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Having trouble with Accessibility API of the ApplicationServices framework
After replacing Big Sur OSX 11.0 with the latest 11.5, my app's AXObserverAddNotification methods fails. Here is sample code I tested from StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/853833/how-can-my-app-detect-a-change-to-another-apps-window AXUIElementRef app = AXUIElementCreateApplication(82695); // the pid for front-running Xcode 12.5.1 CFTypeRef frontWindow = NULL; AXError err = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue( app, kAXFocusedWindowAttribute, &frontWindow );     if ( err != kAXErrorSuccess ){         NSLog(@"failed with error: %i",err);     } NSLog(@"app: %@  frontWindow: %@",app,frontWindow); 'frontWindow' reference is never created and I get the error number -25204. It seems like the latest Big Sur 11.5 has revised the Accessibility API or perhaps there is some permission switch I am unaware of that would make things work. What am I doing wrong?
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821
Jun ’25
VoiceOver does not focus App Store subscription modal when shown via AppStore.showManageSubscriptions(in:)
Description When calling AppStore.showManageSubscriptions(in:), the system modal for managing subscriptions appears visually. However, it is not automatically focused by VoiceOver, and in some cases, VoiceOver still allows interaction with elements in the underlying view controller, such as buttons and labels. This creates confusion and violates accessibility expectations. Steps to Reproduce 1. In a UIKit app, present the system subscription sheet via AppStore.showManageSubscriptions(in:). 2. Ensure VoiceOver is enabled on the device. 3. Observe the focus behavior when the modal appears. 4. Try swiping right/left — VoiceOver continues to announce items in the presenting view controller. Expected Result The modal should automatically take VoiceOver focus, and all elements behind it should be non-accessible until dismissed. Actual Result VoiceOver continues to focus and interact with elements behind the presented modal. Notes • Tested on iOS 18.5 • Reproducible on device • Using Swift/UIKit (not SwiftUI)
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211
Jul ’25
Making PhotoLibrary UIImagePickerController a11y compliant
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?
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156
May ’25
Assistive Access + Firebase Authentication
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!
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750
Jul ’25
VoiceOver for Accessibility Labels with Localization
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!
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759
Jul ’25
VisionOS - Gamepad steals focus
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?
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257
Apr ’25
SwiftUI Accessibility Inspector?
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.
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1.3k
Jul ’25
ar quicklook suddenly is grayed out on iphone 15 pro
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
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362
May ’25
How to Ensure Data Privacy with VoiceOver Reading Sensitive Information?
VoiceOver reads out all visible content on the screen, which is essential for visually challenged users. However, this raises a privacy concern—what if a user accidentally focuses on sensitive information, like a bank account password, and it gets read aloud? How can developers prevent VoiceOver from exposing confidential data while still maintaining accessibility? Are there best practices or recommended approaches to handle such scenarios effectively?
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453
Mar ’25
Speak Screen gesture not working
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.
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211
Jul ’25
SwiftUI tvOS Accessibility VoiceOver - prevent reading all items in ScrollView over and over
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.
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151
Apr ’25
VoiceOver doesn't work well for accessing PDFs/forms with tables
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.
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138
Jul ’25
BLE Device Not Appearing in Scan List on iOS After Name Change
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.
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355
Jul ’25
Problem with the note application
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
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251
May ’25
Accessibility IDs showing up in Accessibility Inspector, but automated testing script is unable to find them
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?
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171
May ’25
FocusState Issue in iOS 18 with Keyboard Navigation
I have implemented a SwiftUI view containing a grid of TextField elements, where focus moves automatically to the next field upon input. This behavior works well on iOS 16 and 17, maintaining proper focus highlighting when keyboard full access is enabled. However, in iOS 18 and above, the keyboard full access focus behaves differently. It always stays behind the actual focus state, causing a mismatch between the visually highlighted field and the active text input. This leads to usability issues, especially for users navigating with an external keyboard. Below is the SwiftUI code for reference: struct AutoFocusGridTextFieldsView: View { private let fieldCount: Int private let columns: Int @State private var textFields: [String] @FocusState private var focusedField: Int? init(fieldCount: Int = 17, columns: Int = 5) { self.fieldCount = fieldCount self.columns = columns _textFields = State(initialValue: Array(repeating: "", count: fieldCount)) } var body: some View { let rows = (fieldCount / columns) + (fieldCount % columns == 0 ? 0 : 1) VStack(spacing: 10) { ForEach(0..<rows, id: \.self) { row in HStack(spacing: 10) { ForEach(0..<columns, id: \.self) { col in let index = row * columns + col if index < fieldCount { TextField("", text: $textFields[index]) .frame(width: 40, height: 40) .multilineTextAlignment(.center) .textFieldStyle(RoundedBorderTextFieldStyle()) .focused($focusedField, equals: index) .onChange(of: textFields[index]) { newValue in if newValue.count > 1 { textFields[index] = String(newValue.prefix(1)) } if !textFields[index].isEmpty { moveToNextField(from: index) } } } } } } } .padding() .onAppear { focusedField = 0 } } private func moveToNextField(from index: Int) { if index + 1 < fieldCount { focusedField = index + 1 } } } struct AutoFocusGridTextFieldsView_Previews: PreviewProvider { static var previews: some View { AutoFocusGridTextFieldsView(fieldCount: 10, columns: 5) } } Has anyone else encountered this issue with FocusState in iOS 18? I really do believe that this is a bug strictly connected to keyboard navigation since I experienced similar problem also on UIKit equivalent of the view. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
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619
Mar ’25
Frames rotated and shifted in landscape for iOS simulator
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?
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137
Jun ’25
Voice-over mode issues
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.
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77
Jun ’25
How to disable the default focus effect and detect keyboard focus in SwiftUI?
I’m trying to customize the keyboard focus appearance in SwiftUI. In UIKit (see WWDC 2021 session Focus on iPad keyboard navigation), it’s possible to remove the default UIFocusHaloEffect and change a view’s appearance depending on whether it has focus or not. In SwiftUI I’ve tried the following: .focusable() // .focusable(true, interactions: .activate) .focusEffectDisabled() .focused($isFocused) However, I’m running into several issues: .focusable(true, interactions: .activate) causes an infinite loop, so keyboard navigation stops responding .focusEffectDisabled() doesn’t seem to remove the default focus effect on iOS Using @FocusState prevents Space from triggering the action when the view has keyboard focus My main questions: How can I reliably detect whether a SwiftUI view has keyboard focus? (Is there an alternative to FocusState that integrates better with keyboard navigation on iOS?) What’s the recommended way in SwiftUI to disable the default focus effect (the blue overlay) and replace it with a custom border? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated! Here's my sample code: import SwiftUI struct KeyboardFocusExample: View { var body: some View { // The ScrollView is required, otherwise the custom focus value resets to false after a few seconds. I also need it for my actual use case ScrollView { VStack { Text("First button") .keyboardFocus() .button { print("First button tapped") } Text("Second button") .keyboardFocus() .button { print("Second button tapped") } } } } } // MARK: - Focus Modifier struct KeyboardFocusModifier: ViewModifier { @FocusState private var isFocused: Bool func body(content: Content) -> some View { content .focusable() // ⚠️ Must come before .focused(), otherwise the FocusState won’t be recognized // .focusable(true, interactions: .activate) // ⚠️ This causes an infinite loop, so keyboard navigation no longer responds .focusEffectDisabled() // ⚠️ Has no effect on iOS .focused($isFocused) // Custom Halo effect .padding(4) .overlay( RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 18) .strokeBorder( isFocused ? .red : .clear, lineWidth: 2 ) ) .padding(-4) } } extension View { public func keyboardFocus() -> some View { modifier(KeyboardFocusModifier()) } } // MARK: - Button Modifier /// ⚠️ Using a Button view makes no difference struct ButtonModifier: ViewModifier { let action: () -> Void func body(content: Content) -> some View { content .contentShape(Rectangle()) .onTapGesture { action() } .accessibilityAction { action() } .accessibilityAddTraits(.isButton) .accessibilityElement(children: .combine) .accessibilityRespondsToUserInteraction() } } extension View { public func button(action: @escaping () -> Void) -> some View { modifier(ButtonModifier(action: action)) } }
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536
Sep ’25