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I normally don't do this, but I did a risky thing and installed iOS 18 public beta on my primary (and only) iPhone. I've only been using it for a few hours, but I have to say I'm quite impressed. Regarding braille screen input, aside from the new features, it just feels a lot snappier and more reliable. I haven't had it lag, fail to handle contracted input correctly, etc. like I saw in prior versions. Everything else feels pretty snappy and solid too. I've filed a couple of VoiceOver bugs, but they're mostly obscure things I can work around or avoid. Time will tell, but so far, this feels like a really solid release. And many of you know I don't give that kind of praise lightly. :) #accessibility
#Accessibility
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

Sean Randall reshared this.

in reply to Jamie Teh

Alex Hall
Alex Hall
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You're a brave man. I'm glad it's working out. The BSI changes are very neat on my non-essential iPad. I look forward to the full release.
in reply to Alex Hall

Jason Fayre
Jason Fayre
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@alexhall I want to try the betas, but unfortunately I only have one device and my employer will boot the device off the network if I run a beta.
@Alex Hall
in reply to Alex Hall

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@alexhall Either brave or very, very silly. I may yet live to regret it. Time will tell.
@Alex Hall
in reply to Jamie Teh

James Dean
James Dean
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@alexhall I too am running public beta on my only functional phone. SE2022 and it's been going very well. I did make an encrypted back up to my Mac first just in case things really went weird, but I've been so impressed how solid this has been for a beta. I think they are trying to fix the long-standing issue where voiceover jumps around in the app switcher when you first open it, but right now that's really bad and if I'm not quick, I'll switch to the wrong app multiple times. So I guess that's the only real issue I'm having with it.
@Alex Hall
in reply to Jamie Teh

Hai Nguyen Ly✅
Hai Nguyen Ly✅
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Does activating Show notifications in the notification center cause a springboard crash for you? It happens consistently for me and I have to train myself not to activate the button unless I want to wait for a reboot each time.
in reply to Hai Nguyen Ly✅

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@HNguyenLy I don't have that button at all right now, but I'll try it when it next shows up and let you
@Hai Nguyen Ly✅
in reply to Jamie Teh

David "Dave" Treloar
David "Dave" Treloar
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Okay I'm curious how do you do braile on a screen that is flat and has no bumps, which is what braile basically is as a language form.
in reply to David "Dave" Treloar

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@trelord75 This is braille input (typing), not output (reading). To type braille, you don't need dots. You just position your fingers on either side of the screen as you would on a physical braille keyboard, using up to 6 fingers at once on each hand to enter braille cells.
@David "Dave" Treloar
in reply to Jamie Teh

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@trelord75 For those of us that can't see the keyboard on the screen, this can be a massive deal faster, especially because braille has "contractions" which effectively cut down the number of characters you have to type.
@David "Dave" Treloar
in reply to Jamie Teh

David "Dave" Treloar
David "Dave" Treloar
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Ah that makes sense now, and you would have voice output response to help you along, all the best to you, I still have my sight, for now, but with MS degradation that is not guaranteed.

Edit: but isn't it great that technology allows us to even communicate like this, it's pretty amazing really when you think about it, when I was young I wouldn't have even thought this would be possible.

This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to David "Dave" Treloar

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@trelord75 It is indeed wonderful. Technology helps level the playing field in so many ways for people with disabilities. That's why it's so important that we get accessibility right - to maximise these benefits - and why I'm so driven where that is concerned. We still have a long way to go, but we've also come a very long way at the same time.
@David "Dave" Treloar
in reply to Jamie Teh

David "Dave" Treloar
David "Dave" Treloar
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The Sean guy who responded to you earlier works in telecommunications on accessibly programming so if you have issues, he'll sort you out by the looks of it just fyi, take care.

His profile link okay to make it easy you for to find him:
aus.social/@cachondo@defcon.so…

Edit: he responded to the double click post.

Aus.Social

aus.social
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Jamie Teh

David "Dave" Treloar
David "Dave" Treloar
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One more thing since I just read your profile, mozilla, well you can tell them for me, that enlarging the text really helps, my eyesight is fine long distance for now but short I'm hopeless and enlarging the text on webpages is simply awesome, otherwise I'd be constantly wearing glasses, medications or small text instructions on things, all glasses, we all get old eventually, and things get, broken.
in reply to Jamie Teh

Thomas Stivers
Thomas Stivers
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For me, the Seeing AI app crashes immediately on launch in the beta. I’m not sure if it will be Apple or Microsoft that fix that issue but I hope one of them gets to it soon.
in reply to Thomas Stivers

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@Thomas_Stivers Thankfully, I can't reproduce that here. Is this with the developer beta or the public beta? Not sure if they're different currently, but I assume the dev beta is ahead slightly.
@Thomas Stivers
in reply to Jamie Teh

Thomas Stivers
Thomas Stivers
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It’s happening with the public beta. Uninstalling and reinstalling the app had no effect.
in reply to Thomas Stivers

Jamie Teh
Jamie Teh
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@Thomas_Stivers Damn. What phone do you have there? I wonder if it's some weird thing with a sensor my phone doesn't have; the LiDAR or similar. I have an SE, so no LiDAR.
@Thomas Stivers
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