Sound curtain feature

By Abdulmajeed, 13 September, 2023

Forum
Apple Beta Releases

Does anyone have an idea about the sound curtain feature that is now in VoiceOver quick settings, which was in beta 1 in Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Sounds.
I tried enabling this feature but it didn't make a difference for me when I enabled it from Quick Settings in iOS 17.0 RC.

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Comments

By Andy Lane on Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 09:47

My understanding was that this was meant to be a feature primarily for deaf people who had no use for sound on their device. A blind person toggling it on might not be able to turn it back off again. Either putting it in VO settings where blind people will find it and try it might be a problem or I’ve misunderstood what its purpose is.

By Lee on Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 10:01

No that was my understanding. Indeed, I seem to recall in a beta someone on here did exactly this and had to get sighted assistance to get vo back. Silly place to have it. Or, if VO is enabled maybe apple of fixed it so it doesn't work. in which case why put it there in the first place.

By Indra on Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 11:48

Hello Guys.
This feature is for Braille Display user. So, if you connect the Braille Display to an iPhone, the sound curtain will be turn on.

By Scott Davert on Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 13:27

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

To those asking about it, the Sound Curtain feature is under braille settings for that exact purpose. Anyone who has had phones without the screen curtain functionality has probably had a situation where they had their phones out and had people looking over their shoulder. Speech, as you may not know, always turns on when VoiceOver is restarted. However, for someone who cannot hear well enough to hear that their speech is on, they could be in a room with their boss or a family member that could listen to VoiceOver read whatever that person is doing. It's under braille settings since that is the most likely group of people to need that feature. If you don't want your phone to be muted, don't use it. It's pretty difficult to do this accidentally, and if you do it on purpose, well, you were warned. Smiles