Extremely dissatisfied with the developers of tweetbot in regards to accessibility improvement promises

By harry6116, 9 February, 2017

Forum

macOS and Mac Apps

hey all,
i want to right a little post detailing my dissatisfaction with the attitude regarding accessibility of tweetbot on the mac.
i first found this program on IOS and found to my Great delight that it was completely accessible, well worth the $14 that i payed.
You can imagine my happiness then when i found a mac version of this program.
I purchased it, put it on only to find that on the mac the names of the posters of tweets were not bing read out.
I contacted the developer @tapbots strate away and reported my problem and explained about voiceover and was told that a fix was coming to rectify the situation.
well, a few updates have come out and still no improvements, i asked them several more times to please look into this and they responded by refunding me without informing me, i only worked out what they had done when i could no longer update the app.
I repurchased the program so I can continue to monitor to see when this will be fixed.
almost 8 months and nothing so i'm not hopefull of a resolution.
last week for the first time in months i asked again about the issues that I have reported and was told quite tersely "no, we have not addressed this"
I was not rude or aggressive in any of my tweets in the past, i explained to them that apart from this one problem the program was completely accessible and that on IOS the problem was not there and still nothing.
Has anyone else used this program on the mac?
I know I am on hiding to nothing but i payed good money and it would be good if developers would listen to consumer concerns.
i just feel that i have hit a dead end.
i have used nightowl but there are many features in tweetbot that nightowl lacks.
any help on this problem or advice on what i can do would be fantastic.

thanks

Michael

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Comments

I think you will get that

I think you will get that reaction always. I'd also love to use tweet bot on the mac, but sadly it is not probably going to be accessible. We've ben reporting these issues now for the past few years.

hit them on the app store.

I ask anyone who has been experiencing the same problem as I to review in the app store, i think we could get somewhere with a little pressure on the money front.

This is the review I have submitted to the app store.

I purchased this program several months ago because the IOS version was completely accessible with voiceover. the mac version how ever has a serious accessibility bug. the names of posters of tweets are not read with voiceover. I contacted the developers and told them of the problem and they responded by saying they were aware of this and "an update will be coming very soon to address this". months later and still no fix and hardly any response to my queries. They gave me a refund at one stage which I was not informed of till i tried to update and could not because my license was cancelled. hence another copy had to be purchased so i could keep track and see if the one major accessibility bug would be fixed. The attitude of the developer is extremely disappointing and if your blind and looking for a twitter app for the mac? Steer clear of this program until they show they are serious about listening to the concerns of the visually impaired community.

Please spread this around.

I would like anyone who is experiencing the problems I have to please spread this far and wide.
The concerns of the blind community are being ignored and it's just not right.

I posted a link to this

I posted a link to this thread on their twitter, at least I put them in a mention. We'll see if this works.

thanks a lot

this is fantastic, thanks a lot. i doubt they will respond but to me they should be making this work.

well, the message about

well, the message about tweetbot actually showed up a couple of days back on one of the apple tech support mailing lists. Between me and a couple of others, some suggestions on how to handle this with the developers were made. I suggested the initial option which was to file a negative review detailing the issues. Someone else then suggested that we leverage the entire apple community on this (hence the posting here). I have also retweeted this posting here on twitter and am seriously thinking of sharing it to Facebook as well. I figure the more negative attention paid to them will force them to reconsider their position. It really is too bad that a company who takes money won't listen to those who provide it's bread and butter.

It is also suggested that we check back from time to time in order to make sure they haven't deleted the negative review. If it does get deleted, replace it and post to this thread when it happens. After I am done posting here, I will share this thread via Facebook. THen others can pick it up from there.

Is the iOS app truly “completely accessible”?

I have a question for those who find TweetBot for iOS to be completely accessible.

The app has a 5 tab layout. However, it is possible to choose from 9 different things to fill those tabs.

Essentially, there are 5 active tabs and 4 hidden tabs.

To access those hidden tabs, a sighted user taps and holds on any tab and is presented with a list of the currently unused choices. Tapping on one of these will change what is shown in the tab position. When VoiceOver is enabled, a 1-finger double-tap and hold will visually display the list of choices, but the list itself is completely invisible to VoiceOver.

My question is, how are you changing what’s displayed in a tab? I am keen to know, as I have yet to find an alternative way of accessing the data and features available on these ‘hidden’ tabs.

As far as I can tell, the following can be assigned to a tab:

Timeline
Mentions
Messages
Search
Lists
Likes
Mute Filters
Data (Account Stats and Activity)
Your Profile

Have people found a way of accessing all of this with VoiceOver?

Tweetboth for iOs

I tested Tweetboth for iOs for last time about two years ago and I found it to not be usable. I won't try it again until they get really committed with accessibility

IOS is fine, things are read such as name of poster

it works for what i need it to do on IOS.
at least we get the names read on there.

thanks a lot.

Please put it on Facebook as well.
you are really on the ball with this.

I posted this on my facebook.

I posted this on my facebook. For those that want to follow the progress, go to my facebook pate at http://www.facebook.com/marrie

well done

thanks a lot. i friended you. i like the stuff you put out.

So far no reactions, but

So far no reactions, but feel free to share that link out to yoru public facebook thingy. Let's get the word about these devs out. It's time to talk louder this time.

could not agree more

it's one problem, that is all i want them to fix.

We'll see if that works.

good luck and share that post all over the social sphere.

thanks for all your work.

i wonder if they will even see that app review i posted?

I don't think they will. If

I don't think they will. If apple desides to not let it through, if they just don't look, etc. Also if others mark it as non helpful it goes down to the bottom of the list and the devs will never see it. Here's hoping they will.

god i hope they see it.

doubt they will but i have done everything i can.

If Twitter is Commited to Inclusion

If Twitter is committed to inclusion as they state: https://careers.twitter.com/en/diversity.html They should pull Tapbots' authentication tokens until all of their Twitter apps are accessible to WCAG AA standards. I think we as a community should put the pressure on Twitter to ensure the ecosystem is following Twitter's ethos.

Some how I doubt that will

Some how I doubt that will work, good point though. What might be accessible to me might not be accessible to you. Let's try that though. I forgot the twitter's access twitter, but feel free to tweet this thread out to them.

I think tweetbot for iOS is

I think tweetbot for iOS is Not accessible.

From what people are saying

From what people are saying it is actually very much accessible with the exception of the hidden tabs you can't see. Any other thoughts on that?

how would you go about this?

is there any way you could help me get the ball rolling on this?
you seem to have a better grasp when it comes to making apps.
it's just one problem that they need to fix and why they can't is anyones guess but it's not right.

IOS is fine.

for what i need the program is fine on IOS, everything such as tweet posters names are read unlike on the stupid mac version.

Tweetbot for iOS is NOT “fine” or “completely accessible”

harry6116,

Would you please stop misrepresenting the accessibility of Tweetbot for iOS.

There may be people who will buy the app after reading your claims that it is “completely accessible” and “fine”, only to find that this is not the case.

Also, if the Tweetbot developers were to read your comments, they might go away thinking that everything with the iOS app is “fine”; and there is nothing to be done. Again, this is not the case.

I repeat from an earlier reply to this thread, the control used to access a significant amount of features, functionality and content offered by this app is not accessible with VoiceOver.

When asked to tell me if there is an alternate way of accessing these features, functionality and content, you can only tell me that VoiceOver reads the name of tweet posters. This may be important to you, but is far from enough to claim things as “completely accessible”.

I appreciate that your intent for this post was to raise awareness of accessibility issues with the Mac app. However, your statements about the iOS app are misleading; making it extremely hard to judge the accuracy and completeness of what you are saying about Tweetbof on the Mac.

I can only judge a programs accessibility on the things i do.

I have not seen the problems that you described in the IOS version of this program.
If you would like to show me them i would be only to happy to see how bad you feel it is.
My concern at the moment is the Mac program because that can't even read the names of posters so the IOS version is not concerning me at the moment because i can do everything i need.
If you question the validity of my statement regarding the accessibility of the mac version try it yourself, don't take my word for it.
I do not think the developer even listens half the time.
When was the last Time you try the IOS version out of curiosity?

An ‘interesting’ approach to advocacy

harry6116,

And you wonder why (in your words) the “idiotic developer” of a “stupid mac version” isn’t receptive to your requests?

Way to go with getting them engaged with accessibility and the AppleVis community.

Good luck indeed with that approach to advocacy.

Is there any point me pointing out that I obviously have not sai

I could give you a list of every tweet that I have made to them if you would like them.
You'll see that I have been nothing but kind and polite to them.
I have not even mentioned this particular forum to them.
What would be the point of ranting at them? It is tempting, but I have not done so.

I'm genuinely curious about the lack of accessibility of the IOv

Could you please show me exactly what is not working in the IOS version? I am extremely curious.
I should point out that I have never attacked the developers of the program.
My frustration got the better of me in that last message which I have now edited

Issues with the iOS app

harry6116,

Below is what I said in an earlier reply on this thread.

It’s entirely possible that there is an alternate way of accessing what I claim to be ‘hidden’ to VoiceOver users. But, I have spent some time trying to find one without success.

In my view, this leaves a lot of key features of this app inaccessible. This is a shame, as the remainder of the app works quite well with VoiceOver.

Here is what I said previously:

I have a question for those who find TweetBot for iOS to be completely accessible.

The app has a 5 tab layout. However, it is possible to choose from 9 different things to fill those tabs.

Essentially, there are 5 active tabs and 4 hidden tabs.

To access those hidden tabs, a sighted user taps and holds on any tab and is presented with a list of the currently unused choices. Tapping on one of these will change what is shown in the tab position. When VoiceOver is enabled, a 1-finger double-tap and hold will visually display the list of choices, but the list itself is completely invisible to VoiceOver.

My question is, how are you changing what’s displayed in a tab? I am keen to know, as I have yet to find an alternative way of accessing the data and features available on these ‘hidden’ tabs.

As far as I can tell, the following can be assigned to a tab:

Timeline

Mentions

Messages

Search

Lists

Likes

Mute Filters

Data (Account Stats and Activity)

Your Profile

Have people found a way of accessing all of this with VoiceOver?

have had a look.

i had a look in the IOS version.
on mine there are five tabs at the bottom.
home, mentions, dater, search and i can't remember the last one.

So, yu see the 5abs

So, yu see the 5abs including the hidden ones tht are talked about? How are you getting to said hidden tabs on the ios client for tweetbot?

I can't see hidden tabs

i can't see any hidden tabs since i'm totally blind.

See, meaning using VO to read

See, meaning using VO to read the screen. I'm assuming the tabs are either read as just tab 1 of whatever, or they are completely hidden from Vo entirely.

I would say completely hidden.

hey,
i would say completely hidden, as far as VO is concerned there are only 5 tabs at the bottom.

There are actually 9 tabs

There are actually 9 tabs that one can expose I think by double tapping and holding but the voiceover cannot do this, this is a big oversight on tweetbot's part as well.

I do use see a lot meaning just that, can you see them with the assistive tech we use. If not then yes tweetbot is still not 100 percent accessible for a vo user.

ah, I see what you're saying!

ah, I see what you're saying! lol. I do the same as well. definitely sounds like an oversight on the dev side. Who knows, maybe in a future update?

they always say there working on things but never get them.

the problem is that they always say oh, we are getting there but they never do, 8 months i have been on the lookout.

Hmm, maybe another twitter

Hmm, maybe another twitter app is in order. Take Nightowl for mac for instance.

Getting to those ‘hidden’ tabs …

After more experimenting, I have now found a way to access all of the available tab options in the iOS app.

I should stress from the start that you get no feedback or hints from VoiceOver, so you may need some trial and error to reproduce this consistently.

The first thing to mention is that this only appears to work with devices that support 3D Touch and have it enabled.

Secondly, you cannot change what is displayed in the first 3 tabs (Timeline, Mentions & Messages).

Here are the steps:

The 5 tab buttons are located along the bottom of the screen.
Locate by touch the button for either tab 4 or 5.
Do not lift your finger.
Press and hold in the way that you do to access the ‘Peek’ feature of 3D Touch.

If you have done this correctly, a vertical menu will now be visually displayed directly above the tab button (so, straight up from the location of your finger). VoiceOver will give no feedback to let you know that this menu is present; and you will not be able to locate it either by touch or swiping.

Without lifting your finger from the screen, slide it slowly up the screen.
Lift your finger when it reaches your desired menu item.

Ah yes, but with no feedback from VoiceOver, you won’t know when this is. So, this is where the trial and error comes in.

On my iPhone 6s, the menu items are approximately 0.5 centimetres apart.

So, if you slide your finger 0.5 centimetres up the screen and then lift it, you should activate the bottom of the 4 menu items. Slide it up 1 centimetre and lift, and you should activate the third menu item.

With success, you will now find that the tab has a different name and is displaying the relevant content (Likes, Lists, and so on).

If you have a device which does not support 3D Touch, a long press on the tab button will activate the menu mentioned above, but only when VoiceOver is disabled. So, things get a little more tricky and require briefly disabling VoiceOver, but are just about do-able.

Good luck!