iOS Braille Support in 2025 is an Absolute Mess And We Deserve Better

Lol they ain't even working on AI, let alone Braille. It's just more features and less bug fixing, of course. We'll have to get more blind people hanging out on Hacker News where FAANG devs go, and totally blind, Braille users in news media, to change anything at all. Our voices are too weak otherwise.

Soryr to say this, but I would prefer rants to be AI-less. It just made your rant hollow. For braille support, yeah I agree, I have iPad 4 originally available in 2012. I tried it the other day with my Focus 40 blue 4th gen, and it worked. Unfortunately it does not work with my latest iPad Air M1 with the latest iPadOS. Don't know what Apple has changed that made it unsupported anymore.

So if this is really braille display in general and not just focus with terrible connection issues, connecting disconnecting re disconnecting randomly, I fully support this. On the mac especially, braille is really a mess. Like it works but I am not sure to be capable to recommend the mac to deafblind, the reliability is just not up with that of nvda or jaws on windows. Especially that they haven't ported the very useful to reconnect bluetooth braille display from ios to mac, and Dennis yes I, we do feedback! Stop being the apologist here. I have about 30 feedbacks opened since an year and only 4-5 resolved, and those 30 are only the one I bothered taking my time to properly document and submit. I am not a hater, just realistic. When something works, please guys say it! It's always easier to post stuff that doesn't work. And when it doesn't work, and let's remember that some devs around 2023 went as far as boycotting apple feedback system, we perfectly have the right to say it in a ferm and constructive manner.
Dennis, again, please understand that some of the most annoying accessibility bugs (in general) are the one that are impossible to 100% reproduce each time, especially on a closed source system like that of apple, and especially on the mac. Read one single post of João Santos, he is just fortunate enough to have the skills and ability to proof that. Safari does not respond is the best example of this. In regards to this I am really looking forward to the community bug report feature applevis will launch soon, hopefully it can help. I am not targetting you because you are quite right sometimes, but asking everytime for feedback implies that you asume people are ignorant, and while some of them could be just look at what the original poster said about his work and think twice if he is likely in that category or not.
@Moderators, sorry :) .

When Braille issues happen they are very, very frustrating and I do agree that sometimes, it feels as though Braille is so much less important than other stuff. That's not just an IOS thing, by the way - there is a constituency of blind folks who use speech and don't see what all this Braille fuss is about (a small constituency, perhaps, but very real). So in short, I empathise with your frustration. However, I'm having no issues whatsoever connecting my brailliant BI20X to my iPhone 16 Pro Max. It works like a dream and I have no idea why it isn't working for some of you. That seems to suggest this is really inconsistent behaviour. Annoyingly for those on the wrong end of this, it's the inconsistent stuff that normally takes longest to fix. I also don't know how you give feedback on something that happens inconsistently. Surely it's a case of person A performing steps 1, 2 and 3 and achieving a seamless and perfect connnection while person B performs steps 1, 2 and 3 in precisely the same manner and gets nowhere? now, I'm no software developer or computer scientist; but that seems a bleeder of a puzzle to me.

My point exactly. And from what I understand, Humanware braille displays don't seem to have as many issues as Freedom Scientific's with VO.

Even BSI seems glitchy as of late, with it inserting extra dots all the time, or dot 4 when what was intended was a space. I don't want to start up another iOS vs Android war, as I now actively use and like both platforms, but with the Talkback Braille keyboard, I don't notice that same level of inconsistancy. I think BSI command mode is neat, but don't use it all that often, and before they go expanding that even more, I'd honestly rather them fix the regular bsi typing experience.

I don't think it's BSI being glitchy and inserting extra dots or something of that nature. It's the user who, inadvertently and mistakenly inserts extra dots when typing. BSI has the calibration feature, which enables one to recalibrate the dots.

If that were the case, I would most likely experience the same issues on both platforms but that's not happening. And I have used that calibration feature many times yet the issue persists. I have also been using BSI for years, and have noticed a decline. Seems to me it used to be more stable. Again, I use and like both operating systems, so the idea is not to just bash for the sake of bashing, but if I notice a decline in stability, where other screen readers on other operating systems are doing a good job, I think it's fair to point that out.

I haven't tried hooking mine up to anything yet, I lie, I did it with Windows a little bit when I was running that. I have the Humanware one, and so I hear, the other one, I don't even remember who makes it because I've never heard of them before, is pretty horrible. So I was just curious if this is happening with both models, or more with one than the other, or what have you.

Apologies if this sounds a mort condescending, but have you cleaned your screen? sometimes, tiny particles of dust/dirt will have that effect. I mean dust/dirt that we can't necessarily feel. I've noticed that in the past - a bit of alcoholic handwash soon does the trick. Again, and without detracting from your issue, BSI from my perspective is anything but glitchy. In fact, I'd say it is living up entirely to what it promised to be in IOS18 including command mode which is really, really efficient. All that being said, I remember binning my brailleNote Touch a few years ago precisely because of the problem you were experiencing - not just phantom dots, but phantom characters all over the place. No screen clean-up resolved that! I went back to my dear old Apex and have subsequently transitioned to the brailliant. Never going near the Touch or touch+ again; and, for the avoidance of doubt, the parliamentary constituency of Bingo and Tabletshire remains a very, very safe seat for the Apple Party. Hardly worth the android party fielding a candidate.

I share the disappointment and a touch of sadness.
I own a BrailleSense 6 and indeed the Bluetooth connection is far from stable, especially because I can’t always connect whenever I want.
I thought it was a problem with the BS6; honestly, I didn’t expect that Apple had started breaking what used to work well.
It’s probably a race to the bottom, trying to match VoiceOver’s braille support on Mac, although at least there it works via USB — but there are other issues...
That said, it’s really something to be careful about: it’s not great to praise new accessibility features when the ones that have been around for many years stop working.
You know, sometimes just a bit of divine justice would be enough — I think about that often.
If a sighted person picked up their phone, tried to unlock it, and found the screen didn’t work, with no idea when it would work again...
That alone would be enough to make them understand the frustration when something so basic fails.
It’s not playing the victim.
It’s simply that we write and read using braille displays!
So I fully agree: Apple, please try to fix it...

Hey Bingo,
I didn't feel it was condescending at all. In fact, makes perfect sense. I have noticed the phantom dots too the most when I'm at the gym all sweaty and gross, so what you say does make sense. Rather frustrating when trying to log sets and weight lifted, and I have to keep going back and fixing all the typos, when I am normally very accurate with my typing. So yeah, some tlc for the phone screen might be in order. People usually comment on how clean my phone is, but there could be just enough gym grime to kinda mess things up.

To the person who has BSI issues, what screen protector do you have on your phone? I heard that may have something to do with the issues you're experiencing. If it makes ya feel any better I'm experioncing some of the same things too all be it not as severe. Do you even have a screen protector?

Hi all,

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For both Bingo and Jonathan, the screen protector could very well have been part of my problem. I got to thinking about that, removed it just to see, and problem almost completely fixed. Between the screen protector and some tlc for said screen, it is a lot better.

Is anyone getting this bug? Type something, then type a elipsies, 3 periods one after the other, then do a space. Delete the space, and voiceover will say, period space. This works too if you just type one period followed by space after writing then doing a backspace, anyone else noticing this?

Yes! :) now that I know it's not an isolated issue I'll happily report it, thanks so much!

I'm also having this problem, don't have a screen protector and keep my screen clean. I thought my finger was just being slow or something so didn't report it, but when 18.0 first came out, this wasn't an issue. It's only been a problem with recent updates, at least for me.

Yes, have also noticed this.

I'll report now I know its not just me experiencing this.

This is an interesting post. I have an Orbit Reader 20 and find connecting to bluetooth incredibly inconsistent. I can turn it on and off several times, and eventually maybe it might connect if I am lucky. I asked Orbit and they said that I should have my Mac turned off, then turn the Orbit on, then the Mac, but otherwise I should contact Apple. I thought they were fobbing me off, but perhaps not.

I connected it to my iPhone and get similar inconsistencies but it seemed slightly better.

On the Mac I find if I connect via USB then I don't have these issues. However, instead I get other problems. For example, the Orbit has a d-pad I can use to move VO cursor about but this doesn't work. I believe this is because it is getting confused between the Primary displays. If I swap over the primary it works, but then it swaps back next time.

So I told my Mac to forget the Orbit - I'll just use USB instead and keep bluetooth on the phone. But now every time I turn the Orbit on, it is determined to force my hand and pair itself with the Mac. It's a bit of a fight to stop it. So guess next time I will pair it again and just accept I have to fiddle about every time.

I guess I'm lucky as I don't depend on braille - I am just using it to try to help me learn. But I might dedicate, say, an hour to practice and then find I spend half or sometimes all of that just fiddling about trying to get it to work.

So is this all just normal for braille on Apple products?

I've heard that over the years. I can't verify or track it down. If I had the money I'd go with a BI 20 just to try and avoid some of these issues. How many of these issues are Orbits fault or Apple's fault we'll never know.

The primary display is not a bug, if I understand you correctly. Basically apple has this mode of primary / imirored display, only on the primary can we use all the controls, the other secondary displays are just that, display, and no control work.

Yeah I get it might not be a bug, as such, but it doesn't feel like a particularly great design. You don't have this limitation with a keyboard.

I'm not sure exactly what the issue is with the Orbit. It might be that it will connect via USB, then again try to connect via Bluetooth. At this point the Bluetooth was the latest display to connect so it becomes the primary. But then it's in USB mode not Bluetooth so it won't work. If it just worked properly with Bluetooth then I probably wouldn't have this issue.

I suspect I can probably fiddle with the Orbit settings - I think there is a "just works" bluetooth setting, so maybe that is what is making it so insistent that it has to connect to bluetooth that I get a popup every minute or two. But I'm not confident enough with the Orbit to go digging about the settings.

Oh, OK this one might be my fault. I just noticed a setting under Braille to allow input from all devices, not just the primary. So I've changed that and hopefully that will fix it.

This is indeed very frustratiing. A work around could be adding an alternative gesture in order to insert a space, e.g. swiping three fingers to the left, since both three fingers swipe to the left and three finger swiping to the right switches between command mode and input mode. To do so, go to VoiceOverSettings, Commands and then Braille. For me the issue only occurs on my iPhone SE2, not on my Iphone 16 pro device.

I was reading something in Apple Books on the Mac the other day using my Orbit Reader 20.

I moved to one line and VoiceOver spoke the whole thing. The first half was on my display. So I used the panning keys to read the next half of the line. VoiceOver stayed quiet, and the braille updated. However, instead of showing me the next half of the line it was showing me an entirely different line. I repeated this a few times.

I wasn't sure if this was a bug in VoiceOver, MacOs, Apple Books or my Orbit.

Is this a known thing? Does it happen in iOS?

It totally threw me at the time and I ended up totally losing my place and having to start over which was really frustrating. I was also feeling very pleased with myself at the time for getting so far using braille and it has somewhat broken my confidence.

Can somebody try to explain me again (if this works) how to reliably get subscript and superscript text style information in braille, as this is literally the only way to do it? I can't understand at all why they think limitting this to braille only for really no reason is a good idea... Specifically on the mac.

OK so this is another Mac thing but guessing it's similar to the above. I was trying to spend half an hour or so practicing braille with my Orbit. So I go through the routine of turning it off and on and off and on and off and on. Eventually it seems to detect my Mac.

And so I opened a text edit document and started typing on my Orbit. VoiceOver confidently spoke each letter. But when I looked in text edit - there was nothing there. I tried typing on my LogiTech and the letters appeared in Text Edit but not on my Orbit display. So I used Cmd+Tab to switch windows. And Orbit seemed to be able to find the applications I was switching to. But that was all it seemed to see on my screen. I tried VO+M to move around some menus - nothing.

Quite where it thought it was typing I've no idea.

I restarted VO a few times to no avail. I think switched the Orbit off. And on. And off. And on. And I couldn't get it to connect again.

Next thing I know I've spent over an hour messing around and have got no braille practice done at all.

I wonder if there are just general weird bluetooth things. I have similar issues connecting my Air Pods sometimes - put them in, they go plink! but don't speak anything. And so out they come, then back in, then back off, then I'm doing the hokey kokey and turning around. And eventually they connect.