Is this the app store the only native app that is potentially inaccessible to voiceover? I'll hold off on updating till others can give a review of OS 6.
Marco -----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Head Sent: September-16-12 8:16 PM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: a warning to voice over users concerning IOS 6 Hi all, Not sure if anyone else put this up but I saw someone put it up on twitter. Originally found on the applevis website, it's an article explaining that a few days before ios 6 is released, the app store is inaccessible in most areas. Article below: A Warning to VoiceOver Users Ahead of the Release of iOS 6 article region start Submitted by David on 16 September 2012 Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team As you should be aware, our stated policy is to allow no postings on this site which would be a breach of Apple's Non Disclosure Agreement. Essentially, this Agreement places legal restrictions on what can be publicly revealed about beta versions of Apple software. Posting specific and detailed information about iOS 6 before it is released to the public on 19 September would in most cases be a breach of this Agreement, and could place you at risk of legal action by Apple. However, we have been alerted to a significant accessibility issue that is likely to be present in iOS 6, and we believe that with the public release just a few days away, we would be failing the community if we did not issue a warning. There are likely to be some who will condemn our decision. All that we can say is that it is not something we have done lightly and without much discussion. Here is the problem as we understand it: At the time of writing, the App Store app is virtually unusable with VoiceOver on the version of iOS 6 that was released to developers last week. This release is commonly referred to as the Gold Master, and is effectively the final version. This problem has been reported and replicated by several iPhone users. We are unable to confirm whether the same problem exists on the iPad. The App Store app has been significantly rewritten for iOS 6, with changes made to the way that content is displayed and navigated. There are 5 tabs in the app: Featured Top Charts Genius Search Updates Of these, only the Updates tab appears to be fully accessible with VoiceOver. Results on the Search tab are no longer displayed as a vertical list. Instead, each app is displayed on its own page. When not using VoiceOver, you flick to the left or right to navigate through the search results. This allows for more information about each app to be shown. We assume that it is also considered to be more visually appealing and engaging. When using VoiceOver, only the first search result is easily accessible. If you swipe right through the first search result, VoiceOver will read subsequent results in much the same way that it always has. However, visually, the screen is still displaying the first result, and double-tapping on the name of subsequent apps will achieve nothing. Each page in the search results indicates what page it is - 1 of 250 for example. However, this is only recognized by VoiceOver on the first page if you tap directly on it or swipe left from the bottom bar of tab buttons. Although this element might seem similar to the one present on your iDevice's home screen, it cannot be used with VoiceOver to move between pages. To date, the only gesture that appears to work to move between pages is the following - double-tap and hold with one finger. Whilst keeping that finger pressed to the screen, use a second finger to flick left or right across the screen. This is not a gesture that is likely to be intuitive to many VoiceOver users, and reports say that it can be difficult to action consistently. The Genius tab exhibits the same problem. Again, suggested apps are displayed one per page, and you cannot easily navigate to other pages with VoiceOver. A further issue in this section is the page element used to indicate that you are not interested in a suggestion. Apart from not being reported by VoiceOver as an active page element, it gives no feedback on its selection status. In the Top Charts tab, apps are listed in the more traditional vertical list format. However, this does not automatically scroll as you swipe through the list, meaning that only the first 4 apps are ever visually displayed on screen and accessible with VoiceOver. This makes it impossible to browse charts or app categories. We are unaware of any gesture that will work to gain access to apps below the first 4 in the list. On the Featured tab are three rows of apps. Each has a small thumbnail icon, along with its name, category and price. When not using VoiceOver, you use you finger to slide this row of icons across the screen and reveal more apps. This cannot be done with VoiceOver. Instead, when you swipe through the row of apps, VoiceOver will announce the four which are visually being shown on screen, and the last right swipe will have focus jump back to the very first app. Because of this, only by exploring the screen with your finger will you learn that there are 2 further rows of apps and other items further down the page.. It is not easy to explain in writing the nature and scope of these problems. If they have not been fixed before the final version of iOS 6 is released, we hope to have available a podcast demonstration. The App Store app in iOS is different to most other native apps, in that it is not hard-coded into iOS. The main content area of the app is delivered dynamically from Apple's servers, meaning that they can make changes at any time to how this content is displayed and navigated. As a result, the accessibility issues described above could be fixed without the need for an update to iOS itself. It is likely that Apple are working to do this right now, and it is possible that it will be fixed by the time the public release of iOS 6 becomes available. If not, you should bear in mind before updating that you will no longer have access to most features of the App Store directly from your iDevice. For those who only ever access the App Store this way, it means that in many instances you will have to use iTunes on your Mac or PC. Like everybody else, we hope that the problem can and will be fixed before the public release of iOS 6. However, if that doesn't happen, we want people to be able to make an informed decision about updating on Wednesday. Waiting until Wednesday to post a warning would mean that many people would have updated before they knew of this potential problem. We would also like to mention that people were already posting to our forum about this problem, and we had been deleting these posts. This situation was not tenable, as we simply couldn't remove those posts before some people had read them. We either had to close the forum until Wednesday, allow those posts to remain, or take a position on this problem ourselves. The rest, as they say, is history. We will be sure to let you know as soon as this problem is fixed. Remember, we do not know if it will be present on the iPad. -----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of jeffry miller Sent: Monday, 17 September 2012 11:44 AM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: iHeart Radio: yeah that is irritating -- Jeff -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
