My thoughts about iOS 7.1 for those who use the Arabic TTS voice

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher, 10 March, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
I'm glad to post my review and thoughts about iOS 7.1 accessibility features. Apple has officially released the final version of iOS 7.1 today and the AppleVis team posted a blog this evening about the accessibility changes and improvements for Voiceover users. You can find a list of VoiceOver improvements at http://www.applevis.com/blog/apple/whats-new-and-changed-blind-and-low-vision-users-ios-71. Unfortunately this release came out with bad impressions and negative feedback from Arab VoiceOver users. The Arabic compact voice quality (Tariq) has improved a lot. However the pronunciation dictionary seems similar to iOS 7.0.6. VoiceOver no longer speaks Arabic numbers, whenever a number in Arabic is displayed VoiceOver does not read it out loud. VoiceOver no longer speaks the delete key correctly since iOS 7.1 beta 5. VoiceOver language detection feature does not work properly in most cases while 2 different languages are displayed, the Arabic voice (Tariq) reads what's being displayed without switching to the default language. I highly recommend Arab blind users to downgrade from iOS 7.1 to iOS 7.0.6. Please feel free to share with me here your thoughts about iOS 7.1.

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Comments

By Alyabani94 on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Hello. My thoughts about iOS 7.1 specially about Arabic TTs voice AS you mentioned The Arabic compact voice quality (Tariq) has improved a lot however, when it comes to pronunciation, not reading Arabic numbers, VoiceOver is no longer spoken the delete key correctly and VoiceOver language detection feature does not work properly in most cases while 2 different languages are displayed, the Arabic voice (Tariq) reads what's being displayed without switching to the default language. All these things are disappointing Hopefully all of those issues would fix in the next upcoming iOs version thank you for sharing your thoughts about this matter

By Mustafa Gamal on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

yes, unfortunately when i upgraded to iOS7.1 i found this bad surprise. I hope the accessibility team in Apple find a solution for this problem very quickly.

By vallim on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

I have the same issue with language detection when text is in multiple languages. Unfortunately, I cannot live without using multiple languages to write text. Does anybody know how to drop back to the previous release? Many thanks for your help.

Yes. Definitely you can downgrade to iOS 7.0.6 by downloading the previous firmware and restore back to iOS 7.0.6 manually. To install the firmware manually please follow these steps. 1. After downloading the IPSW file for your device launch iTunes. 2. On iTunes navigate by the ero keys and select the device you want to restore. 3. Hit the tab key on your Mac or PC and select restore by holding the shift and enter keys. A pop up screen then appears , select the IPSW file and click on restore. Hope this helps.

By Khalfan Bin Dhaher on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

You probably have to search on google for the previous firmware. Unfortunately I don't have a specific website. I usually do a google search.

By Josh C. on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Is the language detection bug only effecting Arabic users, or does it effect everybody? I will not update if it effects everybody since I use this feature.

By Maya Pureseva on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Hi everyone, I've been playing with this feature for quite a while, and I can't figure out what this failure to track a language change depends on. When I am writing a text message or I'm in the notes app, the language is identified correctly but when I'm on a web-page, the recognition is messed up. Also when a line contains numbers or weekdays it's not always accurately detected. Let's summ up our observations and report them to the apple accessibility team. I also suggest checking as many language pairs as possible.

By Mohammed Al-shara on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Hi Khalfan. Unfortunately with the official IOS 7.1 you can't downgrade to 7.06 at all. Apple no longer signs older firmware. if you find a way to do it, please share with us your findings. I think you just assumed it will work that way because it always has. Of course, with a broken language detection, annoying BT Keyboard problems, and and awful English TTS in compact mode, it's no wonder why many people will be looking for a way to downgrade. thanks.

Hey Mohammed. You are correct. Apple has locked this feature in the final release of iOS 7.1. I was able to downgrade from iOS 7.1 beta 5 to iOS 7.06 last week and it worked. I've reported the language detection problem to Apple via email and contacted the accessibility support line for a quick response, the issue has been delivered to the engineers according to the senior adviser I spoke to. I highly recommend everyone to copy the comment above and send it to accessibility@apple.com. I'll update you with any information I get.

By Piotr Machacz on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

there's always a window of a few days, during which Apple signs an older firmware. During betas this window is always open, however, once the final release comes you only have a few days to do your downgrades.

By Alyabani94 on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Hello everyone @Josh C. Actually i can tell language detection bug effects the other languages not just Arabic after testing that on another language,So it's clear it is not a bug for just Arabic Language itself. just for clarification about auto language detection on web pages. This thing has to do with the web master as well as the design of the web page. here is an example If you search on Google about anything and its written in another language not in English, with setting Google Interface in English, you will have to use the rotor in order to read the search results. On the other hand, if you read an article on Wikipedia,the auto language detection would work perfectly. Note, having said that Arabic language detection has become more worse on Web pages when it comes to identify another language on a web page you are in. I totally agree with Khalfan about copying the comment above and send it to accessibility@apple.com.

By Josh C. on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

I plan on studying an interlingual Bible which is in both English and Greek. If someone could please check whether VoiceOver reads Greek text in the Greek voice in 7.1 when the default language is U.S. English, I would greatly appreciate it. I haven't had many problems with language detection in 7.0.6.

By Alyabani94 on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 01:40

Hello. I've tried it,It works fine. But i can't confirm whether or not it's working 100% just like iOS 7.0 May you give a URL or an app specifically to make sure if it's working great or not in Auto Language detection between English to Greek and the opposite?