VoiceOver is a device screen reader that provides audible descriptions of what is on a device's screen - from battery level, to the name of the person calling, to which app your "finger" is on.
VoiceOver assists with testing your app for accessibility functionality through a bluetooth connection between the device and the Kobiton Mac mini.
If your system is not setup for VoiceOver gestures on iOS devices as described below, please open a ticket.
VoiceOver Prerequisites
- iOS 12.0 and later
- Device must be physically connected to the host machine (Mac mini)
- Kobiton GEM or Orion Audio Board Card
Bluetooth pairing for on-premises iOS devices
- On the Mac mini, open System Preferences, enable Bluetooth toggle button. Leave the Bluetooth window open as you'll need it for pairing discoverability.
- On the Kobiton Portal, launch a session with an iOS device.
- On the iOS device, navigate to Settings > Bluetooth and enable bluetooth.
- On the Bluetooth screen, under MY DEVICES, select the Mac mini the device is connected to.
- On the Mac mini, click Pair on the prompt confirming to pair the device to the virtual keyboard.
If the device is not pairing, try the following to establish a connection:
-
Instead of initiating the pairing from the device, initiate the pairing from the Mac mini.
-
Disconnect and disable Bluetooth on other devices.
-
If the device had successfully paired to the Mac mini, but won't reconnect, click the information icon, select Forget This Device, and re-pair the device.
VoiceOver setup
To set up voiceOver on your iOS device:
- Navigate to Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver and toggle to On.
Note: VoiceOver overrides common gestures used to navigate a device. When VoiceOver is enabled, you must use VoiceOver gestures on the device.
For a list of common VoiceOver gestures, click here.
VoiceOver on Kobiton devices
- On the physical device, navigate to Settings > Bluetooth; enable Bluetooth.
- On the physical device, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver; enable VoiceOver.
- Scroll down, click Audio and enable Send to HDMI.
- Back on the Kobiton portal, enable the VoiceOver icon.
- Start testing.
Supported Commands
| VoiceOver gesture | On-screen equivalent |
|---|---|
| Activate selected item | double-tap |
| Double-tap selected item | triple-tap |
| Select next item | swipe right |
| Select previous item | swipe left |
| perform or move to the next selected option | swipe up or down |
| Pause/resume speech | two-finger tap |
| Special action | two-finger double tap |
| Open item chooser | two-finger triple tap |
| Read all content from the first object in selected area | two-finger swipe up |
| Read all content from selected item | two-finger swipe down |
| Go back, cancel, close pop-up | two-finger scrub back-and-forth |
| Select / deselect | two-finger pinch out/in |
| Speak current page number and position | three-finger tap |
| Toggle speech on/off | three-finger double-tap |
| Toggle screen curtain on/off | three-finger triple-tap |
| Move to next horizontal screen page | three-finger swipe left |
| Move to previous horizontal screen page | three-finger swipe right |
| Move/scroll down a page | three-finger swipe up |
| Move/scroll up a page | three-finger swipe down |
| Switch to next/previous app | four-finger swipe left/right |
| Open or close multitask pane | four-finger swipe up/down |
| Go to home screen | four-finger pinch in |
Known Limitations
- VoiceOver gestures are not available on Android devices.
-
VoiceOver is only available on iOS 12.0 and later as the devices must have the the Send to HDMI option.
-
A macOS GEM connects to a limited number of Bluetooth devices. In practice, VoiceOver works best when only two to three devices are connected at a time.
-
Currently, you cannot perform mixed actions between Rotor Commands. We can only perform one action at a time.