iOS 18 Beta Comprehensive Bugs/Accessibility Issues Thread

I wrote this when beta 1 came out, and I think that people on this forum wondering whether to upgrade might find this useful. There are some foot notes as a couple of things have been fixed, so I will add those below. Too Long, Can't Read (TLCR, lol,) pretty much every headlining feature of iOS 18 for sighted users has been utterly inaccessible. Again, some of these have been fixed, but if you want the details, please keep reading.

Home screen customisation, control centre customisation and expanded connectivity controls and messages tap backs, as well as live recognition, do not work with VoiceOver
In order to avoid writing ten separate pieces of feedback, I have decided to condense all of this information into one large piece of feedback. All of the items in the title have strange labelling at best, and are completely inaccessible at worst. Let’s start with the home screen and control centre customisation.
Home screen
• Editing apps looks the same as it always has done, with no indication from VoiceOVer of where the empty spaces are where you can put an app. If you can put them anywhere you like, a VoiceOver user should be able to see these spots so that he doesn’t have to manually drag and drop, potentially accidentally creating folders and wasting a whole load more time than necessary if using VoiceOver’s built in drag and drop.
• There is only one item in the actions menu for dropping items after you select them for drag, and that’s called drop after. Whether this works correctly is currently unknown, but this should not be the case, instead there being two options, one for dropping before and one for dropping after.
• There is no available option for colours or dark mode icons if you’re a VoiceOver user. This is not as high a priority for us as we’re blind, but it is still useful to have this ability should we want to change the look for a sighted person who might use the phone briefly.

Control centre
• Editing control centre icons, though appearing at first glance to be accessible, is not. Although the “drag item” action is available, you cannot drop it anywhere, there only being an option to cancel drag. One should be able to drop these items before or after the VoiceOver cursor just like in the home screen. You can still drag and drop manually, but sometimes other items will move without your knowledge, for example, dropping the silent mode control, currently next to torch, next to the volume button, and finding that the torch icon has moved too even though you hadn’t touched it.
• Adding icons is a train wreck. If you swipe to the item and double tap, nothing happens. You must use touch screen, but VoiceOver does not play the usual sound to indicate focus on the control, instead you have to just hear the control and double tap, hoping that the item adds like it should. And beware that the cursor might jump to the bottom of the list (The wallet control centre items,) when that has nothing to do with what you’re looking for. You should be able to add these controls by just navigating to them and double tapping, or selecting the drag action and then dropping it where you would like it to be. But the current system is finicky at best.
• Long pressing any of the connectivity switches, or choosing “open controls” from the action rotor, brings you to a screen with unlabelled buttons. From left to right you just hear “Button, button, button, button, button, button, button, button and button.”
• Connectivity controls read twice, e.g. “Airplane mode, off, switch button off. Wifi, on, switch button on,” and so on.
• The torch brightness slider and timer slider both read “text size,” and it is possible that other sliders behave the same way in the control centre. This should not be, instead reading “torch brightness” as it should.

Tap backs
• These are completely inaccessible in the messages app. Selecting “react” from the actions menu shows nothing, just a blank item. There is nowhere to scroll, just the one item, and double tapping it will react with a laughing emoji. We should be able to scroll through the options just like in previous versions, but with the added options as necessary. This also goes for MacOS Sequoia, where the tap back dialog now shows as an empty group with nothing inside, but this is iOS feedback, so perhaps I’ll get to writing about Sequoia another time.

Live recognition
Detection mode, previously in the magnifier app, has now been renamed to Live Recognition, a feature of VoiceOver. However, it doesn’t work.
• The live recognition rotor item is the easiest way to configure what you want. Sometimes, during loading animations, a dialog comes up with the options, but this is very hard to find most of the time. Using the rotor item is fine, but this should be enabled by default.
• Text recognition does not work the way it used to. VoiceOver no longer advises you on camera angle if it can’t detect text, and it just cuts out on itself as it reads, often resulting in me only hearing the first syllable of the text before the speech cuts off. A VoiceOver restart does not help this. Thus, live recognition will be unusable for text reading until this is fixed.
• People detection only says that somebody is there, there is no description of the person. However, this may not be a bug.

Other issues
• Lock screen customisation, though okay, still doesn’t work too well with regards to customising the two buttons at the bottom of the lock screen. You must use touch screen to find them, and both will have the same label, so you you’d better remember what order they’re in. You must remove the action with the actions menu, and then press add quick action, and then deal with the same, almost completely inaccessible, controls dialog.
• The bug existing since WWDC 2023 and iOS 17 beta 1, in which VoiceOver lags severely while switching languages, is very much still a problem, particularly on WatchOS, but once again, I digress.
Not much else to say so far, but the speech engine seems to crash more than ever before. I am having to restart VoiceOver at least once every hour, or once every half an hour or so if I’m using the phone all the time. I really hope that a better job can be done fixing these issues before the final release, although my hopes are not high. Bugs that have existed since last June, like the Daniel voice only reading two of a repeated character if four or more have been typed, remain unfixed!!!!

Notes
1. Beta 2 fixed quite a few issues. The tapbacks now work just about like they should, and VoiceOVer does not crash anywhere near as often as it did in beta 1. To those who said braille screen input could do it, you would be correct. I had crashed VoiceOVer about once every twenty seconds at one point. But this is no more.
2. As of beta 3, adding controls to the control centre, and editing, is nicer than it was before. However, the "cancel drag" action is the only thing you will find if using VoiceOver's drag and drop feature. Also, certain things such as torch brightness or timer length no longer show for us, and neither does the Services In Use button, which is the new way to switch to voice isolation or wide spectrum microphone modes. You must disable VoiceOver and tap above the battery status menu to get there, but good luck, you might end up tapping the wrong thing and exiting control centre instead.
3. Live Recognition now works quite nicely actually. However, you still don't get instructions about where to hold the camera if text can't be seen. It does seem to read well enough now though.
4. One thing that piece of feedback didn't mention that I have written about separately is the photos app. The home screen works quite well, but as soon as you go into a list, let's say for a particular date, you just have one item that takes up the whole touch screen. You can swipe to photos but this is not efficient. Apple should be aware of this, but as of right now it isn't fixed.

If anyone else has any findings of bugs that I have mentioned that are just a Me problem, or that have good work-arounds, do let me know. I believe that you can customise the colour of icons just fine, and dragging and dropping manually works okay as long as you map out where you're going to move the item.

hi can personal ghoice work outside the US in ios 18? i am from the Uk, not the US Thanks, Will

Did you use your main device for testing? if yes, good luck. and btw, report report report!

Anyone see significant changes in the public beta? I expected the developer beta was primarily for API fixes, and the first public beta would address some of the UI issues we've identified, but so far, it seems more or less the same. Example: The issue with naming activities is still present.

I am installing it in my iPad 9. No that most features will not work with it but want to play with and check CRS or whatever is call. Wish me luck installing it.

In the latest beta, I noticed that app dragging is now almost perfect. At least now you can move correctly, although sometimes it says that the app is moved before another, while it puts it after, etc. But better than before!
The voice equalizer still doesn't work (in the sense that by activating it the voice is heard very badly), and for me neither does the real-time recognition.

How do you activate it on the i iPad? Using iPad 9 and public beta 1.

I've noticed a couple issues since loading the public beta onto my iPhone 15 (the one with the A chip - I don't have the Pro).

One is a fairly serious focus issue in the App Switcher. Just as I go to 3-finger swipe up to close an app, I hear VoiceOver announce the name of some other app I swiped past two swipes earlier, and the result is I close the wrong app. I've seen a similar issue where it doesn't even bother announcing the name, it just closes the wrong app. Other times it works fine. I don't have this issue on my iPad Pro.

The other issue is that Seeing AI won't load, not even after a full restart. I just checked the App Store, and so far, no updates.

Other than that, I'm pleased with the beta on the iPhone 15.

When I close an app after openning the app switcher, use one finger up to close it.

Open the clock app, select the stopwatch tab. The first three controls are a time display, a lap button, and a start/stop toggle. Select the start/stop toggle.

Expected behavior: The stopwatch will silently commence timing. VoiceOver won't say anything, because focus is on the start/stop toggle. This is the way it has always worked, as far as I know.

Actual behavior: VoiceOver periodically announces the elapsed time. An examination of the phone reveals that VoiceOver focus has somehow jumped to the time display.

This could be a feature, but if so, it's misguided. We already had a way to do a timing with periodic VoiceOver announcements, by simply placing focus on the time display and using the magic tap to start and stop timing. This change has taken away the option to time silently.

Seems like a bug to me. I certainly didn't see anything about it in the release notes. I filed a feedback issue.

I just tested this. It might be a feature. I'm running the public beta on my iPhone XR. If you want a silent timer, move the focus away from the time display. You can still use magic tap to start or stop a count down.

I have noticed some new rotor items on my iPad. They are, Braille Zoom, Braille Thickness, , Braille Horizontal Pan, Braille Vertical Pan, and Invert Braille. I noticed them when running developer beta 3 on my iPad 6th gen. I switched to the public beta today, and they're still there. However, I do not see these new items on my iPhone XR. Are they iPad only features?

Hi, what's the differents between the developer/public beta? I know it's the build number, but are there any other differences?

I know people always say never to put a beta on your main device, but I don't have lots of devices to choose from just yet, but want to test out the new Braille stuff, and everything else going on in iOS 18. My iPhone SE2 comes today, so after getting everything moved over and such, I thought I might install it. Are there any major issues that would really really make it a worse experience? I know betas have bugs, and you run that risk when installing a beta, but just wondering if there are any bad enough to be considered deal breakers.

Hey! New to ios 18 beta. I first updated on my iphone xs cause I discovered yesterday that yes it's actually supported. Then I updated my main 14 as well as it's very very stable for a developer beta. Needless to say I think for voiceover user this update is one of the best ever since the introduction of eloquence in 16. The BSI is awesome as everyone claims, though I wonder a couple of things
1 Is there a way to get only the rotor braille screen input like 17 an previous just in case that someone wants the old again?
2 I have heard that whenever in edit field vo can automatically toggle bsi typing mode? Don't know how to do that though.
3 Even on my iphone 14 the command mode is so cool! I am sure I'll find a use case for that.
The new 4th click for write to siri is a nice add I think especially when we actually get the AI this fall.
Live recognition... Don't seem able to get my hand on it, how is it supposed to work? I can enable the 3 options at once but don't get any valuable output except a few "face" once or twice.
I love that now I can drag my most used apps at the bottom border of my home screen at any given page. It works so well! :) Voiceover tutorial is awesome. All in all a very nice update even for an early beta stage. Love it.
Oh and is it just me or the music haptics is kinda broken as when I click start sample I don't have any... well, any haptics? Wonder if a reboot will solve that? Spoiler, yes it did! Kinda useless nice to have feature for me.
Nobody mentioned (as far as I know) that in bsi we not only have a couple of new nice sounds but we actually do hear the keyboard clicks as well like if we were typing with the virtual or a physical keyboard? Very nice and well thought touch. Now the only missing thing is to have the auto capitalization and I'll be a happy apple fanboy forever, at least where ios is concerned

I have those on my xs and 14 as well.

I have to say this is one of the most stable iOS betas I've tried. Hopefully looks good for the final release. For me at least there are very few and I do mean few issues. Certainly nothing that would stop me from installing it. I'm on the first public beta release.

PB1 here too and it's absolutely awesome.The BSI improvements alone are epic! I don't know why but the clicks make such a huge difference. I've now set my typing echo to just words and I feel like I’mm faster. The only thing I don't like is that in the command mode there seems to be a lot of duplicated commands, or ones that don't do anything. IMO we don't need two commands to move through the rotor. And speaking of said rotor, I'm so glad BSI is no longer there!

Question though: what's the best way to report bugs? I know they prefer to have individual feedback, but if you want to reference a similar bug report that someone else here has submited, what's the best way to do that?

I've been a bit disappointed that the live recognition doesn't seem to work right now. I was looking forward to setting my action button to that, but so far when playing with it it doesn't seem to work and the only way to turn it off has been to restart my phone. So need to figure out a way to report that.

All in all though, the beta has been great so far.

If you have a feedback with the issue either in the title or the body of your fb say see fb123456789 of course include the real fb number.

Hi, in VoiceOver settings there an option in to BSI to work automaticaly when an edit field is opened.
I don’t remember the setting but I know it’s rite there.
Personally I don’t activate this because I have a Braille Display and in Hebrew there arn’t proper 6 dots Braille table

Per previous comment, VoiceOver focus incorrectly jumps to the time display while the stopwatch is running, causing VoiceOver to announce the elapsed time. This is a change from iOS 17.

I've found this only happens if you start the stopwatch while VoiceOver focus is initially on the lap button or the start/stop button. If VoiceOver focus is on any of the tab controls at the bottom of the screen, the problem doesn't occur. This is a good workaround.

It's unclear why VoiceOver focus is jumping to the time display at all, and certainly unclear why it would jump when focus is on one control and not when focus is on another. I'll update the feedback report, as this is either a bug or a very confusing feature.

Vertical navigation works fine in standard navigation, but in bSI, when I've been in any app, it either does nothing or navigates by character. Anyone notice this?

So maybe related to my last post, but because vertical navigation is acting strangely, I can't get out of the status bar, and have to toggle out of BSI to tap somewhere else on the screen in order to get out.

Very clever bug with voiceover and navigation on web. Some or most elements are announced twice on safari, and I hear the boundary reached sound when I swipe to next or previous elements such as on this webpage https://theappleden.com/p/ai-dilemma
Moreover some notifications are announced twice such as those of gmail, youtube, whatsapp, apple news,... when iphone is unlocked. Being in an app or homescreen does not seem to matter. What's trickier is that it only happens with some notifications, and not all the time either. This latter bug is under feedback number fb14378611, but for the first one I don't really know how to describe it.

I can't reproduce the problem with getting stuck in status bar. In command mode, I braille an S, and focus jumps to status bar. To leave status bar, I braille another S, and I'm back on the home screen.

It’s working now, I didn't know you had to press s to get it out of there.
Re, notification bug, noticed this one as well, with notifications from discord, they get spoken twice.

I didn't know that was a toggle. I always used vertical navigation to move out of it. Good to know

So I tried the new swipe up gesture to get to type to SIRI. VoiceOver said nothing, gave me no indication whatsoever that I had activated Type to SIRI. I swiped left and right, and it was as if I had never left my home screen, with VoiceOver naming apps, like nothing had changed.

When I placed my finger on the screen and dragged around, VoiceOver announced the keys of the onscreen keyboard, the text field, and even the type to SIRI message. But without dragging around, I don't know how I would've known those elements were present, or which control had VoiceOver focus.

Anyone else see this? This is on an iPhone 15, but I get the same result with my M1 3rd gen iPad Pro.

Using iPad 9 and Public Beta 18. When I press the home button siri does not work yet if I use the apple ear and press the button on the middle of the cable she works. Did restart and nothing. Hope next beta fixes it. Also keep hearing keyboard on the lock screen. Nuts.

Is there a way to get rid of the keyboard with the type to siri, feature? i have this disabled but it still comes up whe n swiping up from the bottom of the screen. this is a very anoying thing that apple has done and i would think for sighted or blind people this would be a bit confusing to have to swip away type to siri, first before even getting to the app switcher.

Hi there, if anyone continues to receive the bug, report it to apple. Remember, the more bugs that are reported, the more quickly it'll get resolved in future beta's

For me the keyboard type to siri is the 4th option when swiping from bottom to top, first home, then app switcher, then siri, but first click to know we've started swiping, then second click home, 3rd click app switcher and 4th click type to siry. the 3rd and 4th click are the same, same tone/note, same haptic as well. For me tthere is no bug whatsoever.

Hmmm interesting

so I've been trying the beta build for a few days now. Here are the bugs that I’ve noticed
whenever I switch to the home screen I get automatically placed in the app library and I have to flick to the home screen again to go to the first page. However, what’s worse is that no matter where you are on the home screen or on the lock screen voiceover keeps on saying app library search bar and there’s no way for you to get rid of it I tried restarting my phone and that didn’t help.
Another issue that I’ve noticed is that eloquence crackles from time to time and I don’t know why that happens.
When you’re in the app switcher, voiceover’s focus keeps on switching so it’s really hard for you to Select the app that you wanna open.
If you have a bunch of notifications grouped on your lock screen, you can’t expand the group. I’m not sure if this is a bug or not but if you’re on the phone app or FaceTime and you click on a contact to call them you get placed in the more info screen. You have to swipe down to the call option to place a call.
That’s what I’ve found so far.

A couple of questions regarding the App Library Search bug mentioned above:
1. Have you tried disabling the Search function on the home screen switcher (cannot remember what that is actually labeled as)?
2. Have you looked in the Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Commands > Touch for any new gestures possibly related to App Library?

Just some suggestions to try. 😇

I am also on the beta, Public Beta 1, on an iPhone SE3, but do not experience any of these bugs you describe. Actually, as of yet, I haven't experienced any bugs, or at least nothing that comes to mind.

I like how you need to swipe up on the call to call it. This prevents accidental calling.

Perhaps this new call feature is Apple's answer to the old focus issue when in the call log pre-iOS 18? 🙂

that's exactly what I thought. Though I never had that focus bug, I like the new rotor behavior.

I've had the issue of focus jumping in my recent call log from when the bug first occurred, until the day I put the beta on my phone. Now, thankfully, it's gone! I love the new changes in the phone app. I would rather see them fix the focus issues, but since that doesn't seem to be happening, at least I can use my recent call log again. Up until now, I was having to either use Siri or go into Contacts to place a call.

This may not be because they couldn't fix the phone app. I believe the phone app in iOS 18 is redesigned.

I think the even sighted people can't just click on a recent call to make the call.

I have definitely encountered the app switcher issue on my iPhone 15. I swipe left and right through the open apps, I find one I want to close, and just as I 3-finger swipe up to close it, I hear VoiceOver announce some other app, and that other app is the one that gets closed.

I don't encounter the issue on my iPad Pro, possibly because I use a different method to close an app. I use a BT keyboard with quick nav enabled. So when I want to close an app in the app switcher, I arrow up to the close option and select it. No problem with focus jumping to other apps with this method.

So I wondered, was it the different method that triggered the issue, or was it just my iPhone? I paired my BT keyboard with my iPhone to test. No problem in App Switcher. So the issue seems to be specific to closing apps with the 3-finger swipe up gesture.

Way back, I reported an issue. The issue is this:

* In Settings, Control Center, disable Access Within Apps.
* in VoiceOver settings, turn on Speak Hints.
* Open some app, such as Notes.
* Touch the Status Bar and listen to the hint.

The VoiceOver Hint for the Status Bar advises you to open the Control Center with a 3-finger swipe up. But this is incorrect, given that there's an active app and Access Within Apps is disabled. In the bug report, I asked them to dynamically change the VoiceOver Hint based on current state.

They marked the issue as "works as designed" and Feedback wants me to confirm the bug is fixed in the current release.

This seems like an easy bug to fix, but they don't even want to acknowledge it's a problem. No Wonder people get discouraged reporting issues to Apple.

Hi Folks:

In IOS 18 beta, every time I unlock my phone, the app library appears on my home screen. I want the first page of my files to appear when i unlock my phone as it always did. Anyone know of a fix for this?

So, how exactly does Live Recognitions upmost to work? I turned on text and point to speak. I pointed the back facing camera to an old iPhone I'm restoring. But, I couldn't get my phone to read anything on the screen. Can someone give me some tips on how to use this feature?

This has been happening on and off for years but unfortunately I still see it. No way to reproduce it but very anoying and has the effect that I write less on my display than I ought to do.