Dear applevis community,
The following message is to make you aware of the worst bug in voiceover for STEM students. I've already mentioned this briefly in the macos sequoia beta topic.
If this bug was only on the macos 15 beta I wouldn't have worried too much, although macos accessibility team has already lost trust of many blind users of macos, but this is beyond the point.
I am a college student studying (as of writing) calculus 1, in Canada. I only asked my readaptation centre to adapt the graphs in braille, as the textbook is online and mathml/mathjax content is something I'm very comfortable with - well at least I was, on mac, and still am on windows.
We use Webwork like many other colleges and institutions to do the assignments. Webwork uses mathjax to render math content. Mathjax has the coolest feature ever, it allows us to copy whatever math content is under the cursor in latex format. I am sure you can understand why I like this feature so much as a blind user.
Anyways. So since June I've been reporting and trying the sequoia beta to prevent/prepare (this time) any horrible surprise voiceover could have for us in the stable releases like sonoma and its horrible caps lock mess (which was only partially resolved because sighted users complained as well). The scope of this bug and message is only about math content on the web with safari and chrome, not (yet) in native macos apps.
So basically how voiceover (generally used to work) with such content is the following: on a given mathml element, it would read it in its entirety with the prefix or suffix "math". Then the user would interact with the content, once, twice or 7 times (yes absolutely), and hopefully it could at some point try to navigate by small segments easier to digest. If that was mathjax on the webpage, the user could also do vo shift m, copy as sub menu, right arrow, and choose either mathml or latex (there is a 3rd option anotation but I don't know what it does as it's always been disabled for me). It works more or less the exact same way in safari and chrome, be it mathjax or mathml. Now, many could argue that the way voiceover was used to handel the navigation was already very very confusing to begin with, in versions like 14.5 and below. And you would be right.
BUT! Dear applevis, I was shocked to learn that, now, you can't navigate at all within math content on the web. When trying to interact voiceover says "text", and when you try to go further down within it and do vo left or right arrow at any given level, the cursor jumps at some random place close (or) not to the math content you're currently viewing. Now apparently apple needed to be in 2023 to finally include nemeth code for equation which was in ios for ages, in sonoma. This still seems to work, but I don't know for you but reading long equations, or reading anything at all, is way faster with speech, although I know numeth code so that isn't much of a problem, for me at least.
If this was only on sequoia, as I said earlier, I could have tollerated it in the beta cycle, it's a beta after all. But I don't know when it started, probably in the summer when I wasn't opening math related pages everyday, but this has slipped on sonoma 14.6.1, so even partitioning your disk won't prevent you to be hurt by voiceover neglect on macos.
Some other characteristics of the bug is that each time there are brackets [] or parentheses (), such as argument of a function or priority of operation in algebra, voiceover would read these once, then restart the reading just before, reread a second time, then continue, and so on... Furthermore, on safari, when there is a mathml table, aI noticed that on webwork with mathjax, it's impossible to navigate that menu after vo shift m and click copy as latex, I had to use chrome for that.
To Apple, suffize it to say that you've lost the remaining trust I was still giving to you. I thought I knew purchasing a good device when I bought my mac as your ios accessibility team is is so damn good, but I know better now. Your accessibility team on macos is now just a marketing bs, and blind users have an abusive relationship with their very expensive devices, despite countless feedback reported. On applevis, I am sure that there are more bugs discussed under macos and mac apps than under apple beta softwares, which tells a lot. I have 0 loyalty or trust on you from now on, and I doubt you'll ever regain that back.
I feel tired about all the accessibility bugs in macos. In my one year and 1.5 months with the mac I never felt as disabled than I did in this last year at college. Yesterday in that math class when I discovered this I had no other choice but change activity and tell the teacher that I'll be doing this exercises home on my windows laptop. I never felt so uncomfortable. Thanks to God though all of my teachers are very understanding.
Now because it's so damn difficult to coppy a feedback report I'll only post the feedback number, FB14922654. There is plenty of mathml content online and you can easily reproduce this bug, I was able to see it on my friend's macbook air m2. I have the base model m2pro 14inch.
Of course, ios voiceover is still as good as it was with math content.
Thanks all.
By TheBllindGuy07, 12 September, 2024
Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Comments
College...
I had some experience with Mac OS; am still a Windows user but I know how to use a Mac. I really don't know what I'll do on college as many colleges require Mac OS-specific programs and they also require me to have a Mac. I want to buy a mac but with each new comment I see on AppleVis, I'm losing my hope
In feedback, about a week…
In feedback, about a week ago I had less than 10 in similar issue reported. Now, it again says none, and as far as I know I haven't been contacted *at all* about any update to this bug. As far as I know this is still there in rc which is the same as the final release of sequoia. I am updating to sonoma 14.7 but with 0 hope. Come on appple, please!
Not solved in sonoma 14.7.
Not solved in sonoma 14.7.
For those who are a bit…
For those who are a bit technical, I noticed that the use of mathjax won't help by itself by any mean solving this bug, but at least you can use its context menu with vo shift m and click copy math as latex. Otherwise, just good luck.
For those concerned in the native chatgpt macos app you can't navigate in the equations generated (like you can't do in any other app such as iwork suite), but if you select the full element with just once shift left or right arrow you will have the raw latex copied in the clipboard.
Not solved in sequoia 15.0…
Not solved in sequoia 15.0 stable build (beta turned off) or rc.
Thank you for the note
I would just like to express my appreciation on your feedback. Macs are great devices when you don't have to use their accessibility features, I guess. Otherwise I'd never choose any device over Apple silicon again, but we'll go on with my lovely laptop, Hp spectre x360.
I am surviving thanks to my…
I am surviving thanks to my hp constently plugged home as well. Though I hate hp for all sorts of reasons... But ya, windows, worst os but insane true accessibility. I see the moment where I will just give my college Webwork IDs to Apple so they can see rl how horrible this is for college.
Found a temporary fix
Hello applevis,
This is so ridiculous.
Basically, this mathml bug occurs only if your navigation mode is set to announce groups. I haven't tested it yet with the two others, but if you are like me and have set the navigation mode to announce groups for web browsing which interacts automatically with things like html landmarks and doesn't fed up the user by creating nested level of grouped elements especially with chromium/electron and or other web sites/apps, know that wherever you have math content on the web you will have to switch back to standard and probably restart voiceover *I think*.
Bug update
So I just checked in Feedback and now it says
Recent Similar Reports: None
Resolution: Potential fix identified - For a future OS update.
They were also told about the workaround I posted earlier.