Title: Seeking Help with Apple Music Accessibility Issues: VoiceOver Not Functioning Properly After MacOS Update

By Ming_VL, 31 October, 2024

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello everyone,

After I recently upgraded to the latest MacOS, I found that my Apple Music is nearly unusable on my Mac. When I use VO combined with the left and right arrows to navigate to "Home" or "Library," and then press VO + Shift + Down Arrow to interact with the submenu, I can barely do anything. I can’t select any of the recommended music lists from Apple Music, nor can I access any play buttons.

When I press Command + F on the main Apple Music interface to search for an artist, song title, or album name, I know there should be results displayed, but I can’t access any of the content through VoiceOver.

Has anyone else encountered similar issues, or do you know how to resolve this problem?

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Comments

By Mara on Sunday, November 3, 2024 - 17:45

They have essentialy broken it. you can stil access your library though so it sort of works. depending on the way you consume music. we'll have to wait for the next update.

By VincentPoinsot on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

Indeed, Apple Music has been unusable since Mac OS X 15.1. Surprising that few people complain about it. They managed to break the accessibility of a paid service within an Apple app…

By Devin on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

I've noticed its been broken since the 3rd beta of 15.1. I've submitted a bug report to apple FB15498602.
I will probably upgrade to 15.2 beta later this week for development work so will report back if it is fixed in the beta for 15.2

By Cankut Değerli on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

Unfortunately yes, Apple music, apple tv and Mac App store navigation with voiceover is severely broken in Mac OS 15.1. At least I can brows through my Library. But this is really Crazy. Thanks apple!
I also reported a feedback about this. FB15679135

By Bruce Harrell on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

Have you tried using IOS to access and airplay to your Mac to play?

By Eric Davis on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

I was able to have a cited person test Apple Music when VoiceOver was turned off. It worked as it was advertised to work. Truly, Apple has really broken it this time.

By Ashley on Sunday, November 10, 2024 - 17:45

Same issue here and it's beyond infuriating. The only reason I still subscribe to Apple Music is the lossless playback, but if Spotify ever adds lossless support at the same cost as a premium subscription I'll switch. I can't stand the Spotify Mac app, or any app that presents its interface as web content for that matter, but Apple are now consistantly breaking things that weren't broken for seemingly no reason. The irony that Apple Music works better on Windows with NVDA (as do most things) than it does on the mac with Voiceover is not lost on me.

By Voracious P. Brain on Sunday, December 22, 2024 - 19:45

FWIW and largely off-topic, I just started a 60-day $2 trial of the Tidal service and the IOS and Mac apps are fairly accessible--I haven't found anything I'm not able to do yet, at least, though it took some playing around to figure things out. I hate all music apps not named Foobar (Windows), but the IOS Tidal app doesn't seem too much worse than the Apple Music IOS app. It looks like Apple Music might actually be more accessible at the moment on Windows than Mac.
I searched out this thread as I was pondering Tidal vs. Apple Music, since I would really miss the voice control, which is unavailable with Tidal. But when I tried my Apple Music free trial last year, I hated, loathed, and despised the Mac Music app. Sounds like it's gotten even worse.
FYI, The Tidal apps allow choosing output device if you have an external DAC, and they do both AirPlay and ChromeCast. Chromecast with VLC has been really unreliable for me; I'll need to wait to try this out with Tidal. The little WIIM mini streaming dongles support Tidal Connect for high-res and presumably gapless playback, in addition to AirPlay, though I can't get to mine right now to test it (I use one for Airplay).
Initially, I tried Qobuz, but it was unusable on all platforms.

By PaulMartz on Sunday, December 22, 2024 - 20:45

I am able to reproduce the issue mentioned by the OP, that there is no way to view the library. I can view a list organized by songs, which I've always felt was pretty useless. I can view a list organized by artist, which is close to viewing my library, but not quite. The artist view lists entries for any artist that happens to show up on a multi-artist compilation. The library view was organized differently. Albums were grouped together by artist in alphabetical order, and multi-artist compilation albums were in their own group (under compilations by default, though I had changed this so that they were under various). Library view was much more like how I used to organize my albums, cassettes, and CDs.

Another issue (don't know if it's new, but it's the first I've noticed it), VoiceOver announces that Playlists is expanded in the side bar. There's no way to collapse it.

By Blindxp on Sunday, December 22, 2024 - 22:45

Accessibility is broken for me as well. Why does Apple keep on messing things up that aren’t broken? Really annoying.