VoiceOver focus may spontaneously jump to another UI element, most typically soon after opening a screen, menu or modal

I find it happens when the keyboard is auto hidden. If you type in to a text field or choose from a picker item then navigate away until the text field/picker item is off the screen the keyboard/picker is automatically hidden. This seems to be what causes VO focus to jump, often back to the text field/picker item in question.
A work around I have found is to always double tap on the done button on the top right of the keyboard/picker item after you have finished with it.
This behaviour seems to be pretty consistent for me.
Been that way since iOS 13 and for a while at one point before that. Apple didn't used to have the keyboard auto hide so this didn't use to happen. Auto hiding can be useful because it gets rid of the keyboard when you don't need it but if it is going to cause this focus jumping then i'd rather go back to the old behaviour even if the keyboard can be in the way sometimes.
Chris

I did not noticed this behavior until iOS 15, but it seems like when I go back to the Home screen, VO focus first is at the top and then it jumps, consistently, to another app on my Home screen. I thought perhaps this would be something to do with the app's placement on the Home Screen, but even removing the app from that position causes VO focus to again jump to another app. I'm not sure what happens with speech, but this is what seems to happen often when using braille.

I ended up purchasing something I did not want and I doubt I'll get my money back. Fortunately it wasn't a large amount.

Thanks for reporting the bug. Can you please share Apple link for defect FB9975885 ?

With iOS 16 betas, I've encountered it several times in the Phone app. So it's still lurking there.

This site is a good one to reproduce this bug.

1. Go to http://heardle.app
2. Hit play
3. Go to the combo box to type in the artist or title you think is correct.
4. After typing in a few characters, more often than not, you will notice that the keyboard disappears and you have no choices on the screen.

I most notice a behavior like this when reading an article in the Apple News app that has an embedded video, usually within a Tweet. If I swipe down with two fingers to read the entire article from the top, VO will read the article until it hits the video embedded within a Tweet. Then Vo seems to get lost and starts reading from the top of the article again. This loop continues until I stop VO from reading and flick past the video to continue reading the article. This behavior started occuring in the last release or two of iOS 15.
--Pete

And as irritating and frustrating as before. The Phone app demonstrates it quite reliably.

What I encounter is very similar to the description in this article. I encounter it mainly in messages apps, or any app and interface where the virtual keyboard is present. Often it would write rendom characters when I am switching to braille screen input. With the problem with BSI that is already mention, it is seriously ennoying and I often have to delete messages since it would send them, this is a huge problem in professional situation.

This issue has many forms, and a simple search of the AppleVis site reveals much frustration going back to iOS 15. I bumped my feedback report. Anyone on the 2026 beta should do the same. Maybe applying some pressure will tell Apple that we haven't forgotten about this issue.

I notice this mostly in the Facebook app. If I leave a comment, then touch the back button right away, instead of going to the back button it will jump to my comment.

If I click on Play, go left or right to go forward or backward 15s, click, and then focus again without clicking on pause, 8/10 times VO will jump to the previous item and I have to move it manually a second time.
It's actually very very easy to reproduce there. Not always, but 8/10.

This bug has been the bane of my existence since iOS 15. Any time I open a website in a new tab my cursor rockets to the top of the screen. Open a link in an email? When I go back to my email the cursor is at the top. Try to read anything in Dystopia for Reddit? Good luck, who knows what you're about to click on because it sure didn't announce that the cursor is now somewhere random on the page. Making a phone call? Double check, I have dialed so many wrong numbers thanks to this damn bug.

Nothing has fixed it either. At this point I think half the problem is that the programmers don't use Voiceover at speed so the slower moving cursor doesn't impact them. Is it a RAM issue? Is it actually impacting everyone but not everybody notices? Who knows! And at this point I suspect it will stay that way because Apple has not done a thing to fix a problem they created over six years ago.

I am sitting here, trying to listen to a podcast and one of the podcast apps that I’ve used in the past. When I turn the screen off and just sit back and listen to the podcast, I keep hearing screen curtain on, screen curtain on, screen curtain on. I do have my screen curtain turned on, and I like to keep it turned on! But what’s happening is the focus keeps jumping back towards the top and telling you that something needs to say something, and it keeps saying screen curtain on for me. I have even turned speech off so I could listen to my podcast in peace, but that turns this speech back on and it continues using voiceover as if nothing were happening. I would love it if they could actually find the cause of this bug and get rid of it forever! I have experienced this bug on previous versions of iOS. Was not so bad on iOS 18, but when upgrading to this latest version of iOS 26, it has really started to show up a lot!

Otherwise strange bugs like that will keep piling up. I reset my computers and phone every 1-3 years. It's a pain to do but at least it cleans all the mess.
It's just reality of modern software, whether it's opensource or not. For example my NVDA has its audio ducking broken, it reazes for 5-7s when I copy a link from chrome in the clipboard the first time, some tts addons which work perfectly do not, well, work, my hp which I haven't reset in two years takes minimum two minutes to boot when I am lucky, because of this hmm, scam of a thing called hp sure start... More relevent here, the 3 fingers swipe gesture to send or similar action with braille screen input was not working on my iphone xs and on my new 14 when I first just imported all the things across until I reset both phones.
And especially for screens, hardware can sometimes be the cause too.

Yes, every single iPhone and Mac user could do a complete scratch install every couple of years. Or one company, Apple, could fix their bugs, eliminating countless man-hours of downtime for their customers and making us all more productive, as technology tools should.

This one is another beast, it is systematically broken. iOS is not, yet.

I have reset my phones so many times, even going so far as having the Apple Store do a complete wipe and factory reset. You'll never guess who still has the focus bug (it happened while I was trying to post this!). I have seen it happen on completely new phones. Before iOS 15 the thought of resetting my phone had never even crossed my mind. This is absolutely a problem Apple has created for us and they need to fix it. I wish sighted users had to deal with this, they wouldn’t tolerate it and neither should we.

I too have consistently experienced this behaviour for several years now. This issue has survived multiple new iPhones, several major iOS releases, and complete system resets. It occurs system-wide for me and happens literally hundreds of times every day.

The spontaneous focus jumping has caused me to dial wrong numbers, activate incorrect options, and has me constantly anticipating focus to jump with every interaction with my iPhone.

I've submitted feedback reports, but like many others here, I've seen no improvement or even a hint of an attempt to resolve it. At some point, we have to question whether Apple takes VoiceOver user experience seriously when a bug this fundamental remains unresolved for half a decade. This issue is the main reason why I am becoming ever closer to switching to Android.

the focus jump is partly fixed for me with iPad OS 26, when using my hable it doesn't jump every time i do a space when starting to type any more but still jumps sometimes, so annoying and one of the reasons i will never use a Iphone again, i only have my iPad 9 and that's the only apple device i will have for a long time