Even with IOS 14.4. when in today view; I am not able to get the list of my favourite contacts. I have to open the phone app. then tap the Favorites tab to get to them. This is very unproductive. Earlier I just had to swipe right with 3 fingers to bring up the todays view and use heading navigation to get to the list of Favorites.
For reasons beyond my understanding when my phone is disconnected from the internet by which I mean WiFi and Data. Bluetooth is turned off; background refresh is set to happen only on WiFi. Screen is locked/ switched off. I am losing at least 10% of battery life. I did not take into account on how much time it took for my phone to drain 10% battery and I think there is something still happening in the back ground that would be ther reason. Also all applications that use location services are turned off OR closed.
I tried this automation but failed; I don't think it can be done. The objective is when VoiceOver is turned on; screen curtain should be turned on and when VoiceOver is off so should the screen curtain be. The idea is to prevent battery drain even if I set my brightness to 0% and use dark mode; people are still able to see my screen but when screen curtain is turned on they can't!
I also tried this automation purely because I am as lazy like that; When my bluetooth earphone is disconnected; bluetooth should be switched off on my phone. This too can't be done.
Ability to route music to my smart speakers while keeping VoiceOver on my phone. It's a deal breaker when having a party and you get to hear VoiceOver on your surround sound when grooving to some music.
So what are the features you miss or would want to have? Write in your comments; would love to know and see if there is a way to push such requests to apple so that we can really enjoy the full potential of the device we are using
Comments
2 Features that I'd kill to have!
I really wish apple would allow us to pay by mobile like what android does, you know, use your mobile credit to pay for apps?
It kind of has it, but it can only be used for spasificservices and with spasific mobile plans.
Also, the ability to install apk packages like on android anyone?
IOS Eco system
The second wish will and cannot be implemented because of the IOS eco system; application developers are 3rd party software and if allowed to instal applications outside the store there are very huge risks to privacy of users and malware creeping into the device. Hence the IOS eco system will not allow download and instalation of applications from anywhere. apple will not have control of the content provided in such applications and cannot take a huge liability on their USP which is privacy and security of their customers
Many of these are possible :-) here’s how
for your battery situation, do me a favour and go to accessibility and make sure voice control is turned off if you don’t use it. For me when it’s turned on my phone lasts for around three hours. When it’s switched off my phone lasts for like 10 hours.
Second it’s about your screen curtain question. Whether you have a home button or the back tap button make sure it is used to toggle voiceover on/off. Then when voiceover is on turn your screen curtain on. When you press three times to toggle VoiceOver off the screen curtain automatically turns off. So switching voiceover on automatically puts the screen curtain back on and vice versa!
And finally for the Bluetooth. How about just quickly asking Siri to turn Bluetooth off and on? It takes a second and can even be hands-free if you’d like. But I would keep Bluetooth on since it barely uses any battery and if you’re using a Covid tracking application It needs Bluetooth to work.
Hope these help! If you have other questions don’t be afraid to hop back over here and chat with me :-)
Features I'd like to see
Hi,
Here are some features I'd like to see in iOS:
1. Widgets, and maybe shortcuts created in the shortcuts app, on the lock screen
2. Improved VoiceOver's screen recognition
3. Ability to clear up system cash.
4. Ability to turn off shortcuts notifications when running automations
5. Ability to read by paragraph using VoiceOver
6. Improve the accessibility of the photos app, for example making the slow mo slider when editing slow mo videos accessible with VoiceOver and also make the select button for a particular place/date in the grid view of the places album more accessible with VoiceOver.
Hope this helps you
Thank you so much for your comment and wishlist of features from IOS. Here are solutions and thoughts to some of the points in your comment:
2. Improved VoiceOver's screen recognition
Mister Kayne Says: Yes, this would really help and limit the need to rely on Microsoft Seeing AI to read text in images. Till date I am not confident of the results that VoiceOver screen recognition offers, so the images I get as forwards on what app. I open them and recognize them with Seeing AI
3. Ability to clear up system cash.
Mister Kayne Says: For an iPhone that has a Home button; this works need to investigate on how to do it on an iPhone that does not have a Home button
1. Go to iOS 14's Home Screen and initiate the Power Off menu. When you get the dialogue to Power Off OR Cancel; don't click on either
2. Now press and hold the Home button till you're taken to the Home Screen which means your iPhone RAM is now cleared. (You will be asked to put your passcode in if you have set it.)
That's all that you have to do. Once you're taken to the Home Screen from the Power Off menu, it will mean that you have Cleared your iPhone's RAM on iOS 14. The process is not at all difficult.
4. Ability to turn off shortcuts notifications when running automations
Mister Kayne Says: This one is tricky but can be done; remember you will have to do this each time you restart your phone else you would get the notifications from Shortcuts back
This video tutorial will show you how to do it; couple of hints use heading navigation when you are on the day view to reach Notifications. At first when you click Shortcuts under notifications it will not open but just say selected. What you need to do is open other applications that have sent you notifications and get back to the day view and then retry tapping on Shortcuts under the Notifications heading. Here you can completely turn off notifications from Shortcuts; I have set it to show in notifications center with the sound on, you just get a not so annoying alert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd8ICnhcta4&ab_channel=AllITalkIsTech
Brilliant! Thanks
I really appreciate your comment; I don't use Voice Control so it's off for me. However, your tip on the Screen Curtain works excellent and as expected; this would surely help me conserve more battery life and get more from my phone in a day.
PS. I charge my phone maximum to 90% and have kept a setting to turn on Low Power mode at 40% all this is done using the Shortcuts app. on my device. The logic behind 40% for Low Power mode is that at 80% charge Low Power mode is automatically turned off by the device so half of that is 40%. The logic behind 90% charge is that it is adviced that you don't charge till 100% or have your phone die to 0% because if that happens you expire one cycle of your battery charge and this would in the long run affect your battery health.
Sort of apk
Hi.
IOS should allow to install apps not present in AppStore
Check earlier comment and reply
As I said in my earlier comment titled IOS Eco system; apple will not allow such a thing for security and privacy reasons. I really do not wish to have my phone compromized at any such feature
If Apple is forced
In my opinion, the ability to install apps from sources outside of the app store could happen if Apple is forced to do so, for instance if lawmakers in the US passed a law forcing Apple to open up its iOS platform.
Given the potential or on-going antitrust investigations, this feature is not at all outside the relm of possibility.
Re: installing other apps
I agree with one of the previous posters. One of the real strengths of the Apple ecosystem is the security of these devices. I wouldn't want that compromised. I am happy that Apple does some vetting of what is available on the app store.
--Pete
Does screen curtain really…
Does screen curtain really increase battery life, or is it just a Placebo effect?
A couple things I want that will probably never happen.
App accessibility requirements: I'm not sure how this could work logistically, but there's no reason for apps to have unlabelled buttons, or some elements that VoiceOver can't see and thus be navigated to. I get the logical argument that not every app could be made accessible, but things could definitely be improved. Yeah I know you can contact the dev and let them know that their app doesn't work with VO, but that doesn't always get results, especially the bigger the company. Maybe there could be a section at the bottom of each app's page on the app store that states which accessibility features it is compatible with, much like how they tell you which languages it supports. If Apple can require app tracking info in iOS14, why not accessibility standards next?
Third party TTS engines so those of us who want eloquence or e-speak can finally have it and stop complaining. lol
An extension to activities that I’d like to have
There are some odd omissions in VO Activities. Here’s one. I generally like to have VO speak the word link when it spots links in most apps since the alternatives are difficult for me to distinguish. However, in the Wikipedia app, I really need to turn off the spoken “link” in view of the density of links in Wikipedia. Sadly, several verbosity settings are available in Activities but the setting for embedded links is absent.
accessibility improvements
As per my understanding when screen curtain is turned on; the display is totally dead by which I mean the display is not being used in any manner. So I assume that since display takes up much of the battery, if turned off using the screen curtain feature should get me some extra juice. However, this juice is also drained by using VO on the phone so there is just a middle ground that you are at right now where you can't actually say but if you intend to find out you can track battery usage I think in Settings/ Screen Time or something like that.
I understand what you mean by having an ability to track accessibility of applications by apple. Sometime back there was a survey if screen reader users would like to be tracked on websites to be determined if they are screen reader users; the results were negative and most of the users prefered not to be tracked. I think a consent should be presented to the user; explicitly stating that logs will be collected to improve accessibility if you agree to be tracked. Not sure how convincing that might be because the internet world is very untrust worthy
Custom synthesizers. I'd…
Custom synthesizers. I'd prefer Eloquence and espeak. Apple ruins the pronunciations of the voices they use.
Actually you can sideload…
Actually you can sideload ipas on ios.
actually?
Hey that is a half baked comment with no resources to prove that can be done; thank you for your comment but I think most of us would like to know how to go about doing that if there is some resource you can guide us to would help. I personally would not like to add applications to my device from a source outside apple
Sideloading
This is true, you can, but the application must have a valid signed certificate. If the app dev doesn’t have a certificate that is valid, you can’t sideload that app. Most devs don’t distribute their apps online; they tend to go for the app store so it’d be hard for you to find apps online anyway. I am aware that they exist, and I actually have an adblocker sideloaded onto my phone as we speak. However, the majority of apps are not distributed in this manner. But it can be done as long as you are a legit developer with a certificate with Apple. This is how a lot of school and companies load custom apps onto their devices. A lot of those apps aren’t in the app store, but rather are sideloaded. The company has a certificate that authenticates the app as being safe and Apple lets you run it.
Favorites
Totally agree on the missing feature for Phone Favorites. Think Apple was not consistent in its iOS 14 development on this matter. So two solutions would be possible:
- Either an iOS 14 Phone widget to place on your home screen.
- The pinned contacts you can use in Messages.
- Or maybe there's a complete revamping of the Phone-app under the hood for iOS 15?