VoiceOver's image description feature intermittently stops working

Category
VoiceOver Announcements/Feedback
Severity
Moderate

Description

The VoiceOver image description feature, which generates a text description of images focused on with VoiceOver, will periodically stop functioning. When this occurs, VoiceOver will only announce "image" rather than generating a description. Restarting VoiceOver or the device may temporarily resolve the problem, but the issue recurs periodically.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Enable VoiceOver.
  2. Enable Image Descriptions under Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > VoiceOver Recognition.
  3. Locate an image. For example, an image attached to a tweet.
  4. VoiceOver announces "image" rather than a generated description.

Expected Results:
VoiceOver should announce a text description of the image focused on, such as “a screenshot of a social media post Possible Text UserName. @UserName. some text.”

Actual Results:
VoiceOver only announces “image”

Bug First Encountered

iOS/iPadOS 17.0

Device(s) bug has been encountered on

iPhone

How often the bug occurs

Sometimes

Workaround

Restarting VoiceOver or the device will often temporarily restore proper function of image descriptions, but the issue recurs.

Apple feedback #

FB13555988

Status

Fixed

Fixed In

iOS/iPadOS 17.4

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