Amazon app accessibility deteriorating fast including Braille

By Frank, 25 July, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I am running the latest update to Amazon’s shopping application on top of iOS 17.6.

I must say Lately it has gotten incredibly complex to shop within the Amazon app in iOS.
Headings are not being detected within a product. Sporadic jumping happens between headings with at times no headings being detected at all.

The application has slowed as videos or other content seems to be playing making the app drag on speech with large delays between swipes.

Focus will shift from the center of the screen when swiping right or left to the bottom of the screen at times getting the focus stuck in the tabs section.

Focus will at times also suddenly get stuck at the top of the screen on the search area.

Worst of all: now Braille support has been broken when using the search field. Not recognized is what I get when trying to enter text as the Braille edit somehow gets dragged into quick navigation rather than into edit mode.

I am not sure where the Amazon accessibility team has gone, and why they have let the application decline so quickly and completely.
It is gotten to the point that I have to use the web site again to shop if I need to get anything done swiftly.

If you are experiencing any of these issues please add your voice and if anybody knows where the access team went, also give a shout.
Thus far bug reporting has gone ignored.
Really frustrating and also surprising that none of the
consumer organizations remarked on it unless I missed
something during the gatherings.

p.s.
Is Peter Corn gone?

Options

Comments

By Brian on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 21:09

Could this be due to 17.6 still being in beta? Or is it nearing RC stage?

By LaurelJ on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 21:09

Hi. I'm running iOS 17.5.1 and have noticed the same issues with Braille input in the search field. Also finding search results pages and product pages more difficult to navigate. This is extremely frustrating as I am also a Prime subscriber.

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 21:09

Subject says it all. I noticed Braille wasn't working in the search area, but otherwise I've done some shopping lately and it has been fine. But yeah, if it does become a problem, it's a good thing we can still shop online, but they should fix these issues. I'm on the iOS public beta. In my case, when Braille entry is activated, it seems to be letting me type, but then I check the edit box and nothing was actually entered.

By Brad on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 21:09

Now you have to tap on the product info part of the page to get the product info. It's quite frustrating.

I'll still use the app but that's more because I'm lazy and it has all the things I could want in one place.

By Ekaj on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 21:09

I've no experience with their shopping or music apps, but the app for the A-person is not good with VoiceOver either. I activated some sort of laundry routine a year ago just using my voice, and my sighted life-skills coach had to de-activate it because it was nowhere to be found with VoiceOver. I, too, have reported this issue to no avail. Yet the A-person residing in my bedroom works great. Hmmm, I wonder what's up. Peter Korn even made 1 or 2 appearances on Eyes on Success, and seemed to be very knowledgeable and excited to discuss all of Amazon's accessibility products.

By roman on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 21:09

The accessibility of Amazon shopping app, or every other Amazon apps in general are not good The best website or app I can find to shopping with this apple, because how they took care of the accessibility and I can order any Apple products with ease, but with Amazon, it is a struggle and with other websites as well.

By Brian on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 21:09

So Both Amazon.com and Audible.com, as well as their international counterparts, used to have an accessible version that ended with either, ".com/access", or it's international counterpart, such as, ".co.uk/access".

My question is, do these not exist anymore? Granted you have to use a web browser for this, but who cares if the app is losing its accessibility?

By Missy Hoppe on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 21:09

As I get older, things *seem* more complicated and overwhelming than they used to be. I've definitely noticed this in the Amazon app, but didn't know if it was the app, Voiceover, or just my imagination. In my experience, a lot of web sites and apps have become far more complicated to use than they used to be. Sometimes, the issues are accessibility-related, but other times, it just seems that things are more difficult than they need to be because of extra pop-ups or other steps that seem unnecessary.

By Missy Hoppe on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 21:09

I've used this from time to time. In fact, it's the only version of the Amazon site my computer will load, which is good, I suppose, but to me, the accessible version of the site seems somewhat stripped down and has its own challenges.

By Brian on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 21:09

That is too bad. I was thinking that using the access page from an iOS device might make things a little more strait-forward. It seems Amazon, much like X and FB, are abandoning any attempts at universal access. You would think since, at least here in the US, the government is reportedly enforcing accessibility in websites, at least government and commercial websites.

Yet here we are, with a globally popular service, and this is what we get. *sigh*

By LaurelJ on Saturday, September 14, 2024 - 21:09

Late last night, I opened Amazon's app and was able to do a search using Braille screen input for the first time since this post was introduced. Nice to have this working again and hope it remains stable.