iOS 7 Makes Life Difficult For Visually Impaired Arabic Speakers

When it comes to accessibility options on the iPhone, Apple has offered up a variety of options, most of which seem to be satisfactory to those with special needs, at least until iOS 7 where numerous Arabic speakers have complained that with the software update, the VoiceOver assistant seems to be doing a pretty bad job. For the visually impaired, Apple has a VoiceOver feature that basically reads out what’s on the screen to tell the user what they are doing, where their finger is hovered over, and etc., ultimately allowing them to navigate their device. 

However with iOS 7, the familiar “Majed” voice has been removed in favor of “Tariq”, which some users are complaining is a lower quality and more inferior voice that is pretty buggy at the same time. It seems that Tariq has the habit of adding random syllables to words, making it hard to understand what’s going on, along with reading out entire sentences as if it were a single word, ignoring the spaces in between. Some users have tried tweaking the options but to no avail, and according to Apple, only if many take issue with the changes will something be done about it.

For most of us this is a non-issue, but at the same time we can empathize with our friends who might be frustrated at having a device that does not work the way it should and hopefully Apple will be able to address this issue ASAP.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iOS 7