to wait to reply.

By Daniel on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hi, could someone elaborate further on bug 8? What actually happens when voiceover becomes unresponsive upon starting a voice memo? I use voice memos quite frequently. What I'm trying to say I guess, is the bug seriously so bad that one can't record without something happening to VO. As long as a memo can be recorded, I can live with the bug. Just need a bit more info on this one before I go ahead and update the phone.
Thanks in advance for any responses.

By Rob on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Overall, I am very happy with iOS 9 and like the new features.

Just a couple of irritating bugs for me. One is the instability of the rotor. I would set it to headings, only to find that it reverts to characters, particularly when going into an edit box.

I have also noticed that if you activate the clear text button in the app store for example, it doesn't always remove text that was previously in the edit box. This is using an iPad Mini 2.

By charadani on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

1. Plug in your headphones via the minijack port, turn on VoiceOver and make sure your iphone is not in silence mode so that the ring tone can be heard when you receive an incoming call.
2. Manage to have an incoming call placed to your iphone so that the ringtone starts playing. You might notice how the volume of your ringtone goes up and down.
3. Press the lock button (on the top-right or the right up side of your device depending on whether you have an iphone 6x or earlier). At that time, you should stop hearing your ringtone of choice and VoiceOver is supposed to come through your headphones in isolation.
4. Try to flick through the calling screen.

Expected behavior: VoiceOver would read the different options on that screen as you flick through them and would allow you to select or perform the two-finger tap gesture to answer the call.

Instead, VoiceOver seems to freeze to the point that it does not provide speech at all and so do the device (to this extent it is necessary to have visual confirmation), and it is not possible to perform the two-finger double-tap gesture to answer the call. The only way calls can apparently be answered, is by pressing the button on the remote if you have Apple headphones or others that come packaged with this feature, but under no circumstance a VoiceOver user will be able to answer the call once they have pressed the lock button on the device.

I would like to know how many of you are able to reproduce this issue following the above steps. I have been able to reproduce it in at least 6 devices, iphone 5s and 6.

If a significant number of users are able to reproduce this as I did, maybe we should take this as a different bug than that which appears as #1 in this lists.

Regards.

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Report it to ccessibility@apple.com and include a demo of what happens and screenshots if possible. the more of us that report this the better they will fix it for us beta testers.

By mastodont on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

hi. I don't know if it has been mentioned or not but I found an odd bug. I set my typing feed back to words and characters but sometimes voiceover doesn't speak neither the letters nor the words I write. this seems to happen randomly because I wasn't able to replicate the bug no matter what I tried. but sometimes it did that and I had to restart voice over in order for it to work properly again.

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

This happens when you send a message or email from with in an app. I have reported this since ios 7 by the way.

By Joseph on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I've also noticed the bug when recording audio messages in the message app. Rather annoying it is. Hope it gets fixed in 9.1.

By Jeanine Mooers on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hello. Below is an email I just sent to the Apple Accessibility Team. While waiting for them to work on the issues described below, does anyone know of any work-arounds? Thank you.
Dear Apple Accessibility team:

I am writing, firstly, to report some bugs in VoiceOver’s Braille features when accessed using the HIMS Braille Edge 40 refreshable Braille display with my iPhone 5s, as follows:

1. When using the BardMobile app from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped to read their downloadable Braille books, some of the Braille short cut keys in the BardMobile app for navigating a book no longer work correctly, as they did from IOS 8.3 on up. In particular, typing r on the Braille display’s keyboard, which moves to the reading window of the BardMobile screen, no longer moves to the last reading position of the book, and the Braille short cuts for navigating by page, volume and bookmark no longer move to the correct locations in the book. All of these short cuts appear to move to the end of volume 1 of the book, once a particular page number, volume number or bookmark is selected. In other words, the short cuts still move to the reading window and select the navigation units correctly, but the end result is to move to the end of volume 1 for all of these short cuts.
2. Although the Braille apostrophe is now displayed correctly as dot 3, words containing apostrophes are not contracted correctly. For example, the word “mustn’t” should be contracted as “mstn’t”, but is instead written as “mustn’t”, and the word “you’ll”, which should be written “y’ll”, is written as y, followed by the ou contraction, followed by dot 3, followed by ll. Note that contractions only apply to the contracted output setting when reading Braille.
Finally, I have a suggestion for improving the VoiceOver/speech/default dialect setting: I think it would be more convenient and less cumbersome to include the Alex voice and all of the SIRI voices as choices in the language rotor along with the voices that are native to VoiceOver, instead of the user having to switch between the Alex and SIRI voices by going into the default dialect setting each time. In other words, all of the voices installed on the Apple mobile device should be easily accessed by flicking up and down through the choices in the language rotor. Therefore, the user should be able to add all of the SIRI voices and Alex to the language rotor if desired.

Otherwise, so far, I think IOS 9 works very well, and I am satisfied with it. Thank you for your painstaking work and dedication to making Apple products as accessible as possible.

Sincerely,

Jeanine Mooers

By rdfreak on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hey again guys, is there a VO bug in iBooks? I find sometimes it reads but other times it acts as if there's no text there.
Now I'm starting to wish I waited to upgrade.

By Toonhead on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I've read the description of the phone call bug as described above, but maybe I just plane do things differently. Instead of pressing the lock, or power button when a phone call arrives, instead I press the volume down button which silences the ring tone so that VoiceOver can better be heard. I only had one instance where the phone call went to the speakerphone, and wouldn't go back to the earpiece, but it only happened to me one time. I'm wondering if people who are experiencing the bug could try pressing the volume down button when the ringtone starts playing, to see if maybe that might not solve the problem, or minimize it enough so that VoiceOver will still work?

I don't experience the Voice Memos bug. I can double-tap the Record button, speak a message, and do a two-finger double-tap to end without any problems. So maybe they fixed it in 9.1 Beta or I just never had that issue.

hi their, I have filed this with apple and it is a known bug. they will fix it if they get lots of us reporting this bug, and the calendar I've also noticed has weird spellings.

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

Hello all,
Many of you have listed VoiceOver bugs in iOS 9 while using an accessory such as a third party keyboards or Braille Displays and other tools with VoiceOver.
I mainly use my iOS device without these accessories, I totally depend on my device with VoiceOver and that's it. One of the serious issues I'm having is the VoiceOver curser in iOS 9.
If you open the official Twitter app or if you navigate through your contact list from A to Z you'll find that VoiceOver curser doesn't stay at the last focused area, it jumps to the top. This happens in most apps such as the official music app and the apps mentioned above. Also, flicking/ swiping with 1 finger through items isn't stable enough, sometimes it skip items on the screen and so especially on the official music app.
When using the on-screen Braille Input to type text, it inputs the wrong character. For example: typing the letter I doesn't work. Instead, it types the letter C. Typing the letter R using dots 1/2/3/5 inputs the letter H instead. VoiceOver doesn't speak when flicking left with 1 finger to delete a character. I've been having the same behaviour since iOS 8.
After updating to iOS 8.3, VoiceOver says space after each word while reading Arabic texts in a WhatsApp conversation or the official messages app. These are just some of the major accessibility bugs in iOS 9. This does not prevent me from using iOS 9, but having these bugs listed can help users report them to Apple.

By Patrick Hurst on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I've encountered a strange bug, or should I rather call it a disfunction: When using the French female Siri HQ-voice, battery consumption seems to be twice as high as with former HQ voices, even with "Low power" mode turned on. Now I've removed that Siri HQ voice, battery consumption has returned to what it was under iOS 8.4.1.
Did anyone else experience such issues?

By David on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

After reading all these reports, I'm glad I have held off upgrading. In fact, I'm still on 8.4, having never upgraded to 8.4.1 since I've no interest at all in Apple Music.

And could I politely remind the person who keeps mentioning behaviour in IOS 9.1 beta that they really shouldn't be doing that if they signed up to the NDA.

I went to audio routing and selected Bluetooth instead of automatic so far that wrks when I get a call. Voiceover works so far. Will keep my finger cross.

By Joseph on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 02:56

I've noticed that even though I have headings selecter under my voice over roter, it will usualy go back to characters and I have to get back to headings. very annoying. Anyone else noticing this?