Tired of VoiceOver saying that every image is a screenshot of a weather forecast

By Squirrel, 7 January, 2021

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Having not seen this mentioned already on here, I am wondering if it's something specific to my configuration. But here goes anyway - for what feels like since iOS 14 was released, VoiceOver's image description feature insists on telling me that nearly every image is a screenshot of a weather forecast.

This is primarily when viewing images in Twitterrific, as this is my main use case for this feature.

So, is anybody else seeing this or something similar, or is it just me?

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Comments

By Brad on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

I saw the weather forcast thing sometimes and just turned it off, the descriptions really aren't that helpful for me at least and they need to improve this kind of stuff a lot if they want users to use it.

By Siobhan on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

It doesn't bohter me but it's almost everywhere. facebook, twitter etc. Just turn it off i guess. Soon I'll upgrade so.

By Mister Kayne on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

Actually I approached accessibility support with this challenge about VoiceOver reading things randomly when trying to type my UPI ID on Google Pay using the number pad it reads the number and after that stuff like round ball, chalk, moon etc. This has also happened in the Shortcuts app. when setting the brightness in the pop up menu. They are aware of this issue and believe they have received multiple mails about it so the response to my mail was a bit rude; it said please don't send duplicate issues that we are aware of. How was I to know that the issue has been reported earlier and if it was since IOS 14 there have been 2 updates was there a fix? NO!

By Tasha on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

I'm wondering if you're experiencing the same bug I am. I have an iphone 10s, and a lot of the time, I'll get descriptions like the one you described, or very often "screenshot of a social media post." Toggling voiceover on and off fixes this temporarily and then the descriptions are decent, but a few minutes later it will happen again. It's super annoying.

That is very rude, as you said; how were you to know?

By Squirrel on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

Thanks all for the comments on this annoyance.

It was suggested above that this was less of an issue on newer iPhones. I'm running an iPhone 12 Pro, so this isn't my experience.

It was also suggested that turning VoiceOver off and then back on again would correct the behaviour. A nonsense suggestion, right?

Well, what do you know. There I was looking at what VoiceOver told me was a screenshot of a weather forecast. I told VoiceOver to go away. I called it back. And, now it tells me I am looking at a photo of a group of people standing in a room. Go figure the vagaries of VoiceOver😕

By Tasha on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

In reply to by Squirrel

I'm sorry you're also experiencing this, but I'm glad it isn't just me. I think I can now call apple accessibility and report this as a bug.

For people who are underwhelmed by the image description feature, you should definitely try turning VO on and off. The difference is quite astounding, for the few minutes it lasts.

By Ty on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 15:45

I really like the feature in and of itself, well, rather, the concept; but the way Apple executed it is... frankly really, really bad. It uses ML (Machine Learning). Thus meaning, the machine will learn over time. You restarting the screen reader shouldn't have anything to do with it, though. It should get better over time, as the machine learns, and not force you to restart the screen reader. They might not be flushing the cache or something? And in regards to Apple's rude reply to an email about the issue: I'm sadly not surprised. I've gotten similar replies to issues in the past... :(.