In this episode, Thomas Domville (also known as Not a Mouse) walks listeners through the new and customizable VoiceOver sounds and haptic feedback options introduced in iOS. Thomas highlights how these features can be especially helpful for users who experience sensory overload or prefer a more tailored accessibility experience.
Listeners will learn how to access, adjust, and personalize VoiceOver sound effects and haptics, including how to change volumes, intensities, and even toggle individual sounds on or off.
Key Points
Introduction to VoiceOver sounds
- Explanation of different tones and sound effects (e.g., navigation into Touch Containers).
- Why customizing these effects can reduce sensory overload.
Accessing the settings
- Step-by-step navigation into Accessibility → VoiceOver → Audio → VoiceOver Sounds and Haptics.
Customizing options
- Turn off VoiceOver sounds completely if preferred.
- Adjust sound volume separately from speech volume.
- Toggle haptics on or off, or fine-tune haptic intensity.
Per-effect control
- Each VoiceOver sound (such as “navigated inside touch container”) can be individually toggled on/off.
- Users can preview each sound before deciding to keep or disable it.
Step-by-Step Guide
- Open Settings → Double tap to enter.
- Navigate to Accessibility → Swipe right until Accessibility button is found.
- Go to VoiceOver → Double tap to open.
- Select Audio → Double tap.
- Open VoiceOver Sounds and Haptics.
- Customize options:
- Toggle all VoiceOver sounds on/off.
- Adjust sound volume independently from speech volume.
Enable/disable haptics, and set haptic intensity.
- Explore individual sound effects:
Find a specific sound (e.g., “Navigated inside touch container”).
- Preview the sound.
- Choose to turn it on or off.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Thomas: Hello and welcome. My name is Thomas Donville, also known as Not a Mouse. Now, many of you may not know that you could do this, and that is being able to change how the voiceover tones or sounds in Haptic works. So, all the different variations of the voiceover sounds that you get, for example, in starting iOS 26, we had this new navigation into Touch Container. I'm going to use that as an example here.
So I'll give you a little indicator of what we're looking for here and what I mean by voiceover sound. You heard that little subtle tone. And there's all sorts of variation of voiceover noise you can get. Just like that. When you hit the side, it goes thunk like that. So those are the different voice effects. Those are the different sound effects that voiceover can create. So... The navigating to touch container, I'm going to use that as an example.
I'll show you a couple of things, what you can do in this area. And it's something that you might want to look through that you probably didn't know exists. Now, why I'm doing this is because I have some clients that are sometimes get a little sensory overload. And I can understand there's some things that might be annoying or perhaps it's just too much. I just need to kind of cut down on the sound effects and whatnot with that voiceover has. You can also control the haptic that the voiceover does. Yep. So we're going to do this.
We're going to go to the native settings. One-figure double-tap goes to settings. Now I'm going to swipe to the right until you get the accessibility button.
VoiceOver: One-figure double-tap. In ways that work best for you with accessibility features for vision, mobility, hearing, speech, and cognition. Learn more. Heading.
Thomas: Now swipe to the right until you get to the voiceover.
VoiceOver: Personalize iPhone. Vision. Heading. Voiceover. On. Button.
Thomas: Double tap there.
VoiceOver: Voiceover. Switch button. On. Double tap to toggle setting.
Thomas: Now swipe to the right until you get to audio.
VoiceOver: Audio. Button.
Thomas: One finger double tap here.
VoiceOver: Voiceover sounds and haptics. Button.
Thomas: And there she is. There's the voiceover sounds and haptics. So we're going to do one finger double tap to open this up. And I'll start at the top here.
VoiceOver: Audio, back button. Voice over sounds and haptics, heading. Sounds, heading. Sounds, switch button, on. Double tap to toggle settings.
Thomas: So the first option we can just completely turn off the voice over sound effects if that's what you want to do. But I don't want to do that. I like some of the sounds. I'm going to go to the right some more here, show you a couple more things.
VoiceOver: Match speech volume, switch button, off. Double tap sound volume 100% adjustable. Swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value.
Thomas: I like to point that out to a lot of people because a lot of people don't realize that voiceover sound effects has its own volume. Yeah, it's incredible. So if the sound is annoying but you don't want to get rid of it, but you want to lower that effect down, come in right in here and adjust that to a lower amount to your liking.
VoiceOver: The volume rotor will change only the volume of voiceover speech. Haptics. Heading. Haptics. Switch button on. Double tap to toggle settings.
Thomas: If for any reason the voiceover haptics is annoying and you don't like that, I know some people do have a sensory overload when it comes to haptic. You want to completely turn that off, double tap that, and that will completely turn off all the haptics for any voiceover sound effects.
VoiceOver: Haptic intensity 100% adjustable. Swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value.
Thomas: And similar to the volume, you get to increase or decrease the intensity of the haptic. So if you don't want to get rid of it entirely, but you don't want it as aggressive, you can turn that down.
VoiceOver: Interaction. Heading.
Thomas: All right. So this is the area we can find all the different sound effects that VoiceOver creates. There's tons of them in here. And each of these little areas, I'll give you one or two as an example here.
VoiceOver: Item focused. Button. Screen recognition. Item focused. Button.
Thomas: So any of those items that pop up for those reasons, then that sound effect lays in that area. But what I'm looking for is the navigating to the touch container, as I mentioned before. I'm going to use my heading because I know kind of an area where this is at. And now I'm going to swipe to the right until I find the particular item that I'm looking for.
VoiceOver: Screen changed. Button. Synchronized focus. Button. Entered target area. Button. Exited target area. Button. Navigated inside touch container. Button.
Thomas: There she is. Double tap on that.
VoiceOver: Sound. Switch button on. Double tap to toggle setting.
Thomas: Now, the two cool things about that, that for every sound effect you go into, you have the option to turn it on or off specifically. So I just want to turn this off for this particular sound effect. So if you want to toggle that, just do a one-figure double tap, and then it'll toggle it off. Now, if you're curious what that sounds like, hey, I'm not quite sure what this sound effect does. Maybe I've heard it before. I'm not sure. Go to the right until you get to preview.
This allows you to listen to the particular sound, give you a better idea if that's the tone I'm really going to turn off or back on. So one finger double tap and you should hear this particular sound that we had earlier on in the podcast. Yep, it was, so you got to hear that. So this is a great way of going through all your voiceover sounds along with the haptics to make changes where you want to lessen the annoyance, including the volume for the haptic intensities.
And then that shows you how you can turn those particular items on and off and how to preview it. Well, that's going to do it for me now. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. Until next time.