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AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice audioFileSettings field
Hello, the AVSpeechSynthesisVoice has a audioFileSettings attributes let utterance = AVSpeechUtterance(string: text) utterance.voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(identifier: voiceSelected!) print("- voice \(utterance.voice!.audioFileSettings)") ["AVLinearPCMIsBigEndianKey": 0, "AVLinearPCMIsFloatKey": 1, "AVLinearPCMIsNonInterleaved": 1, "AVNumberOfChannelsKey": 1, "AVSampleRateKey": 22050, "AVFormatIDKey": 1819304813, "AVLinearPCMBitDepthKey": 32] This is declared in AVSpeechSynthesisVoice { ... @available(iOS 13.0, *) open var **audioFileSettings:** [String : Any] { get } @available(iOS 17.0, *) open var voiceTraits: AVSpeechSynthesisVoice.Traits { get } } How can we specify the audioFileSettings attributes in a AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice ? Cause in AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice there is no such field AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice { open var name: String { get } open var identifier: String { get } open var primaryLanguages: [String] { get } open var supportedLanguages: [String] { get } open var voiceSize: Int64 open var version: String open var gender: AVSpeechSynthesisVoiceGender open var age: Int } Regards
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147
Mar ’25
AXIsProcessTrusted returns true, but AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue fails with .cannotComplete
This was working a few days ago, but it has since stopped and I can't figure out why. I've tried resetting TCC, double-checking my entitlements, restarting, deleting and rebuilding, and nothing works. My app is a sandboxed macOS SwiftUI LSUIElement app that, when invoked, checks to see if the frontmost process is Terminal, then tries to get the frontmost window’s title. func getFrontmostWindowTitle() throws -> String? { let trusted = AXIsProcessTrusted() print("getFrontmostWindowTitle AX trusted: \(trusted)") guard let app = NSWorkspace.shared.frontmostApplication else { return nil } let appElement = AXUIElementCreateApplication(app.processIdentifier) var focusedWindow: AnyObject? let status = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(appElement, kAXFocusedWindowAttribute as CFString, &focusedWindow) guard status == .success, let window = focusedWindow else { if status == .cannotComplete { throw Errors.needAccessibilityPermission } return nil } var title: AnyObject? let titleStatus = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(window as! AXUIElement, kAXTitleAttribute as CFString, &title) guard titleStatus == .success else { return nil } return title as? String } I recently renamed the app, but the Bundle ID has not yet changed. I have com.apple.security.accessibility set to YES in the Entitlements file (although i had to add it manually), and a NSAccessibilityUsageDescription string set in Info.plist. The first time I ran this, macOS nicely prompted for permission. Now it won't do that, even when I use AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions() to try to force it. If I use tccutil to reset accessibility and apple events, it still doesn't prompt. If I drag my app from the build products folder to System Settings, it gets added to the system TCC DB (not the user DB). It shows an auth value of 2 for my app: % sudo sqlite3 "/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db" "SELECT client,auth_value FROM access WHERE service='kTCCServiceAccessibility' OR service='kTCCServiceAppleEvents';" com.latencyzero.<redacted>|2 <redactd> I'm at a loss as to what went wrong. I proved out the concept earlier and it worked, and have since spent a lot of time enhancing and polishing the app, and now things aren't working and I'm starting to worry.
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1.1k
Jul ’25
Speak Selection broken with SwiftUI text
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?
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240
Jul ’25
VoiceOver cursor focus tracking
In some places of our app we make use of NSAccessibilityElement subclasses to vend some extra items to accessibility clients. We need to know which item has the VoiceOver focus so we can keep track of it. setAccessibilityFocused: does not get called when accessibility clients focus NSAccessibilityElements. This method is only called when accessibility clients focus view-based accessibility elements (i.e. when a NSView subclass gets focused). At the same time we need to programmatically move VoiceOver focus to those items when something happens. Those accessibility elements inherit from NSObject so we can't make them first responder. Is this the expected behavior? What are our options in terms of reacting to VoiceOver cursor moving around? What are our options in terms of programmatically moving the VoiceOver cursor to a different element? Here's a sample project that demonstrates the first part of the issue: https://github.com/vendruscolo/apple-rdars/tree/master/DTS12368714%20-%20NSAccessibilityElement%20focus%20tracking If you run the app, a window will show up. It contains a button and a red square. If you enable VoiceOver you'll be able to move the cursor over the red square, and a message will be logged. You'll also notice there's an extra element after the red square. That element is available to VoiceOver, however when it gets focuses, no message gets logged.
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626
Mar ’25
accessibilityElements excludes the unlisted subviews – How to Fix?
I have a parent view containing 10 subviews. To control the VoiceOver navigation order, I set only a few elements in accessibilityElements. However, the remaining elements are not being focused or are completely inaccessible. Is this the expected behavior? If I only specify a subset of elements in accessibilityElements, does it exclude the rest? What’s the best way to ensure all elements remain accessible while customising the order?
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227
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
VoiceOver doesn't work for AVRoutePickerView wrapped in UIViewRepresentable
Hi, I've wrapped AVRoutePickerView in SwiftUI using pretty much the code given here, with a few changes: func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UIView { let routePickerView = AVRoutePickerView() // Configure the button's color. //routePickerView.delegate = context.coordinator //routePickerView.backgroundColor = .secondarySystemBackground routePickerView.tintColor = .accent routePickerView.activeTintColor = .accent // Indicate whether your app prefers video content. routePickerView.prioritizesVideoDevices = false return routePickerView } I commented out routePickerView.delegate = context.coordinator because it doesn't compile; context.coordinator is of type Void and I'm not sure how to fix that. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the issue. Anyway, this works fine without VoiceOver; if I tap the button, I get the AirPlay popover. But in VoiceOver, if I select the button and double-tap, nothing happens… it just reads the button's accessibilityLabel again. How can I get the AirPlay popover to show in VoiceOver?
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438
Aug ’25
Developer Mode Restart without HomeButton
After enabling Developer Mode on my iPhone and restarting it, the device asks me to press the Home button to confirm. Unfortunately, my Home button is broken, so I can’t access Developer Mode. The iPhone itself still works, but I can’t enable the mode. Is there any way to bypass this without the Home button?
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107
Mar ’25
Programmatically Modifying Per Application or System Wide Color Filters using Cocoa/Swift in MacOS?
I'm looking into how to programmatically control color filters in the Accessibility settings under "System Settings" -> "Accessibility" -> "Color Filters"--in particular the "Intensity" and "Filter type" settings. As far as I have gathered, changing this setting can only be accomplished using the CoreGraphics APIs or Accessibility APIs (I've poked around GitHub, Stack Overflow, and queried some LLMs), but there doesn't seem to be a clear cut example for doing this using public facing APIs, without ripping off source code from another project wholesale or using private APIs. My goal is to overlay a color filter at either a per-application or system level to help with accessibility. If there's a way to overlay this capability on an application-by-application basis as a third-party developer, that would be the most ideal scenario. For example, modifying the look and feel/UX for Launchpad, Photos, etc, as a third-party developer without accessing the source code of the application that I'm modifying the look/feel for (with appropriate user consent of course).
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390
Jul ’25
Custom tab bar in SwiftUI
I made a (very simple) custom tab bar in SwiftUI. It's simply an HStack containing two buttons. These buttons control the selection of a paged TabView. This works well, but in VoiceOver they don't behave like the bottom tab bar or e.g. a segmented picker. Specifically, VoiceOver does not say something like "tab one of two" when the first button is focused. According to my research, in UIKit this can be accomplished by giving the container view the accessibility trait tabBar, hiding it as an accessibility element and give it the accessibility container type semanticGroup. In SwiftUI, there is also the trait isTabBar, but that does not seem to have any impact for VoiceOver. I don't see an equivalent of semanticGroup in SwiftUI. I tried accessibilityElement(children: .contain) but that also does not seem to have any impact. So, is there any way in SwiftUI to make a button behave like a tab-button in VoiceOver? And how is SwiftUI's isTabBar accessibility trait supposed to be used?
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351
Aug ’25
accessibilityActivationPoint Not Working When Set Directly on UITableViewCell
I’m trying to set the accessibilityActivationPoint directly on a UITableViewCell so that VoiceOver activate on a specific button inside the cell. However, this approach doesn’t seem to work. Instead, when I override the accessibilityActivationPoint property inside the UITableViewCell subclass and return the desired point, it works as expected. Why doesn’t setting accessibilityActivationPoint directly on the cell work, but overriding it inside the cell does? Is there a recommended approach for handling this scenario? The following approach works, override var accessibilityActivationPoint: CGPoint { get { return convert(toggleSwitch.center, to: nil) } set{ super.accessibilityActivationPoint = newValue } } but setting accessibility point directly not works private func configureAccessibility() { isAccessibilityElement = true accessibilityLabel = titleLabel.text accessibilityTraits = .toggleButton accessibilityActivationPoint = self.convert(toggleSwitch.center, to: self) accessibilityValue = toggleSwitch.accessibilityValue }
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194
Apr ’25
Attempting to go directly to a help book page results in the main help book page being displayed instead
There is an issue with Help Books that started with the release of macOS 14.4. The issue is that when an app attempts to go directly to a Help Book page, the help viewer opens to the Help Book's main index page, rather than the specific page requested. As I investigated the issue I found that the requested page was actually part of help viewer's navigation history, and all I had to do was to click the Back navigation arrow and the requested page would be displayed. So it seems like the requested page is momentarily visited but is then (for whatever reason) quickly replaced by the main index page. Our app uses the AHGotoPage() API for directly accessing our Help Book's pages. This is the same mechanism/code that our app has used for more than a decade and has never caused us any issues. Everything works fine on macOS 14.3.0 and earlier. I've scoured the documentation and can't find any newer APIs for accessing Help pages. I've also tried various other things (e.g. reworking the code, creating new indexes for the app's Help, etc.), but none of it seems to make a difference. As far as I can tell, the issue seems to stem from some change made to the OS. So my questions are: Is this a known bug? And if so, is there any ETA on a fix? Is there something different we should be doing for newer versions of the OS (create indexes differently, use a different API, etc.)?
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2.0k
Oct ’25
Accessibility full keyboard access issue.
In our application we are using UIAlertViewController. When accessibility full keyboard access is enabled, and we are trying to dismiss that AlertViewController with Esc key from external keyboard that is not working. We are presenting AlertViewController as a popover. We need dismiss the AlertViewController with Esc key press from external keyboard.
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578
Mar ’25
AssistiveTouch pointer cannot move past center of screen in landscape orientation on iPhone
Hello everyone, I’d like to report an issue I’ve encountered when using a Bluetooth mouse together with AssistiveTouch on iPhone running iOS 16.5. This has also been reported via Feedback Assistant with Feedback ID: FB17806167 Description: When using a Bluetooth mouse together with AssistiveTouch on iPhone (iOS), the pointer behaves incorrectly in landscape orientation. Specifically: The pointer cannot move past the center of the screen Horizontal and vertical (X/Y) movements appear to be swapped or misaligned Natural movement of the pointer is not possible It seems as if the internal coordinate mapping remains locked in portrait orientation, even when the device is physically rotated to landscape. This issue occurs system-wide, regardless of the current app. It is observable in Settings, on the Home screen, and in third-party apps. Steps to Reproduce: Enable AssistiveTouch Connect a Bluetooth mouse to the iPhone Rotate the device to landscape orientation Try moving the mouse pointer across the screen → Notice that: Pointer cannot move past the center Horizontal/vertical input is interpreted incorrectly (as if still in portrait) Expected Behavior: The mouse pointer should move across the entire screen correctly, regardless of device orientation. Actual Behavior: In landscape orientation, the pointer is either restricted to part of the screen or misaligned. It behaves as if the device is still in portrait. Horizontal mouse movement causes vertical pointer movement, and vice versa User experience feels broken and unintuitive Feature Suggestion: Please improve the synchronization between physical device orientation and AssistiveTouch pointer mapping on iOS. I also suggest exposing AssistiveTouch orientation control via a public API, so developers can help maintain consistent pointer behavior. Thanks in advance for any insights or suggestions. Best regards, Jannis
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373
Jun ’25
System clock ancs notification is not sent on iPhone >= 14
I'm working on a ble connected device that use ancs and system clock to receive alarm notification events for earing impaired people. It used to work until iPhone 13 with latest iOS 18.x. Starting with iPhone 14 onward (iOS 18.x), system clock alarm notification is not sent anymore. Is There any reason for this to happening?. Is anyone aware of this behaviour? Any suggestion would be really appreciated. Cheers
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219
Jun ’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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256
Apr ’25
macOS (Tahoe) Beta 26.0 — Overheating & Rapid Battery Drain on MacBook Pro M3
Hi everyone, After installing the macOS beta (Tahoe 26.0) on my MacBook Pro M3, I’ve noticed two issues: Significant increase in system temperature The laptop feels hot even with light usage like Safari and Figma Rapid battery drain Battery is dropping unusually fast compared to macOS Sonoma. I’ve tried, Restarting the device. I’m aware this is a beta, but just wondering. Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this a known issue? Would love to hear if others are facing similar problems or if it might be something specific to my setup. Thanks in advance!
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515
Jun ’25