Hi,
My sister trashed a perfectly functional iPad 7 and bought a new one because the home button doesn't work anymore. This gives me the opportunity to play with iPadOS, but I'm having a very significant problem. VoiceOver can be disabled using a keyboard, but not enabled. This seems like a major oversight, and I've contacted Apple Accessibility. Command F5 doesn't work, and I can't use Siri because I can't use the home button. I suppose the feature to enable accessibility features in iTunes might work, but this isn't practical, particularly for less experienced users or when you aren't near a Windows or Mac computer. Is there any way to get around this? I'm thinking not, but I wanted to check with the community. If not, I encourage everyone to write to Apple and request Apple add the Command F5 toggle to all iOS and iPadOS devices. What if a user prefers or must use a keyboard?
Comments
Keyboard activate Siri?
In regards to the above post, can you activate Siri at all? Because if you can, asking Siri to turn on or enable VoiceOver should do the trick.
Otherwise, you may need some sighted assistance to setup a Custom Gesture for VoiceOver. You will need someone with sight to go through the settings manually, and enable VoiceOver first.
HTH. 👍🏼
Siri
I'll try Hey Siri after I restore the device using iTunes. It's not the ideal way I'd like to toggle VoiceOver, but it appears to be the only way. I'm not aware of a way to activate Siri from a keyboard. I still recommend everyone send Apple the suggestion for the Command F5 toggle. It should have been around since day one of keyboard support.
edit
Hey Siri works as expected. Thanks everyone, but please do report the keyboard issue. There's no excuse for crummy keyboard support, and toggling the screen reader is fundamental to the experience.
Chris,
You will not be able to use Hey siri unless it was on and you are setting from iCloud.
Re: To Brian: I don't think you…
Oh, I get that. I was thinking more along the lines of them having someone help them setup a custom touch or back tap gesture for VoiceOver for future use.
Nevertheless, they seem to have gotten things working with 'Hey, Siri', so whatever's clever. 👍🏼
For what it's worth, I think…
For what it's worth, I think the Siri gesture is globe s. Obviously this means you either need a keyboard with a globe key, or you need to remap your capslock key to globe.
What about Commands?
What about Commands in VO settings? I know on iOS you can go to Settings > Accessibility > VO > Commands > All Commands > System and select 'Accessibility Shortcut' and assign a Keyboard or Touch or even Back tap gesture to it.
So can you assign a Keyboard command to the Accessibility Shortcut on an iPad using this method?
Globe?
What's the Globe key? I've never heard that term used. I reset the ipad using iTunes, enabled VoiceOver using the Configure Accessibility screen in iTunes, and then was able to use the device just fine. Configuring Hey Siri took a while, but it works. Custom VoiceOver commands won't work unless VoiceOver is running.
Globe key is also used as…
Globe key is also used as function.
globe
The globe key, at least on iPads these days is an Apple specific function key. I mean yes, technically it should be the function or fn key on the keyboard, but I've never seen a nonapple keyboard where that worked.
Basically, though, most system commands on an iPad with a keyboard use it, for things like multi-tasking and, I suppose accessing Siri.
As I said, if you don't have an Apple keyboard, the easiest thing to do is to set Voiceover to use command-option as the prefix, then set capslock to the globe key in keyboard settings.