Hi 👋, I’m working on improving Full Keyboard Access support in an iOS app and would love to hear about your experience. When developing for keyboard navigation, what approach do you usually take for navigating between UI elements? Do you mainly use Tab/Ctrl+Tab, arrow keys, or a combination of both? I’ve already watched some WWDC sessions and Apple's docs on this topic: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/keyboards https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10120/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10260/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/UIKit/navigating-an-app-s-user-interface-using-a-keyboard However, I’d appreciate any recommendations for useful resources, documentation, or things to be aware of when implementing keyboard accessibility. :🙏

I’m seeing a layout issue in SwiftUI on iOS 26 that only reproduces with specific Accessibility Motion settings. Steps to reproduce 1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Motion. 2. Enable Reduce Motion and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions. 3. Launch an app with a SwiftUI TextField. 4. Tap the field to show the keyboard. 5. Dismiss the keyboard (tap outside, swipe down, etc.). Expected: After the keyboard is dismissed, the view’s bottom safe area / layout should return to normal. Actual: The view continues to reserve space equal to the keyboard height — as if the keyboard were still visible. UI anchored to the safe area remains shifted upward until the view is reloaded.

We format times in a localized way using the DateFormatter APIs.DateFormatter.localizedString(from: date, dateStyle: .none, timeStyle: .short)However if the result of this localization is say "22:00" VoiceOver just reads this out as "22". The VoiceOver user is given no indication that this numeric value is a time of the day.I've read online that one approach is to use DateComponentsFormatter and the spellOut unitsStyle e.g.let hourComponents = Calendar.current.dateComponents([.hour, .minute], from: date) cell.accessibilityLabel = DateComponentsFormatter.localizedString(from: hourComponents, unitsStyle: .spellOut)But again for a time "22:00" this reads out "22 hours". Sure if gives more context that this is related to time but it doesn't really indicate it is a time of the day i.e. it could be an interval (22 hours until something happens).We've trawled through the Apple documenation but we can't find anything that covers this.The best possible workaround we've found would be to force the accessibility label to be read out in 12 hour time i.e.let dateFormatter = DateFormatter() dateFormatter.setLocalizedDateFormatFromTemplate("hh:mm") accessibilityLabel =dateFormatter.string(from: date)that way it is clear to the user that it is a time of the day. Although this approach has the downside that ignores the user's preference of a 24 hour or 12 hour time display.The VoiceOver readout is handled perfectly in the Calendar app. It reads out "10 o'clock" and "22 hundred hours" in English and it is fully localized so for example it reads out "midi" for 12:00pm in French. It is possible that this is being done with private APIs though.So my question is, what is the recommended approach for formatting times for VoiceOver?

We have a password entry field with a "show password" button. The button effectively turns the "secure text entry" textfield into a non-secure text entry field allowing the user to view what they typed in. When VoiceOver is enabled, I am not including that button in the UI; it doesn't seem to make sense to me for the following reasons. If you properly test with the screen curtain, the functionality is useless. You don't see anything. I've tried to explain this to my accessibility team. It's also quite ridiculous to offer to show a blind user their password, I'm sure they'd love to see it, but they just can't. This would almost seem insulting as well. If by toggling that button, and turning a secure text entry into a non-secure text entry, now the app is literally speaking their password aloud. This seems like a security vulnerability to me. What if someone else overhears the password spoken aloud. The accessibility team is insisting that I need to include the "show password" button when VoiceOver is enabled. This is the response I received. "functionality should be the same for VI users as for sighted users. It may happen that a VI user wants to check what is typed into password field in order to correct mistakes". Again, I don't agree with that because functionality should not be the same. Functionality should be changed and altered as necessary to make the user experience as accessible as possible. And in this scenario, to me the functionality doesn't make sense at all in a VoiceOver setting. Any thoughts on this? Am I incorrect here? Are there benefits of including a "show password" button to a user utilizing VoiceOver? What should then the functionality be? Speak the password aloud? Thanks.

To the Apple iOS Development and Accessibility Teams, I am writing to formally request the addition of a native Lisu keyboard to iOS. As Apple continues to expand its global accessibility and language support, adding the Lisu language would bridge a significant communication gap for a vibrant and growing community. About the Lisu People: The Lisu are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group with an estimated population of over 1.4 million. They traditionally inhabit the mountainous regions of Myanmar (Burma), Southwest China (particularly the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces), Thailand, and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. They possess a rich cultural heritage, passed down through generations via extensive oral traditions, songs, and clan histories. The Lisu Language and Fraser Script: The Lisu language is officially supported by the Unicode Consortium. The writing system, known as the Fraser script, was developed in 1914 and was officially added to the Unicode Standard in Version 5.2. Unicode Reference: The Lisu block is designated at U+A4D0 – U+A4FF. Official Chart: Unicode [Lisu Chart (PDF)] https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA4D0.pdf Current Industry StandardsOther major operating systems have already recognized the importance of supporting the Lisu community: Microsoft Windows: Currently comes with a pre-installed Lisu keyboard, allowing users to type seamlessly out of the box. Android (Google): The default Gboard natively supports the Lisu keyboard, offering full mobile typing capabilities for Android users. Currently, iOS users who speak and write in Lisu must rely on third-party workarounds, which often lack the security, privacy, and seamless integration of Apple’s native keyboards. By implementing the Lisu keyboard, Apple would greatly enhance the iOS experience for over a million people, allowing them to communicate natively on their iPhones and iPads.Thank you for your time, consideration, and ongoing commitment to making technology accessible to everyone. I look forward to seeing Lisu supported in a future iOS update. Sincerely, Si_Gwa

I’m encountering what appears to be a synchronization issue between the numbers displayed by the iOS Voice Control overlay and the targets Voice Control actually activates. Environment: iPhone 13 Pro Max iOS 26.6.1 React Native 0.86.3 Expo SDK 57.0.17 Fabric/New Architecture enabled The issue occurs on a tutorial screen containing several interactive elements. After the screen changes or elements become enabled, disabled, mounted, or unmounted, Voice Control displays numbered overlays that do not correspond to its current command mapping. For example: Enable Voice Control and say “Show numbers.” Navigate to the affected tutorial step. The visible overlay places number 5 on an interactive square. Say “Tap 5.” Instead of activating that square, Voice Control activates the “Skip Tutorial” button. If I say “Hide numbers” followed by “Show numbers,” the newly displayed numbers reflect the actual command mapping. This demonstrates that: Voice Control’s internal target mapping has updated correctly. The visible number overlay has retained an older mapping. Saying a displayed number can therefore activate a completely different control. The behavior is reproducible in an older build that predates our Voice Control-specific tutorial changes, so it does not appear to have been caused by those changes. Setting the Voice Control overlay to “None” also does not resolve the underlying synchronization issue. I found a nearly identical cross-framework report in Flutter: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/183821 That report describes the number overlay showing one mapping after button enabled-state changes while “Tap N” uses a different mapping. It remains open and does not appear to have a published workaround. Questions: Is this a known iOS Voice Control issue? Is there a supported way for an app to notify Voice Control that it must recalculate and redraw its numbered overlay? Would posting a UIAccessibility layout- or screen-changed notification help, or does Voice Control maintain this overlay independently? Are there particular patterns involving enabled/disabled or dynamically mounted accessibility elements that applications should avoid? Is there any way for an application to inspect the target associated with a Voice Control overlay number? My understanding is that these numbers are not exposed through a public API. This issue is especially concerning because the visible overlay instructs the user to say a number that can activate an unrelated control. In this example, it can activate “Skip Tutorial.” I can provide screen recordings and a minimal reproduction if helpful.

I would like to see an option to show live caption subtitles on Apple TV. So if I watch DAZN Sports it should generate subtitles via AI with settings enabled. This would give deaf people ability to watch sport with subtitles even it is not supported.

OK hello Apple developers, and whoever else is reading, I am a quadriplegic. This means I cannot use my fingers. So therefore I cannot pick up the phone. That means I cannot pick up the phone for Face ID which is biometric, fingerprint which is biometric, I believe the eye is biometric. So is the voice. That is how I have to login to my brokerage firms multiple bank account. Anything super secure I can use my voice as a password. It's super simple. Just add and the code and write it so therefore it is as simple as saying something to the effect of "hey seri my voice is my password. A few simple lines of code written by Apple expert this should not be hard at all and should be included in an update. Just think how would you use your phone if you could not pick it up. I cannot put Apple Pay i cannot secure on my phone because I cannot lock it because I cannot pick it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated

So using the developer website in Safari....produces this. How? How is this even possible? I know.... they used Chrome to test and develop with... ;) I am on the latest Safari. Sad.

We are seeing a hard main-thread abort on iOS 26 during cold launch when VoiceOver (or another accessibility client) is active. about 1–7 seconds after process start. The crashing thread essentially shows only main from the app; the fatal path is entirely in system frameworks. What happens is that UIAccessibility asks for an accessibility value, UIKit.axbundle handles it (on iOS 26.5 we exact-match-symbolicate this to -[_UITabButtonAccessibility accessibilityValue] + 120), then AXCoreUtilities safeSwiftValueForKey reflects a Swift object via Mirror / AttributeGraph. While copying an unowned field, the referent is already gone, so libswiftCore calls swift_abortRetainUnowned and the process dies. Not finding unowned in app source does not contradict this: the reflected object can live in system or SDK Swift state. OS versions in the corpus: iOS 26.5 (23F77), 26.6 (23G71), and 26.6.1 (23G83). All reports load UIKit.axbundle. Launch-to-crash gaps range from roughly 1.4s to 7.3s. Most 26.6 samples share UIKit.axbundle binary UUID 387c6473…; we did not have matching Device Support for that build locally. One iOS 26.5 sample has UIKit.axbundle binary UUID dca69975… and AXCoreUtilities 78a7c163…, both exactly matching local Device Support, so atos on that sample is trustworthy. On that iOS 26.5 sample (filename redacted), the symbolicated path is: VoiceOver / AX → UIAccessibility (_iosAccessibilityAttributeValue → _accessibilityAXAttributedValue → _accessibilityPotentiallyAttributedValueForNonAttributedSelector) → UIKit.axbundle -[_UITabButtonAccessibility accessibilityValue] + 120 → AXCoreUtilities (_AXSafeSwiftValueForKeyTm → safeSwiftValueForKey → _visitValueWithReflection) → AttributeGraph (AGTypeApplyFields2::Visitor::visit_field) → libswiftCore (swift_reflectionMirror_subscript → copyUnownedFieldContents → swift_unknownObjectUnownedLoadStrong → swift_abortRetainUnowned) → App: main only Frame 32 math: runtime 0x2be49b130, slide base 0x2be3cf000, offset 0xCC130 → _UITabButtonAccessibility accessibilityValue + 120. Questions for anyone hitting the same stack: 1.Is there already an Apple Feedback / radar for safeSwiftValueForKey + swift_abortRetainUnowned on iOS 26? crash_ios265_redacted.txt

We are testing the new Declarative Device Management (DDM) App Settings configuration on macOS 27 Golden Gate to manage Accessibility permission for our applications as suggested by the apple team in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/839536. We created a Jamf Blueprint with a custom com.apple.configuration.app.settings declaration and configured the required Accessibility settings. After applying the Blueprint to the User channel, we now receive the consent prompt shown in the attached screenshot. However, the permission flow does not appear to work as expected. Our understanding is that, after the user clicks Allow in this consent prompt, the configured Accessibility permission should be applied to the application without requiring an additional Accessibility authorization prompt. Instead, after selecting Allow, we still receive the subsequent prompt, which asks the user to choose either Open System Settings or Deny. The DDM declaration appears to have been successfully deployed and is shown as active on the system. Could you please clarify the following? Expected consent behavior: After the user selects Allow in the DDM App Settings consent prompt, should the configured Accessibility permission become effective without any additional Accessibility prompts? Consent scope: We are observing an Allow / Not Allow consent prompt for each DDM App Settings declaration. Is user consent expected to be requested separately for each declaration, or should macOS consolidate the Accessibility settings from multiple declarations into a single consent request? Additional Accessibility prompt: Why does the application continue to receive the Accessibility permission alert with Open System Settings / Deny even after the user has selected Allow for the DDM declaration? User interaction: Is there any supported way for an organization to manage or suppress these additional prompts so that no further user interaction is required after the initial DDM consent? Our goal is to understand the expected macOS 27 behavior and determine the supported management configuration for applications that previously received Accessibility permission through the PPPC payload.

Our app is being killed by the watchdog on iPadOS 26 (iPad Pro 11, 3rd gen) when navigating between tabs after using search. The crash only occurs when AssistiveTouch is enabled — disabling it prevents the issue entirely. The crash stack shows the main thread blocked in CoreUI vector glyph rasterization (CUINamedVectorGlyph _layerNamesForRenderingMode:inRendition:) triggered during a UINavigationController transition while the keyboard is being dismissed: UINavigationController _startCustomTransition → UIKeyboardSceneDelegate _restoreInputViewsWithId → UITextField resignFirstResponder → SwiftUI ViewGraphRootValueUpdater.render → UIButton layoutSubviews → UIImageView _setImage → CUINamedVectorGlyph _layerNamesForRenderingMode:inRendition: The termination reason: FRONTBOARD domain:10 code:0x8BADF00D "Failed to terminate gracefully after 5.0s" WatchdogEvent: process-exit WatchdogVisibility: Foreground Key observations: Only reproduces with AssistiveTouch enabled iPad Pro 11 (3rd gen), iPadOS 26 Our code is not on the crashing thread — it's entirely UIKit/CoreUI/SwiftUI framework code Similar to issues reported in thread/808808 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/808808) and dotnet/maui#32365 (https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/32365) Is this a known issue with AssistiveTouch + UINavigationController transitions on iPadOS 26? Is there a recommended workaround?

Hello Albert! I am experiencing some strange bugs around DeviceActivityEvents (part of the DeviceActivity framework) on iOS 26 / iOS 26.1 / iOS 26.2 beta: When creating a DeviceActivityEvent we can assign a threshold and applicationTokens. The idea is, that after the user has spent said threshold on said apps, eventDidReachThreshold() is called. The property includesPastActivity is set to false. On iOS 26 however, it happens (quite reliably after updating to a new beta seed) quite often that eventDidReachThreshold() is called immediately (after a couple of seconds) instead of waiting for the threshold to be met. Is anyone else seeing similar issues on iOS 26 / iOS 26.1 / iOS 26.2 beta? Only workaround I have found is to ask users to revoke and re-grant Screen Time permissions. This only holds for about two weeks though or at most until the next iOS 26 beta update is installed, so it is not a permanent solution unfortunately. Feedback (incl. sysdiagnoses and sample project) is filed under: FB18061981 FB18927456 One of our users has filed their own feedback request as well: FB20817853 Thanks a lot for any help on this!

When VoiceOver is enabled, it sometimes reads auto-generated image descriptions such as 'a blue and white logo on a white background' or 'warning icon, image error' instead of the custom accessibilityLabel we've set on the icons. How can we prevent VoiceOver from reading these image-specific descriptions and ensure it only reads our custom labels? Just like UIAccessibility.isVoiceOverRunning lets us check if VoiceOver is active, is there an equivalent API to detect whether Voice Control is currently enabled?

您好，我们是中国的一家软件开发公司。我们应用程序的底层框架基于美国开源社区的 XMPP 协议框架。它是一个国际开源项目，许多中国软件公司以开源框架为基础，在美国开源社区框架之上开发 UI 和替换功能。但是当我们需要将应用上传到应用商店时，会收到提示（拒绝 4.3A 应用垃圾邮件），因为中国目前没有独立开发这个框架的能力。因此，我们不得不承认，我们的 app 使用了美国开源社区的框架，因为中国的很多其他公司也都使用了美国开源社区的框架。这导致我们在将应用程序上传到应用商店时出现提示 （reject 4.3A application spam），因为其他公司在将其上传到应用商店时也使用相同的底层开源框架。这会导致我们公司在将此应用程序上传到应用商店时收到提示（拒绝 4.3A 应用程序垃圾邮件）。我们公司在这个 App 上花费了大量的精力和金钱，如果不允许中国公司上传到 App Store，就会被拒绝。使用来自美国的开源框架，这导致很多中国公司在后期无法使用美国的开源框架作为开发的基础。我们恳请贵公司为中国的小企业提供指导，并就我们未来的发展提供建议。谢谢。

With the declining literacy rates I think it would be incredibly valuable for apple to implement a separate keyboard experience for minors. One without auto or predictive text, swipe to text, or even potentially also voice memos. These are all very convenient features that I think could unfortunately contribute or even enable the literacy crisis as more and more children grow up and rely on technology. I also think bringing back the ‘look up’ tool on highlighted text into the main options would support and encourage more education (or even adding a thesaurus option as well) From: A Gen Z adult who grew up learning how to spell at the same time I learned how to text. Without relying on all of the convenience features that in turn can remove the mental friction that learning to fix your mistakes provides, my iPhone was teaching me how to spell with simple red lines that required me to interact with my spelling in order to correct my mistakes. Note: Autocorrect was still a feature at the time however was often turned off by most people because of text slang culture which coincidentally helped create more intentional spell check interactions. I believe the decision to turn off autocorrect should be considered a more conscious responsibility so it should not necessarily be left up to a child to decide for themselves.

Hi, I'm new to Full Keyboard Access, and I was wondering how people typically navigate UI components with an external keyboard. Do people usually use Tab/Ctrl+Tab, or are the arrow keys more commonly used?

If a user enables/disables Guided Access, they can modify the session settings to disable the top (sleep/wake) button. In Single App Mode (SAM), there is a payload option for disabling the sleep/wake button via Mobile Device Management (MDM). In Autonomous Single App Mode (ASAM), there doesn't appear to be any way to disable the top button. ASAM does not honor the Guided Access sessions settings, and there is no payload option in the MDM. This is a glaring issue especially when ASAM is marketed as the solution for apps in a medical setting where the app is trading hands from a medical professional to a patient. Our app is used during a lengthy procedure and does not function properly if the patient puts the iPad to sleep. We're stuck asking our medical professionals to put the iPad in Guided Access, but the user experience is clunky and would be much improved by implementing ASAM. Is there some little-known API for disabling the sleep/wake button during ASAM that I'm just missing?

Device iPhone 15 iOS Versions iOS 26.5 iOS 26.6 Summary: I found a reproducible issue with Guided Access on my iPhone 15. After disabling Guided Access, it cannot be enabled again for approximately 30–60 minutes. The problem exists on both iOS 26.5 and iOS 26.6. Steps to Reproduce: Enable Guided Access. Use Guided Access for approximately 5–10 minutes. Disable Guided Access. Wait 1–2 minutes. Try enabling Guided Access again. Expected Result: Guided Access should enable immediately every time. Actual Result Instead of enabling, the phone displays: "Guided Access Unavailable" After this message appears, Guided Access cannot be enabled again. I must wait approximately 30–60 minutes before the feature becomes available again. Frequency 100% I can reproduce this every time using the steps above. Troubleshooting Already Tried Restarted iPhone. Force restarted iPhone. Turned Guided Access off and on. Updated from iOS 26.5 to iOS 26.6. The issue still occurs. Questions: Can anyone reproduce this on iPhone 15 or other iPhone models running iOS 26.5 or iOS 26.6? Has anyone found a workaround?

I'm working on improving accessibility in a native macOS app and going through WCAG, but with so many success criteria it's hard to know where to focus for native Apple platform apps. 1. Does Apple recommend a specific subset or checklist of WCAG requirements for macOS and iOS? 2. If not, which criteria are generally considered essential, and how do developers typically validate them using Apple's accessibility tools and assistive technologies? I'm looking for a prioritized list of criteria that actually apply to native apps, rather than trying to implement every WCAG criterion individually.