This behavior itself is not new to iOS in iOS 11, but we have detected what we believe to be a slight increase in the frequency of voiceOver becoming unresponsive and needing to be restarted to resume normal working behavior. In particular, it seems more common that spoken output from VoiceOver will stop, but the other VoiceOver sound effects continue.
iOS/iPadOS
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In certain situations, VoiceOver will randomly speak the contents of previous notifications which do not appear onscreen visually. This issue does not occur consistently, and the notifications are no longer spoken once speech is stopped or focus is moved to another element.
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Update: since posting this bug here, others have reported also seeing this behavior with voices other than Alex.
Original Report: This bug appears to be dependent upon a very specific use case and has an effective workaround.
If you are using Alex as your default TTS voice, you may find that VoiceOver will switch to use another voice whenever it needs to announce punctuation.
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On occasions, VoiceOver will not announce that an email folder is empty when you tap or swipe onto the area of the screen where any email messages would be listed. Instead, the only audible feedback is a muted âclunkâ tone. The behavior has been seen in both smart folders and regular folders.
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When composing a new iMessage, VoiceOver may not provide feedback on which camera is active if you choose to take a photo or video to add to the message.
If you tap and hold on the button to Attach Media (supposedly the quick option to access this feature), VoiceOver does not announce whether the front or back camera is active.
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When entering text using Braille Screen Input and input mode is set to Contracted, VoiceOver does not echo the characters typedâeven if typing feedback is set to echo characters. This creates a situation in which the user would have no way of knowing what dots were entered until the word has been translated, thereby making Contracted braille input less efficient because there is a greater possibility for mistakes to be made if the user has no feedback as to what is being typed.
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In iOS 9 on an iPad, the Command key on a bluetooth keyboard shows all possible keyboard shortcuts. However, this feature appears to not work with VoiceOver, as no additional information or feedback is given when the Command key is pressed.
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In Safari and Chrome (and possibly other web browsers), you may find that the behaviour of VoiceOver when trying to enter text in text fields is inconsistent/misleading in some cases. Using either the onscreen keyboard or Braille Screen input, the feedback from VoiceOver may suggest that text is not being input and that the field is empty. However, the text may in fact have been entered. One place where we have seen this is in the Search field on AppleVis, where VoiceOver appears to indicate that no text has been entered--but actually completing the search proves otherwise.
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In the Mail app, VoiceOver no longer reports how many messages are in a thread when you touch or delete it. Instead of "x messages in thread," you hear "multiple messages in thread."
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On the Proactive Search screen, there is a row of 4 icons at the top of the list of âSiri Suggestionsâ which is announced by VoiceOver as a single unlabeled button which does nothing when double-tapped. These icons are selected/favorite contacts. When VoiceOver is disabled, tapping on 1 of these icons will result in various contact options being displayed (phone, message, etc.), which you can then choose from. Some of the Team have not been able to reproduce this.
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When receiving a phone call, the iPhone will occasionally become unresponsive. VoiceOver does not speak, and you cannot navigate around the screen to see who is calling or choose any options. This has happened when the phone is both muted or unmuted, and often happens to one user when using bluetooth audio.
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VoiceOver will occasionally freeze or crash. It may take anything unto a few minutes for VoiceOver to become responsive again. Our testing has indicated that this issue tends to present itself more in web content areas (Safari; certain third-party apps with web content).
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In the Mail app, VoiceOver will occasionally speak the "Inbox" heading at the top of the screen as a long string of numbers and letters. Exiting out of the Inbox using the "Back" button and then reentering the Inbox appears to resolve this problem.
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On iPad, if you have the Image Descriptions toggle in the VoiceOver quick settings panel, the toggle does not work.
It always says it is switched on, and selecting it has no affect.
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When using Voice Dictation to enter text into a text field, VoiceOver will announce the inserted text twice after you have completed the dictation.
For example, after dictating âthis is a test messageâ into the body of a new email, VoiceOver will announce âInserted this is a test message. Inserted this is a test message.â
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The Delete option in the VoiceOver Rotor Actions menu does not work with tracks listed in the âUp Nextâ section of the Mini Player in the native Music app. This should work, as sighted users can simply swipe on a track to delete it from this list.
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Using the "drag" action in the VoiceOver rotor to rearrange app icons on the Home Screen often does not work as expected.
Specifically, when attempting to drag an app icon to a new position and place it before or after another app, the dragged app frequently ends up in a folder with the target app rather than moving to the desired location. It's also been reported that on occasions some drag action options, such as âplace beforeâ or âplace afterâ, may not always be available.
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When attempting to use the VoiceOver Actions menu on Lock Screen notifications, you may find that it takes several attempts before you are able to access the menu.
Specifically, when flicking up or down on a Lock Screen notification, you may find that VoiceOver will speak the notification again instead of one of the VoiceOver Action menu items (such as Clear or More).
When this occurs, you may need to flick up or down 2 or 3 times before successfully accessing the Actions menu.
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On occasions, VoiceOver may not speak the number of notifications on the Lock Screen when waking the screen; in our experience, the easiest workaround is to restart VoiceOver when this behavior occurs.
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In some circumstances, VoiceOver will speak the "swipe up or down to select a custom action, then double tap to activate" announcement when actions are in fact not available.