So one of the things for me about Android is the TTS engines. Apple has, basically, three speech engines built into every one of their operating systems. Vocalizer which is what VoiceOver starts off on using, Macintalk which is like Alex, and Fred and all that, and Eloquence. Three different ways of speaking, pronounciation sets, all that. Actual choice.
On Android though, a Pixel comes with Google TTS. And if you've ever been somewhere with no Internet and heard a low quality, robotic voice from Google Maps, you've heard what we have to deal with on a Pixel every single day unless we get something different. So on Android, there are a few more options. RH Voice which honestly doesn't sound so good to me in English, ESpeak which is as robotic as you can get and was last updated on Oct 23, 2022 (almost a year ago), Vocalizer which had its last update on Oct 30, 2021 (which is better than I thought but still feels unmaintained), and that's about all I know of. On Samsung phones, you can get Samsung TTS out of the box, and it's pretty good. Of course, then you get Samsung's TalkBack, Samsung's version of everything, but also all the goodies that come with Samsung phones. Oh and Samsung TTS has a longer pause between everything cause it was made to read stuff not for screen reading, so everything feels slower than it is.
So it's really sad. Eloquence is still a 32-bit app, so will not work on the newest Pixels. Google TTS' newer local models are sluggish with TalkBack, and cannot speak quickly, as many have found out when working around the fact that TalkBack doesn't use the newer model natively. And it's sluggish when reading long pieces of text, like this one. And there iOS is, with tons of voices to choose from. And I get it, I should be thankful that we have even ESpeak, but when you come home from a stressful day at work, what do you want to hear?
I pulled out the Mac tonight, after sleeping for like 7 or 8 hours. And I’m really liking how responsive VoiceOver is. Just using Command + Tab multiple times and wow, the response is just as good as on Windows. Of course, this is using the Sonoma beta, but still it’s a great improvement.
I've gotten into trouble in the past because I didn't realize that making an opacity of zero to hide something didn't hide it from VoiceOver, which would still detect it. Jordi saw me mention that and even made it one of the "gotchas" for the Accessibility part of the SwiftUI Series he did.
I just realized that's not the case any more. VoiceOver is ignoring the element when its opacity is zero without me having to do anything else.
I'm having the hardest time getting VoiceOver in a SwiftUI Grid to combine everything in a row. The only way I've figured out how to do it is to wrap the GridRow in an HStack, which seems clunky. Is there another way I could have done this?
I'm not a heavy Braille user on #iOS so it could just be me but, is it just me or do Braille displays on iOS legitimately not work very well? In 16.7.2, the cursor jumped around the screen when trying to type an email unless I manually changed to eight-dot computer Braille, and on 17, while I don't have that problem anymore, my Braille display (a BrailleNote Apex) doesn't work correctly when the phone unlocks. Braille just doesn't seem to work nearly as well as it did, say, in iOS 12. But then again, neither does iOS as a whole. #Accessibility#VoiceOver#Braille#BrailleDisplay
Today's accessibility question (I swear I try to find the answers on my own):
I have a small button on the right side of some whitespace. If a VoiceOver user is exploring using touch and drag how do I make the Spacer's whitespace part of the button?
ChatGPT and Bard were useless.
Trying to combine them as an accessibility element didn't work.
I just noticed something about my SwiftUI Buttons that are inside a Menu (which is inside a ToolbarItem). VoiceOver is only reading the Label and not the Hint. 🤔
A Button in a ToolbarItem that's NOT in a Menu will get the hint read.
I got the green light to go hunting for a blind audiobook narrator! I believe in putting my money back into the community, so anyone know where I can find some blind audiobook narrators? #VoiceOver#AudioBook#Publishing
I want away to record my screen caps with audeio from mac os and be able to record my iOs demos too. screenflow is grate but expensive and obs is not all that accessible on mac os. Help:? #Youtube#audio#voiceover
You know, it's kinda crazy that Mac now has a Hammerspoon to allow VoiceOver users to get an image described by GPT4-vision, but there's no NVDA addon for this. Kinda makes me wonder if the blind developer community for Macs is going to have more tools than Windows folks one of these days. They already have VOCR, sounds for UI actions, offline, I think, translation of the VO cursor's contents, and probably more Hammerspoon stuff.
Hi dear #iOS users! I have a Health widget on my home screen. Is there a way to make it show steps instead of calories, percentage and what not, or it will be reason number 7001 why I don't like Apple's policies? And if it's the later, please suggest a #VoiceOver accessible app for that? Thanks!
So, looking at three #Misskey clients on the Mac so far, those being #Kimis#missririca (also on Android) and #Misscat, all of them if running on a Mac using #Voiceover (where Kimis is a Mac exclusive), all three of them have some issue or another at the moment.
In iOS 17 beta 5, you can now open apps from the home screen, ... using your Braille display! Just press Enter or Return on the display, type a few letters of the app, press Enter again, and you're shown the auto-completed app name. Press Enter again, and it's opened!
So uh, how's Google supposed to catch up with this? Lol Apple, y'all might have to slow down for poor ol' Google! Lol nah, prove to me every update why I chose Apple. Like this is something that I don't think I've ever asked for, but I'd loved the idea. and here it is.
If you are a #VoiceOver#MacOS#beta user, please! do not update to MacOS 14.2 beta 2 (build 23C5030f). They have completely broken the text box navigation, meaning that you cannot use your arrows to navigate the text. The cursor will indeed move, however the change will not be reported back, so you have to query your current line with VO+L.
I just realized that if you're formatting to an abbreviated weekday then VoiceOver (at least Ava and Zoe Premium) will only fully pronounce some of the days.
I guess it's because the ones that aren't pronounced are actual words with other meanings? 🤔
Text(oneShowDay.formatted(.dateTime.weekday(.abbreviated)))
If you are #blind and you have been locked out of being able to use your InstantPot after the inaccessible app update, please email support@instantpot.com and refer to Case 02284154 asking that they restore #VoiceOver#accessibility to their #iOS app.