Serious Bug with iPhone, iOS 15.2.1, and braille display

Hello, I have some of this issue too. I can work with my i,phone but I havn't the preezing bugs that you incountered him. I had updated to iOS 15.3 and it has bing solved, other bugs not.

This is a known and widespread bug.

It's been suggested elsewhere on this site that turning off Alert Messages reduces the frequency of this issue, but also has some negative implications.

Note that updating to iOS 15.3 will not help, as that does not fix the bug.

Yes, you are correct. I have seen the same bugs here. Bluetooth often fails to connect, and when it does it is unreliable. This is both with an iPad pro 2020 and an iphone 12. I've asked apple accessibility to fix bluetooth, and got a reply saying they were "investigating this." But I have a Qbraille with the latest firmware, and for the moments when it connects to the devices it works reasonably well, but I cannot get the connections to stay no matter what I try. And half the time I have to reboot the phone and/or repair devices, then they will connect and work for a bit, then randomly drop connection, which is what causes the phone or ipad to freeze. Hopefully apple fixes bluetooth especially for braille, but I heard it's still broken in 15.4 beta.

This is the reason why I’ll never update my devices and will stay on 15.1 until the end of time. Maybe it's because I’m not a positive person in general, but I doubt this braille bug will ever get fixed. It down right disgusts me that a but like this will be ignored for this length of time. Because of that, Apple’s credibility takes a huge hit with me. I understand minor bugs, but come on! This is way over the top. We spend thousands on these braille products, that because of Apple’s negligence, we can't use reliably. I have three tips for yall. First, if you have a braille display and IOS 15.1 or earlier, never update. If you have a braille display and are running 15.2 or later, you're out of luck permanently. If you run the latest IOS and are looking to get a braille display, don’t waste your money.

But it was broke in 15.1 as well, at least for the display I had. It just got worse instead of better, and for half the ios 14 releases braille was also broke, but they fixed it, then broke it again. Telling people not to get a braille display is not constructive either, as the only way you get to read braille for the most part these days is digitally. Bluetooth will likely get fixed, as this affects all users of bluetooth devices, so it's not specific to braille. If you really want to do it, and your display supports it, you can get a camera connection kit and connect via USB.

Yeh, updating is good for most, but these bugs are showstoppers. I just don’t recommend getting a braille display if it's going to be exclusively with an IOS device. This is why I’d love to go back to IOS 9 when braille was much better. I’d honestly rather apple give up braille altogether than us have to deal with this crap. I’ve lost my faith in apple at this point..

The sad part is that there dont' appear to be any fixes and this problem has been ongoing since 15.2. The Mail app with writing messages hasn't worked well enough since iOS 12.4.2. However, there is no reverting to that from here, the SE 2020 in myy case isn't supported, so I'm looking at other options. Not only for myself, but as part of an agency who supports hundreds of DeafBlind users who are reliant upon braille entirely, this system isn't acceptable. It's causing me to re-think whether the notetaker option is worth abandoning. I've provided feedback to Apple like many have, and there are other places where people are rightfully trying to get Apple to do the right thing. Sadly, for portable use, you're stuck with Android as an alternative. If you use speech as your main way of using your device, you may find that the braille support on Android is Aduquit for your needs. I do not. However, there are some potential options ahead that don't involve Apple that I'm hoping will become more than just talk. Staying on 15.1, which is what I've done with my main device, means missing out on security updates, means you can't by a new phone because it will likely have iOS 15.2 or later on it, so that's more money for Apple to lose out on. If you can't tell, I'm very discouraged as well, and will stick with the system until I find a viable alternative, even if that alternative has bugs or lacks features that cut into my productivity less than thiese bugs. Final note, this is only me expressing my opinions. Though I am a member of the Editorial Staff, I'm only representing myself with this post.

I'm rethinking my phone /tablet situation as well because of this bug, but as you say, for people that prefer braille, Android is not really usable. Thankfully I have no trouble with the PC, but it's really sad that no business these days seems to care about their customers. At least this is especially bad with tech companies. I'm not sure what the fix is, but keep us posted if you find something. Writing to Apple is clearly just getting everyone a form letter.

I also have no major issues with the PC. If they had a way to get this into a small form factor and added a 4G modem, I'd totally go with that. Lots of bonus points for a headphone jack ! Smiles and a Touch ID type feature. All of this stuff is already possible on Windows other than the form factor part. I don't count the ElBraille 40 at this point, as it's not portable enough, and the ElBraille 14 isn't worth it for anything beyond web browsing, email, and other light tasks which can only be done one at a time. The most ideal outcome to this moment as far as I'm concerned would be if Apple addressed the long-standing bugs and we could all continue on our way. However, waiting 3 OS releases and still not having fixes for some of the stuff is pretty discouraging at best.