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Defining boundaries of inline dialogs for VO users
Hello, I had submitted a question to clarify which components have accessibility APIs that trigger haptics for VoiceOver users https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/773182. The question stems from perhaps a more direct question about specific components: do tablists and disclosures natively intend to include haptics or screen reader hint or other state or properties to indicate to screen reader users where the component begins or ends? In some web experiences there are screen reader hint text stating "end of..." or "entering" as a way to define the boundaries of these inline dialogs. I had asked about haptics in the prior thread because I do not recall natively implemented version of this except in some haptic cues but have not experienced them consistently so I am not sure if that is an intended native Swift implementation or perhaps something custom.
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114
May ’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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153
May ’25
False 3.1.1 Rejection: Real-World Dues Payments App
Hello everyone, Our community dues payment app only facilitates real-world maintenance-dues payments directly to property managers’ bank accounts. However, during testing it was likely flagged by the AI-driven review system for a metadata criterion and rejected under Guideline 3.1.1 (“Paid digital content must use IAP”). Meanwhile, hundreds of similar apps remain live on the App Store using the exact same model: The app is completely free No digital content or subscriptions are sold Dues payments are made via bank transfer or credit card directly to the manager Has anyone else encountered this? How did you overcome the metadata check in the AI-driven review process? Thanks!
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104
May ’25
AXChildren does not get all children
I'd like to add borders to all buttons in the iOS simulator from my Mac app. First I get the simulator window. Then I access the children of all AXGroup and if it's a button or a static text, I add a border. But for some buttons this does not work. In the example image the NavigationBarButtons are not found. I guess the problem is, that for some AXGroup the children array access with AXChildren is empty. Here is some relevant code: - (NSArray<DDHOverlayElement *> *)overlayChildrenOfUIElement:(AXUIElementRef)element index:(NSInteger)index { NSMutableArray<DDHOverlayElement *> *tempOverlayElements = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; NSLog(@">>> -----------------------------------------------------"); NSString *role = [UIElementUtilities roleOfUIElement:element]; NSRect frame = [UIElementUtilities frameOfUIElement:element]; NSLog(@"%@, role: %@, %@", element, role, [NSValue valueWithRect:frame]); NSArray *lineage = [UIElementUtilities lineageOfUIElement:element]; NSLog(@"lineage: %@", lineage); NSArray<NSValue *> *children = [UIElementUtilities childrenOfUIElement:element]; if (children.count < 1) { NSLog(@"NO CHILDREN"); } for (NSInteger i = 0; i < [children count]; i++) { NSValue *child = children[i]; AXUIElementRef uiElement = (__bridge AXUIElementRef)child; NSString *role = [UIElementUtilities roleOfUIElement:uiElement]; NSRect frame = [UIElementUtilities frameOfUIElement:uiElement]; NSLog(@"----%@, role: %@, %@", child, role, [NSValue valueWithRect:frame]); } NSLog(@"<<< -----------------------------------------------------"); for (NSInteger i = 0; i < [children count]; i++) { NSValue *child = children[i]; AXUIElementRef uiElement = (__bridge AXUIElementRef)child; NSString *role = [UIElementUtilities roleOfUIElement:uiElement]; NSRect frame = [UIElementUtilities frameOfUIElement:uiElement]; NSLog(@"%@, role: %@, %@", child, role, [NSValue valueWithRect:frame]); if ([role isEqualToString:@"AXButton"] || [role isEqualToString:@"AXTextField"] || [role isEqualToString:@"AXStaticText"]) { NSString *tag = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ld%ld", (long)index, (long)i]; NSLog(@"tag: %@", tag); DDHOverlayElement *overlayElement = [[DDHOverlayElement alloc] initWithUIElementValue:child tag:tag]; [tempOverlayElements addObject:overlayElement]; } else if ([role isEqualToString:@"AXGroup"] || [role isEqualToString:@"AXToolbar"]) { [tempOverlayElements addObjectsFromArray:[self overlayChildrenOfUIElement:uiElement index:++index]]; } else if ([role isEqualToString:@"AXWindow"]) { [self.overlayWindowController setFrame:[UIElementUtilities frameOfUIElement:uiElement]]; [tempOverlayElements addObjectsFromArray:[self overlayChildrenOfUIElement:uiElement index:index]]; } } return [tempOverlayElements copy]; } For some AXGroup the children are found. For some they are empty. I cannot figure out why. Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong?
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May ’25
Apple greets Global Accessibility Awareness Day with severe accessibility violations on macOS
I'm reposting here my FB17602742, submitted yesterday: The strong wording of this message comes from years of Apple ignoring the needs of users who can't tolerate UI animations and convulsions. At this point, it's clear that Apple is either intentionally harming users like me or simply doesn't care about meeting even the most basic accessibility standards on macOS. Yes, many UI animations and convulsions can, fortunately, be disabled - but not through straightforward UI controls. Instead, users are forced to look for obscure Terminal commands found scattered across the Internet. The "Reduce motion" checkbox in System Settings is simply a fake control that doesn't do anything - instead of actually disabling all UI animations and convulsions. What's worse, two of the most offensive UI animations cannot be disabled at all. Apple has consistently dismissed requests to let users disable the following UI animations: Scroll bar rollover highlight effect (introduced on macOS 10.7.3). Every time the cursor passes over a scroll bar, it gets highlighted. This draws the user's attention to random scroll bars for no reason - just because the cursor happened to pass over them. It results in HUNDREDS of unnecessary, annoying events of distraction daily!
 Expand/collapse animation of NSOutlineView (e.g., when opening/closing folders in the list view in the Finder, or any other app using outline views). This animation is extremely distracting, irritating, and time-wasting. Global Accessibility Awareness Day is approaching. Dear Apple, Please adhere to the most basic accessibility standards. Stop the needless suffering of countless users like me. Let us disable the two aforementioned UI convulsions. Thank you for your attention to the issue.
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153
May ’25
CFPrefsPlistSource Read Error with App Group Preferences
I am encountering the following issue while working with app group preferences in my Safari web extension: Couldn't read values in CFPrefsPlistSource<0x3034e7f80> (Domain: [MyAppGroup], User: kCFPreferencesAnyUser, ByHost: Yes, Container: (null), Contents Need Refresh: Yes): Using kCFPreferencesAnyUser with a container is only allowed for System Containers, detaching from cfprefsd. I am trying to read/write shared preferences using UserDefaults with an App Group but keep running into this error. Any guidance on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated! Has anyone encountered this before? How can I properly configure my app group preferences to avoid this issue?
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714
Feb ’25
Clarification on Color Path Determination in Wallet Provisioning (Green,Yellow, Orange) Path recommendation
Hi, I’ve been reviewing the Apple Wallet provisioning documentation (Getting Started with Apple Pay In-App Provisioning_ Verification_Security_Wallet Extensions )and had a few questions regarding the color path recommendation (Green, Yellow, Orange, Red) returned during the in-app provisioning flow: Who determines the color path—is it Apple directly, the Payment Network Operator (PNO), or both? What criteria are used to determine the color path (e.g., device info, Apple ID reputation, past provisioning attempts)? At what point in the provisioning flow is the color path recommendation received? Is it included in the response after the PKAddPaymentPassRequest is submitted? Is it accessible through any specific property or callback in the delegate method? Additionally, for Orange Path with Reason Code 0G, I understand that in-app verification is not allowed and must be handled via tenured channels (e.g., SMS/email). Can you confirm if this logic still applies for requests initiated from within the issuer's iOS app? Would appreciate any clarification or pointers to related documentation.
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121
May ’25
VoiceOver is not respecting lang in HTML option
I have an HTML select that has Spanish text in the options. When VoiceOver reads the selected option (unopened), it switches to Spanish as expected. However, when you open the select box and browse through the options, it uses the English voice to read the Spanish text. I have tried adding lang on to the select tag and the option tag but neither helps https://codepen.io/grahamfowles/pen/VYYRxMK
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137
May ’25
tvOS: GCController does not send button press events for "Button A" and "Button Center" when VoiceOver is On
When turning VoiceOver ON, GCController does not send button press events for "Button A" and "Button Center". This happens when using Siri 2nd generation remote (with dedicated arrow buttons on the circle around center button) and also when using iOS remote. I didn't test it on old Siri 1st generation with touchpad without arrow buttons. Example: gameController.microGamepad?.allButtons.forEach { button in button.valueChangedHandler = { [weak self] _, _, _ in self?.buttonHandler(gameController: gameController, button: button) } private func buttonHandler(gameController: GCController, button: GCControllerButtonInput) { print("BUTTON: Pressed \(button.description) isPressed=\(button.isPressed) isTouched=\(button.isTouched)") } #endif VoiceOver ON (incorrect behavior): BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Left (value: 0.030, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Down (value: 0.079, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Left (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Down (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false VoiceOver OFF (correct behavior): BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Left (value: 0.137, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Up (value: 0.078, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Button A (value: 1.000, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Button Center (value: 1.000, pressed: 1) isPressed=true isTouched=true BUTTON: Pressed Button A (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false BUTTON: Pressed Button Center (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Left (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false BUTTON: Pressed Direction Pad Up (value: 0.000, pressed: 0) isPressed=false isTouched=false I could use for detection Direction Pad Left/Right/Up/Down and detect position between -0.7 and +0.7 and handle it as center button press, because I use that on old Siri remote where I need to distinguish center button and arrows (for switching TV channels by Up/Down and Skip forward/back by Left/Right arrows), but for new Siri remote it would be unnecessary workaround. Does anybody know why the center/select button is not detected when VoiceOver is ON. Is there another way of detecting it using GCController? I don't want to use SwiftUI onTapGesture for this one particular case. Is it an unexpected bug in tvOS APIs or is there some specific reason why center button is not handled by GCController when VoiceOver is ON? Thanks.
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648
Jan ’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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May ’25
FamilyControls API access
I’m requesting access to the Family Controls API for an iOS app currently in development. I’ve submitted the request through the official form here: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/family-controls-distribution However, after submitting, I receive no confirmation email or support ticket ID. The page only shows a “Thank you for requesting the API” message, and I’m left without a way to track or confirm the request. This entitlement is essential for my app’s functionality, and I need to move forward with development and testing. Can someone from the Apple team please confirm receipt of the request and provide guidance on the next steps or estimated timelines?
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356
May ’25
Seeking API Support for Marking Substrings as Headings in NSTextView for VoiceOver
I'm developing a document editor for macOS using AppKit, which supports structured content such as titles and multiple heading levels—similar to what you see in the Pages app. I'm looking for a way to programmatically mark a specific substring within an NSTextView as a heading, so that VoiceOver can recognize it and announce it appropriately (e.g., by saying “heading” before reading the text). This would be similar in spirit to how NSAccessibilityLinkTextAttribute works for links. Is there an existing accessibility text attribute or recommended approach to achieve this behavior for headings? If not, I’d appreciate any guidance or suggestions on how best to implement this in a VoiceOver-friendly way. Thank you in advance for your help! Best regards,
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May ’25
ApplePay Merchant Session - Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel issue
As part of apple pay implementation we are trying to create a merchant session by trying to connect to apple endpoint https://apple-pay-gateway-cert.apple.com/paymentservices/startSession. While trying to do so we are facing an error “An error occurred while sending the request. The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.” . I call the validation url by passing to a C# .Net Framework 4.8 Web API. The API setups an HttpClient with the Merchant Identity Validation Certificate found in my apple account and calls the validation url passing in the required Json Validation Object. When I call PostAsync() I get an exception with the above error message Code is working successfully on my local machine but facing this issue while deployed on Dev / Model environment for testing. We have used Azure app service for deployment and TLS version 1.2 already present here. We have used the Merchant Identity certificate that was issued and have also checked with networking and infrastructure team to make its not an issue from our side. Does anyone have any other idea what could be causing this error. Thank you, Supriya
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112
Jun ’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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132
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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75
Jun ’25