Screen Recognition Not Updating When Onscreen Content Changes

By Jadzia_Adrienne Dax, 16 May, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello All:

I may have posted this in the wrong category, and if so, please feel free to move it, but has anyone noticed that Voiceover's scraen recognition has gotten not so helpful? Now, I'm not sure if this is an IOS thing, or if it's a hardware thing, but it is worth noting that I did upgrade from an iphone 12 pro max to a 14 pro max, I'm running IOS 16.4.1A, and I have noticed this issue with more than one app. What's the issue? Well, I've been playing Pokemon Go since 2016, despite it's almost complete inaccessibility with Voiceover. I just like to do things like that, don't ask me why. LOL. I was raised by sighted brothers who taught me to love and appreciate sighted video games, despite inaccessibility. Anyway, when I got the iphone 12 pro max, and I discovered its screen recognition capabilities, I thought I'd try them on some of the apps I regularly used, like Pokemon Go. To my surprise and delight, not only was Voiceover's screen recognition useful, but it enabled me to do things in the game like: complete research tasks, heal my Pokemon, check my item bag, explore the shop, etc. It didn't solve all my problems, but it sure made the game more accessible for me, and allowed me not to have to rely on my sighted daughter for everything, LOL.

So fastforward a few years down the road, and I upgraded to the 14 pro max. I figured the screen recognition feature would be the same, if not better because of the updated hardware. However, to my chagrin, screen recognition with Pokemon Go and other apps (like Tim Hortons), has become more frustrating to use. Obviously in any app, activating of buttons or modifying things on the screen means onscreen content changes. With the 12 pro max, Voiceover was able to reflect those changes (seen in Pokemon Go by showing me which Pokemon were visible to heal upon tapping on a potion, or that a task was completed after claiming a reward, or my inventory had changed after an item was used.) Now though, every time I want an updated Voiceover recognized screen, I have to turn off and then back on Voiceover.

So, in conclusion, has anyone else noticed this? Is there something I'm not doing right? I was considering reporting it to Apple, but didn't want to if it was just a me problem. It should be noted that I have tried fixing this already by doing things like toggling the particular app on and off (within screen recognition), rebooting the app itself and making sure IOS is up to date. I haven't tried the radical step of restoring my phone, or deleting and reinstalling the app, but I don't really see how that would or should change anything, except to give me a headache while waiting to restore my device.

Unfortunately, I do not have any other devices capable of screen recognition that I am able to play around with this on, as upgrading to my new device meant surrendering my old one (despite the fact that I absolutely loved the 12 pro max, LOL). So, after reading this meandering and rambly post, has anyone else encountered this, or is it just a Me problem?

Thanks.

Options