New betas are out for iOS, tvOS, watchOS, macOS, and visionOS.

By Levi Gobin, 7 February, 2024

Forum
Apple Beta Releases

Yesterday, apple released a new wave of updates to there software.
We have iOS 17.4, watchOS 10.4, tvOS 17.4, and macOS 14.4 beta 2 now available in developer betas and public betas.
But that's not all, We now have our first developer beta of visionOS 1.1.
I of course can't tell you how the visionOS beta is or what's new, but I can tell you the iOS beta is really stable, same for macOS, but a new macOS VoiceOver bug has arrived.
If in the Logic Pro app, and you interact with the track channel strip in the mixer in the inspector, VoiceOver will jump focus to the tracks area. Interacting with the Stereo Out or Master channel strips does not do this.
Occasionally interacting with just the inspector will throw you to the tracks area, but that is rare.
There is a work around for this, and that's to hit Control+Option+shift+f3 while in the mixer, and press it again when you exit that area.
Although this bug only impacts a select few, I thought I would post it on here just in case.
As far as any other stability or improvements, I have seen VoiceOver a little more snappy in this beta, and the audio stuttering issues don't seem to happen as much. This issue is still there, even in iOS, but not as bad.
If you find any other bugs or features, please feel free to list them here.
If anyone has a Vision Pro, and is trying the new beta, please let us know what your findings are.
P.S.,
I just noticed another macOs bug, and that is that VoiceOver is skipping the first letter on new lines. I just noticed this while writing this post. I went back to proof read the post to make sure that nothing was wrong, and consistently it was doing this if your curser is on the text field.
Interacting with the text field and using the arrow keys does not trigger this bug.
For example, If I typed "This is a test" on a new line, VoiceOver would read "his is a test".

Options

Your Feedback is Important to Improving Accessibility on Apple platforms

Don't assume that Apple is aware of a bug or that your report won't make a difference - submitting bug reports directly to the company helps them reproduce and resolve the issue faster. Your report may provide crucial information. The more reports they receive, the higher the priority they give to fixing the bug.

If you're using a beta version, use the Feedback Assistant on your device to submit feedback and bug reports. If you're using a public release, follow the instructions on this page.

Comments

By KE8UPE on Monday, February 5, 2024 - 08:38

Hi,
In both the first & second betas of ipadOS 17.4, text selection with the rotor is broken.
You’re able to navigate between the options but then when you’re ready to actually start selecting text, voiceover either says nothing or loses focus.

By wiljames on Monday, February 5, 2024 - 08:38

And I'll amend my report for Beta 2. I noticed that yesterday.

By TheBllindGuy07 on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 - 08:38

Just installed the beta yesterday.
I don't know if we had this in sonoma 14.3 but now we seem to have a semi automatic form mode jaws like we can check in voiceover utility so whenever like by pressing f to move to the next text field in safari we can already just start to write and it will not trigger the single letter navigation commands unless we move left or right with vo arrow keys to move away from the text field. Especially useful when doing command l we can just write the actual address. Seems that we might have to interact with the text field sometimes with the single letter nav on. It's weird maybe because of the beta, but definitely a good step in the right direction from apple. Weird enough in system settings we have to disable sln otherwise in the left pane with the broader category it starts either looking for html elements or do a system settings search and then voiceover freezes for 5-7 seconds app does not respond but recovers fairly quickly after. It's been pretty stable for a beta I am using it in production honestly. .. Stable enough, for a beta I mean

By TheBllindGuy07 on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 08:38

Hi,
I have just posted a bug report about the inconsistant bug of voiceover with single key quick nav and allow text field typing when skqn on at the end of a text field with
Feedback ID FB13671442
I also talked about how voiceover with sqkn on act like in webview interface in every non web desktop interface like in finder when this option is checked while it should not as they are standalone desktop apps.

By TheBllindGuy07 on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 08:38

Hey, I've just submitted another feedback to apple where I talk about the developer monaco editor from microsoft that no longer report character by character when moving left or right arrow in the editor in safari. This bug for me started on macos sonoma 14.3 stable, then 14.3.1, and it is still there in macos 14.4 beta 5.
Feedback ID FB13672310.
You can try this live at vscode.dev, or on educative.io
The editor seems working fine on chrome and chrome like browsers though but the lack of proper support for chromium browser itself does not make it an ideal alternative. This means that the app itself of VSCode work as well/bad as it always did with voiceover on macos. Juste the monaco editor which is present on many many developer resources and websites doesn't work well since 14.3 (for me).

By TheBllindGuy07 on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 08:38

Hi,
Under Feedback ID FB13672566, always on the latest beta of macos sonoma at the time or writing this post, I've asked apple to bring the math interaction capabilities of Voiceover on IOS with the rotor as described in this article under math content https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/iphone/iphe4ee74be8/ios. to mac's voiceover as well. I just don't understand why Apple would imagine me taking my iphone or yet worst my iPod Touch for my math assignment than my mac. Those who are interested please send follow up feedbacks to apple concerning this. Correct output of mathml/math content is not an useful feature to have for blind screen reader users , but a must. What is especially frustrating is that we already have this much much essential and needed feature for STEM students on iOS but mac voiceover team does not seem to know who they are working for to bring this to their actual desktop OS so I don't have to switch back and forth between windows laptop and macbook or macos an windows utm. Apple already have this on ios and it works great! We just need them to port this on mac. This is in my opinion almost mor importent than the screen recognition ocr for apps on ios. Thanks all! :) 3 feedbacks in 1 days (much detailed than my messages here), I am actually proud to be a beta tester!

By TheBllindGuy07 on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 08:38

The same update than the previous beta. Literally 0 change to Voiceover in the good direction. My previous feedbacks are still 100% valid.
@Applevis team this is my first time(s) actively contributing to posting bug report to Apple and then on this website, if I am on the wrong thread / have any correction for me to do so my messages are clearer or etc please don't hesitate to let me know so I unlike Apple can improve.

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 08:38

actually, it's worse! When I updated to the beta, there was an issue where if you interacted with the inspecter and then the mixer layout area in logic pro, VO would jump you to the tracks area. It wasn't there in macOS 14.3.