Say I have a UI element that moves on the screen. Is it possible to update its accessibility frame as it moves while VoiceOver is focused on it? From my tests, VoiceOver ignores UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification if it's sent repeatedly in a short period of time on iOS, while sending NSAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification on macOS triggers VoiceOver to reannounce the focused element repeatedly.
Explore best practices for creating inclusive apps for users of Apple accessibility features and users from diverse backgrounds.
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Haptic or Sound queue to allow for the accessibility of the blind (sound) and deaf population (haptic) for even knowing when location services and the camera were last used?
Also, the grey notification rather than the purple notification for location services should appear for the full 24 hours after an application has used the app, if the correct description is within the "copy" of Settings
The green light lets them know that the application has changed to the camera and fade out orange light both could even have subtle simply click sounds, like a
shutter, big haptic, softer sound, but editable in Settings, of course
I'm developing a macOS app using NSView and trying to make my content navigable via VoiceOver. I'm expecting the built-in rotor category "Content Chooser" (accessed via VO + U) to list my accessible elements — just like how it shows message items in the Mail app. However, in my app, this rotor appears empty, even though:
My views return proper accessibilityChildren() or accessibilityContents() with valid NSAccessibilityElements
Each child has correct AXRole, AXLabel, etc.
The window is key and visible
VoiceOver navigation works for the elements
I've also tried:
Using both accessibilityChildren() and accessibilityContents() in container views
Setting roles like .group, .staticText, .button, etc.
Avoiding hidden elements
Ensuring all elements are visible and labeled
Still, "Content Chooser" rotor is empty.
What exact conditions must be met for an element to appear in the "Content Chooser" rotor in a macOS app?
Any Apple-specific guidance, hidden requirements, or sample code would be appreciated.
I'm facing a bizarre issue with the Apple's Accessibility APIs. I am registering an AXObserver that listens for, among other things, the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification. For many new users, the kAXSelectTextChangedNotification is not triggered, even though they have enabled Accessibility permission for the app. Other notifications are getting through (kAXWindowMovedNotification, kAXWindowResizedNotification, kAXValueChangedNotification etc - full list here), just not the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification!
We've found that we can reproduce the error by removing accessibility permission for the app and rebooting our computers. After restarting and reenabling accessibility permissions, the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification was not received, even though other notifications were fine.
Strangely, the issue can be resolved by launching Apple's Accessibility Inspector app on an impacted computer. Once the Accessibility Inspector is loaded, the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotifications start coming through as expected. This implies to me that either:
We are missing some needed setup when starting the observers. Accessibility Inspector gets it right, thus ‘starting’ the system properly.
Accessibility Inspector is using some Apple private APIs that we don’t have access to.
Things I’ve tried:
I've tried subscribing the AXSelectedTextChangedNotification to different AXUIElements, including the SystemWide element, the Application element, and children elements from the AXApplication. None of these received the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification, until Accessibility Inspector is booted up. No surprises here, as Apple's documentation confirms that you should add the notification to the root Application AXUIElement if you want to receive notifications for all its children.
I had a theory that the issue might be due to my code calling AXUIElementCreateApplication multiple times, possibly creating multiple "Applications" in Apple's Accessibility implementation. If that’s the case, the notifications might be sent to the wrong application AXUIElement. However, refactoring my code to only call AXUIElementCreateApplication once didn't resolve the issue.
I thought the issue may be caused by subscribing the AXSelectedTextChangedNotification on the high-level application element (at odds with Apple's documentation). I've tried traversing the child AXUIElements until we find one with the kAXSelectedTextAttribute and then subscribing to that. This did not resolve the issue. I don’t think it's the correct path to continue exploring, given that the notifications are received correctly after AccessibilityInspector is launched.
There is one exception to the above: if I add the kSelectedTextChangedNotification listener to a specific text field AXUIElement, I do receive the notification on that text field. However, this is not practical; I need a solution that will work for all text fields within an app. The Accessibility Inspector appears to be doing something that causes the selected-text-changed notifications to be correctly passed up to the high-level application AXUIElement.
Another thought is that I could traverse the entire Accessibility hierarchy and add listeners to every subview that has the kAXSelectedTextAttribute. However, I don’t like this long-term solution. It will be slow and incomplete: new elements get added and removed frequently. I just want the kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification to be received by the high-level Application AXUIElement, which the documentation suggests it should be. I also have evidence that this can work, since notifications start coming through after Accessibility Inspector is launched. It’s just a matter of discovering how to replicate whatever Accessibility Inspector is doing.
An interesting wrinkle: I implemented the 'traverse' strategy above, but was surprised by how few elements were in the hierarchy. Most apps only go down ~2-3 levels, which didn't seem right to me. Perhaps the Accessibility tree isn't fully initialized? I tried adding a 5-second delay to allow more initialization time, but it didn't change anything.
Does anyone have any ideas? Here's our file.
I have a view dynamically overlaid on a UITableView with proper padding (added when certain conditions are met). When VoiceOver focuses on a cell beneath this overlay, the focused element does not scroll into view. I’ve noticed similar behavior in Apple’s first-party Podcasts app.
Please find the attached image for reference. How can I resolve this issue and ensure VoiceOver scrolls the focused cell into view?
I am invoking the UIImagePickerController of type UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypePhotoLibrary from my viewController. I want shift the keyboard focus to the Cancel button which is the first interactive element on the gallery picker. When a user has full keyboard access turned on they should be able to tap tab and interact with the gallery picker modal. How do I achieve this?
I have an issue in my app when it is used together with the assistive access feature.
For authentication, we are using the capacitor firebase authentication plugin (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@capacitor-firebase/authentication) which enables users to login via apple (FirebaseAuthentication.signInWithApple(...)), google (FirebaseAuthentication.signInWithGoogle(...)), or email. Works just fine. However, when the assistive access feature is enabled, the login fails for apple ("The operation couldn't be completed. com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError error 1000) and google ("The user canceled the sign-in flow).
It seems like the popups for sign-in are blocked and therefore an error is returned immediately. The popups may be blocked by assistive access, causing the capacitor plugin to be unable to authenticate.
I have tested this on my iPhone 12 Pro using iOS 17.7
I would appreciate any suggestions to handle this issue!
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
Hello! I'm adding VoiceOver support for my app, but I'm having an issue where my accessibility value is not being spoken. I have made a helper class that creates an NSString from a double and converts it to the user's region currency.
CurrencyFormatter.m
+ (NSString *) localizedCurrencyStringFromDouble: (double) value {
NSNumberFormatter *formatter = [[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init];
formatter.numberStyle = NSNumberFormatterCurrencyStyle;
formatter.locale = [NSLocale currentLocale];
NSString *currencyString = [formatter stringFromNumber: @(value)];
[formatter release];
return currencyString;
}
View Contoller
self.checkTotalLabel.accessibilityLabel = NSLocalizedString(@"Total Amount", @"Accessibility Label for Total");
self.checkTotalLabel.accessibilityValue = [CurrencyFormatter localizedCurrencyStringFromDouble: total];
I'm confused on whether the value should go into the accessibility label or not. When the currency is just USD and the language is English, it's a simple fix. But when the currency needs to be converted, I'm not sure where to go from here.
If anyone has any guidance, it would help me a lot!
Thank you!
Please excuse me if this is obvious. I'm new to Apple development.
Is there a SwiftUI Accessibility Inspector? I run the standard one, in Xcode 26b3, and it shows me warnings for things that I didn't create in SwiftUI. I presume that "SwiftUI" is primarily implemented using macros and that these things are either generated or boilerplate lower-level things. But if so, then why would they trip Accessibility Inspector warnings? Is there something I can do from SwiftUI to clear them?
Or... is there a demangler somewhere that will translate from these names into something this human might recognize?
I'm targeting macos, btw, if that makes any difference.
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
ar quicklook suddenly is grayed out on iphone 15 pro, I bought the phone new recently ot was working great, 2 days ago updated to ios 18.1.4, ar mode kept opening but i started getting a move iphone over surface message and the object wouldn’t detect surfaces correctly, updated to ios 18.5, now when i open quicklook modesl ar is completely greyed out,
can someone help me fix or detect the issue
thank you
I am developing a vision os app for controlling an underwater ROV. I have ornaments with telemetry and buttons around a central video view feed. I have custom buttons mappings, such as "A" for locking the depth of the drone. However, when I look at buttons or certain ornaments, my custom gamepad logic is kept from running. This means that when a SwiftUI Button gains focus on visionOS, pressing the controller’s A button triggers the system’s default “click” on that Button rather than my custom buttonA handler. Essentially, focus interception by the system is stealing my A-press events and preventing my custom gamepad logic from running.
Is there a way to disable the built in gamepad interaction and only allow my custom gamepad mappings?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Game Controller
Accessibility
Focus
visionOS
I have users who need to be able to hear the content of SwiftUI Text views. I have specified the .textSelection(.enabled) modifier for the text views. Adding this modifier causes a "copy" option to appear on long press, but it doesn't enable the visible selection of text, nor does it provide the "Speak" menu item that UIKit allows on text selection.
Is the "Speak Selection" accessibility feature broken for SwiftUI Text views? I've found that there's another accessibility feature that does work (enabling the Speech Controller button for "Speak Screen"). Do I need to tell my users that Apple is deprecating the "Speak Selection" accessibility feature, and that they need to use the Speech Controller instead? Or is there something else I can do to my SwiftUI to get that feature to work?
I am testing the accessibility feature available in the Settings app called "Speak Screen". The help text in the Setting app states that swiping down with two fingers will cause the screen content to be spoken. However, I've been unable to get this feature to work. Every time I try the double finger swipe down, it behaves the same as the single finger swipe down gesture. Usually this manifests as making scroll views bounce.
I've tried toggling the feature on and off, turning off Reachability, and rebooting my phone, but I can't get the speak screen gesture to work. If I access the speak screen feature from the "Speech Controller" button, then the screens content is spoken, as expected, so I know the feature is enabled. It's just the gesture that doesn't work.
Is there something else I need to do to get this gesture to work? I don't want to tell my users to turn this feature on if I can't verify that the gesture will work with my app.
I have been working to remediate PDFs for a client. The documents/forms have many tables. When I correctly tag a table, using Foxit Editor Pro, it works beautifully on a PC reading it with NVDA. On Mac using VoiceOver the table isn't accessible. It doesn't matter if I try to read it in Adobe Acrobat, Foxit, or Preview. The reader often says the document is empty, omits column headers, and/or associates the wrong header with the column data.
The documents have essentially the same coding behind them as for the web. Why is it they perform so well on a PC with NVDA, but so poorly with Mac VoiceOver? I am a Quality Assurance Specialist. I review websites apps, and documents for accessibility. Why can't I do my job using only my Mac system?
As a Mac user, it frustrates me that I can't use my preferred system for checking documents to see if they are accessible because VoiceOver doesn't work well. I actually have to recommend to my clients and their customers that they need to use a PC with NVDA or Jaws for these documents to be able to get all the information. Unfortunately, most people aren't able to have, or maintain, both systems. Overall, Mac products are very high quality. This, and other issues with VoiceOver, seems to be a large gap in Apple's offerings and functionality.
I would appreciate a human response to the original email I sent about this on 7/30/2025.
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
I'm encountering an issue related to BLE device discovery on iOS.
I have a BLE peripheral device that I initially connected to using an iOS device. After this connection, the BLE device's advertised name was programmatically changed by the peripheral. Now, when I try to scan for this device using other iOS devices, it does not appear in the scan results in most apps — including nRF Connect and our own custom BLE app that uses CoreBluetooth.
A few observations:
The device is definitely powered on and advertising (confirmed via Android).
The name change is reflected correctly on Android and on the iOS device that originally connected to it.
Other iOS devices no longer see the device in their scan list.
Hi,
I'm trying to fix tvOS view for VoiceOver accessibility feature:
TabView { // 5 tabs
Text(title)
Button(play)
ScrollView { // Live
LazyHStack { 200 items }
}
ScrollView { // Continue watching
LazyHStack { 500 items }
}
}
When the view shows up VoiceOver reads:
"Home tab 1 of 5, Item 2" - not sure why it reads Item 2 of the first cell in scroll view, maybe beacause it just got loaded by LazyHStack.
VocieOver should only read "Home tab 1 of 5"
When moving focus to scroll view it reads:
"Live, Item 1" and after slight delay "Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4"
When moving focus to second item it reads:
"Item 2" and after slight delay "Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4"
When moving focus to third item it reads:
"Item 3" and after slight delay "Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4"
It should be just reading what is focused, idealy just
"Live, Item 1, 1 of 200"
then after moving focus on item 2
"Item 2, 2 of 200"
this time without the word "Live" because we are on the same scroll view (the same horizontal list)
Currently the app is unusable, we have visually impaired testers and this rotor reading everything on the screen is totaly confusing, because users don't know where they are and what is actually focused.
This is a video streaming app and we are streaming all the time, even on home page in background, binge plays one item after another, usually there is never ending Live stream playing, user can switch TV channel, but we continue to play. Voice over should only read what's focused after user interaction.
Original Apple TV app does not do that, so it cannot be caused by some verbose accessibility settings. It reads correctly only focused item in scrolling lists.
How do I disable reading content that is not focused?
I tried:
.accessibilityLabel(isFocused ? title : "")
.accessibilityHidden(!isFocused)
.accessibilityHidden(true) - tried on various levels in view hierarchy
.accessiblityElement(children: .ignore) - even focused item is not read back by voice over
.accessiblityElement(children: .ignore) - even focused item is not read back by voice over
.accessiblityElement(children: .contain) - tried on various levels in view hierarchy
.accessiblityElement(children: .combine) - tried on various levels in view hierarchy
.accessibilityAddTraits(.isHeader) - tried on various levels in view hierarchy
.accessibilityRemoveTraits(.isHeader) - tried on various levels in view hierarchy
// the last 2 was basically an attempt to hack it
.accessibilityRotor("", ranges []) - another hack that I tried on ScrollView, LazyHStack, also on top level view.
50+ other attempts at configuring accessibility tags attached to views.
I have seen all the accessibility videos, tried all sample code projects, I haven't found a solution anywhere, internet search didn't find anything, AI didn't help as it can only provide code that someone else wrote before.
Any idea how to fix this?
Thanks.
I have more than 1000 notes classified in parent/child folders up to 5 levels. From the 5th level of files I can no longer share the note. The note is not shared. It is that of the parent file that is shared.
Thank you very much
Good to you
Christophe
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
In the app I'm working on, I have a SwiftUI View embedded in a UIKit Storyboard. The SwiftUI View holds a menu with a list of payment tools, and the ForEach loop looks like this:
ForEach(self.paymentToolsVM.paymentToolsItems, id: \.self) { paymentTool in
Button {
navigationCallback(paymentTool.segueID)
} label: {
PaymentToolsRow(paymentToolName: paymentTool.title, imageName: paymentTool.imageName)
.accessibilityElement()
.accessibilityIdentifier("Billing_\(paymentTool.title.replacingOccurrences(of: " ", with: ""))")
}
if paymentTool != self.paymentToolsVM.paymentToolsItems.last {
Divider()
}
}
So you can see the accessibility ID is there, and it shows up properly when I open up Accessibility Inspector with the simulator, but the testing script isn't picking up on it, and it doesn't show up when the view is inspected in Appium. I have other SwiftUI views embedded in the UIKit view, and the script picks up the buttons on those, so I'm not sure what's different about this one.
If it helps, the script is written in Java with the BDD framework. I can try to get the relevant part of the script if anyone thinks that would be helpful. Otherwise, is there anything else I can try?
When I try to get the frames of a AXUIElementRef using AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(element, (CFStringRef)attribute, &result) the frames are shifted and rotated on the iOS simulator.
I get the same frames when using the Accessibility Inspector when the Max is selected as the host.
When I switch the host to the iOS simulator the frames are correct.
How is the Accessibility Inspector getting the correct frames? And how can I do the same in my app?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
Added a view controller in the storyboard, added a tableview in this view, and added a cell under the table, when I run the APP to jump to the page, when using the narration function, I find that when I use three fingers to swipe up or down, a sentence will be broadcast in English, I want to no longer change the accessiblity of the cell, when I perform the behavior of swiping up or down with three fingers, Broadcast how Chinese should be implemented.