[Trainer-Talk] Article: Are Braille Bugs Biting You In iOS 16? Here Is Some Bug Repellent

[Scott Davert]

https://www.helenkeller.org/hknc/bug-repellent-help

Introduction
As many may already be aware, iOS 16 was released on September 12. For
details about many of the new features and changes, please see my
article What’s New In iOS 16 Accessibility For Blind And DeafBlind
Users. Along with every major release come new bugs, and iOS 16 is no
exception. For a list of bugs present as detected by the AppleVis
Editorial Team, you can visit the blog post entitled The Accessibility
Bugs Introduced and Resolved in iOS 16 for Blind and Low Vision Users.
Though Apple recently released iOS 16.0.2 which addresses some
VoiceOver issues, it did not  address a number of bugs related to the
editing of text. Though not all users are experiencing these bugs,
many are. They seem most common on the iPhone SE 2 and iPhone SE 3,
but users on the iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 12 Mini are also reporting
these shortcomings. The purpose of this posting is to discuss
workarounds for some of these bugs.
The following editing commands do not work when using a braille
display keyboard: Select All, Copy, Paste, Undo and Cut
Though there aren’t any replacements for these keyboard shortcuts on a
braille display, there are ways to still accomplish what you need to
using these functions. As an example, let’s say that you have a note
full of text that you would like to select, copy to the clipboard and
then paste into an email. Though you could use the share sheet, it is
sometimes faster to use keyboard commands instead. To select all of
the text in your note, do the following:
1. Press space with 2-3 or space with 5-6 until you reach the
VoiceOver Rotor option called “edit”.
2. Press space with dot 3 or space with dot 6 until you receive the
VoiceOver announcement “select all”
3. Press space with 3-6, and the text should now all be highlighted.
To copy the text:
1. Press space with 2-3 or 5-6 until finding the "edit" rotor option.
2. Press space with dot 3 or 6 until you reach "copy".
3. Press space with dots 3-6 to copy the text to your iOS device's clipboard.
Now that the text is copied, move to any text field where you would
like to paste the text and do the following:
1. Press space with dots 2-3 or 5-6 until reaching the "edit" rotor.
2. Press space with dot 3 or space with dot 6 to find the option for "paste".
3. Press space with 3-6 to paste the text you copied from one app to the other.

When entering text using a braille keyboard, pressing dot 8 invokes a
menu and does not create a new line as expected.
There is an alternative way of adding new lines to text that can be
used with the Bluetooth keyboard. This involves first pressing the
Option key and then quickly following this up with the Enter key. It
is also possible To emulate the Option key on a Perkins-Style braille
keyboard. This can be achieved by pressing space with dots 2-7. Follow
this up quickly with dot 8 and your new line should be inserted.
This bug also impacts users who would normally press dot 8 to activate
the “send” button in the Messages application. An alternative method
Toactivate the “send” button would be to press dot for with space
after typing your text and VoiceOver should land on the “send” button.
Press a cursor routing button or space with dots 3-6 to activate it.

Conclusion
Many of the bugs being reported by braille users in iOS 16 have
workarounds which make them less severe. However, the issues
surrounding the editing of long documents and jumping cursor remain a
concern. When Apple releases an update addressing some of the issues
listed above, this blog will be updated accordingly.

Scott Davert | Coordinator Technology, Research and Innovation Center
him/his/he
Helen Keller National Center
________________________________________
141 Middle Neck Road
Sands Point, NY 11050
(p) (516)944-8900
sdavert at helenkeller.org
helenkeller.org

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