Telegram accessibility on iOS, and Swiftgram's take at it

By Amir Soleimani, 3 January, 2025

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

The developer of Swiftgram addressed my bug reports about accessibility issues affecting Telegram for iOS and other Telegram clones. Here's what he said in their Telegram group, as well as his beta build. You'll find the link to his message in the group at the bottom of the message. I encourage you to comment there.
........
First of all, this is a bug of Telegram app and it should be addressed by Telegram developers. It's their job. Main way to report such bugs is to use https://bugs.telegram.org
There's also an "Accessibility" label for such issues. Of course, all the fixes will be available in Swiftgram.
With that being said, I've quickly popped up VoiceOver and can confirm that Share Sheet is completely inaccessible. That's really bad.
Telegram uses non-standard frameworks and ways to work with native UI. I can't say it's bad, Telegram engineers are definitely smart people and know what they're doing. However, this also impacts default Accessibility and most of the UI elements must be labeled manually.
As an exception, I've decided to take a look in what I can do. I've spent about 10 hours to make Share Sheet accessible via VoiceOver. I was able to add some labels and map some buttons, but I think I've failed, cause overall experience is bad. But that's my skill issue.
If using outside of the app, it's possible to focus on the sheet and start iterating through chats. After selecting the chat, it may be a bit tricky to find Comment and Send button (because VoiceOver keep scrolling your chats). I suggest to navigate to Cancel button at the very bottom and go up. Switching different rotors (Headings, Containers, Words, etc.) may help to get to the right part of the Share Sheet.
If using inside app, it becomes a mess - VoiceOver reads elements that are behind Share Sheet. I've tried different approaches and just have no idea how to make it work properly, without redesigning Share Sheet and changing it in place of the app.
Latest Beta build 11.6 (159) includes these changes. You can download using https://beta.swiftgram.app
P.S. Known VoiceOver limitations:
1. Selecting topics in groups does not work
2. Switching accounts does not work
https://t.me/swiftgramchat/51300

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Comments

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 22:17

The latest Swiftgram beta build resolves the long-standing Share Sheet glitch with VoiceOver where no contact name gets read. I suggest that people try the build via TestFlight for feedback. If you're on Telegram, please also join the Telegram group to provide feedback there. The more we comment and show interest, the higher the chance of getting the developers to resolve the remaining issues, like VoiceOver getting stuck in groups and channels while scrolling around messages.

By Kushal Solanki on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 22:17

Hi.
I have just joined the beta for this swift gram app.
Would love to know more about this app and how it impoves the accessibility of using elegram with voiceover.

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 22:17

This is a Telegram client based on official Telegram AI, and receives updates regularly. At the time of this writing, it improves the accessibility of the share sheet for VoiceOver. With the official Telegram client or other third-party clients, VoiceOver reads nothing in the share sheet.

By Kushal Solanki on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 22:17

Great to see you have developed this app using the Telegram UI.
Tested the share sheet feature out.
It's great.
Thanks so much for fixing this.
Looking forward to more accessibility improovments.

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 22:17

I suggest commenting in the Telegram group so that the developer can see our interest - he's not here. I suggest asking for fixes for VoiceOver getting stuck while scrolling in channels and groups. He says that Telegram uses a custom message type, and that's why VoiceOver can't scroll messages properly with left/right swipes.

By Nut on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 22:17

I just gave Swiftgram a quick try and I found it not to be any different from the official Telegram app. For instance the buttons at the top of the chats list remains more or less inaccessible.

By Amir Soleimani on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 22:17

@Nut did you expect Swiftgram to be more accessible? That's not what I said. I said they improved the Share Sheet accessibility, something Telegram still can't handle. But other issues stand unless we ask Swiftgram devs to improve them.

By Nut on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 22:17

I think asking Swiftgram to improve accessibility in general is a good idea given how inaccessible the official Telegram app is and I don't think there's really any accessible Telegram clients for iOS that I know of; that are as good as Unigram on PC at least.

By Amir Soleimani on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 22:17

Exactly. iOS severely lacks in this regard. I suggest that people join Swiftgram's Telegram group and directly ask the devs about accessibility improvements.

By Chris on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - 22:17

I'm trying to log into the app on my Mac, but I can't type the code. Selecting the text option doesn't bring up an edit field to type. I was hoping this would be a decent Telegram client for macOS as well. What's the best way to contact the developer?