Your daily frequent11y newsletter, brought to you by @ChrisBAshton:

• iOS 14 review: access all areas?
  • This is another one from the bookmarks that I’ve just gotten around to reading! Colin Hughes reviews the accessibility of iOS 14. He has muscular dystrophy and therefore relies on voice control.
  • Since iOS 11, iPhone users have been able to activate an auto-answer capability for incoming phone calls, but Colin notes that it requires you to touch the screen to set it up in the first instance. You can also make calls by saying “Hey Siri, call…”, but there’s no equivalent for ending the call, so if you go to voicemail you are stuck until the mailbox times out. This is still an issue in iOS 14.
  • Since iOS 13, the Announce Messages with Siri feature reads out your incoming messages and allows you to respond hands-free. Colin hoped this would be expanded to other apps like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, via an underlying API, but this has not happened in iOS 14.
  • Voice Control now supports UK English, which has improved the accuracy of Colin’s dictation, though the accuracy remains low and using the app is frustrating when compared with Voice Access in Android 11, which is “incredible” by comparison.
  • Colin also cites “improvements to the VoiceOver screen reader, a new Back Tap Feature, sign language in FaceTime calls, and Headphones Accommodations to help you hear better”. However, overall, Colin is disappointed that some of the the basics are still neglected.

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