VoiceOver Not Always Announcing Notifications in iOS11

By Jo, 22 September, 2017

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I just updated to iOS 11 and am running an iPhone 6S. Since the update, VoiceOver does not always announce my notifications, whether the device is locked or unlocked. I have it set to show previews always in the notification center. Once, when I rebooted the phone and it restarted, it did announce notifications for awhile but then stopped again. I was wondering if this is a bug or if anyone else has experienced this issue or if there is another setting that I need to change. Thanks.

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Comments

By Tyler on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 23:39

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Occasionally, I'll press the side button and it will say the time, but not the number of notifications. This happens inconsistently, so I believe it is a bug.

By peter on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 23:39

Yes, I am also observing this behavior on my iPhone 6 running iOS 11 and VoiceOver. when a notification comes in with the phone locked, I no longer hear the notification - VoiceOver only announces the time.

I hope Apple is aware of this bug since it bugs me!

--Pete

By alex wallis on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 23:39

Hi, I was wondering exactly the same thing, the issue I am having since updating my 7 plus is that if my phone is unlocked notifications read and seem to display fine.
But if my phone is locked then its not working properly, the way I have my phone set is not to display notifications on the lock screen as I find it intrusive if VoiceOver tries to read them automatically or reads the time, and especially how it says so many new notifications.

Anyway when I used to unlock my phone before the ios 11 update the sounds for my various notifications would play, then banners would pop up with all the notifications that happened while the device was locked.
Now when I unlock my phone I have to either check notification center or look at the app icons to see if things happened while I was away from my phone and it was locked. when my phone is now locked sounds for notifications play just don't see them once I unlock.
I am considering trying to go back to the last ios if the signing window is still open.

By Missy Hoppe on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 23:39

I posted this in a different thread, but will sum it up here too. For some apps: Diceworld, Hanging with Friends, Godville and other similar apps, I deliberately set things up so I only get sounds and badges. For other apps like Facebook, Messages and Messenger,, I set things up so that VO will read notifications as they arrive even when my phone is locked. Ever since updating to IOS 11, nothing has worked as expected. Sometimes, if I press the home button to unlock my phone, some notifications are read, but more often than not, even then, the only speech I get is VO saying "try again" as though my touch ID hadn't worked properly. I miss the feature where pressing the power button or home button would cause the phone to speak the time.

Over all, though, in spite of its many quirks, I still find myself liking IOS 11 way more than I liked the train wreck that was IOS 8. Hopefully Apple will start fixing some of these VO quirks. It's a little disheartening to know that some of these bugs had been being reported by beta testers and they still made it to the official iOS 11 release, but at least for me, while there are many annoyances, there aren't any true show-stoppers.

By peter on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 23:39

Yes, I also miss the feature whereby I could hit the button to unlock the phone and just hear the time. Very nice. too bad that doesn't happen any more. Perhaps Apple can rectify this.

--Peete