Recently, in the blindness and low vision community, there has been discussion about Sonos, a popular manufacturer of smart speakers, releasing an update to their mobile app that significantly affected its accessibility for VoiceOver users on iOS. If you would like to learn more about this situation, or discover where things stand currently with Sonos accessibility, see this excellent blog post by Jonathan Mosen. Fortunately, it seems that Sonos is making an effort to improve VoiceOver accessibility for their blind or low vision customers and have already made some strides in that direction.
This situation highlights the tightrope we must walk as people who are blind or have low vision in regards to updating our software and devices. If you are blind or have low vision, having the most cutting-edge technology is incredibly valuable as it gives you the widest access to accessible features and tools. At the same time, mainstream developers' apps, software, and operating systems frequently introduce accessibility issues in updates, especially when they are major.
For this piece, I wanted to discuss my personal approach to software and operating system updates in hopes it will be helpful to those who want to have a solid balance between modern technologies and accessibility. This piece will focus specifically on those tools that I use on a daily basis, but the ideas are widely applicable to other systems as well, such as macOS, Android, and JAWS for Windows.
iOS
It’s always tempting to update iOS immediately as Apple frequently includes valuable features for people who are blind or have low vision, either directly in their accessibility features or in their mainstream features. However, testing can only identify so many issues, and with every major launch of a new iOS version, it's common to encounter bugs that are usually fixed shortly after the release.
Personally, after Apple releases a major iOS update each year in September or October, I wait until the new year to update my phone. This allows Apple time to fix any bugs discovered after the wide release. Helpfully, discovering what bugs are present in major iOS releases is quite straightforward, as is determining what new features in iOS might be valuable to you. Both AppleVis and us here at AFB both detail the new features, both accessible and mainstream, for each iOS update each year. We sometimes include information on updates to other Apple operating systems, but AppleVis definitely does every year. AppleVis contains an iOS and macOS bug tracker that lists bugs for those using accessibility services by severity. With this information, you can make an informed decision on if the present bugs will affect you personally and if it might be worth dealing with some bugs for a short amount of time to have access to a new valuable feature.
I definitely recommend going into your software update settings on iOS and disabling automatic updates. Whenever there is a software update, the item in your settings app will alert you that there is a new item that needs attention so that you can choose to update or not.
The importance of delaying app updates varies depending on the specific app being updated, compared to the operating system itself. Generally, accessibility apps such as Seeing AI or Voice Dream Reader can almost always be trusted to maintain accessibility in an app update. Any other app, however, no matter the developer, always has the potential to release an inaccessible update. I used to have automatic updates turned off in my App Store settings and then would manually update my apps based on what new features were added in a given app’s update.
Over time, issues that break accessibility are rare, so I now allow apps to update automatically. However, as seen with the Sonos app—a company known for its past accessibility efforts—automatic updates still carry some risk. Similar to iOS operating system updates, AppleVis has a massive library of iOS apps with information on their accessibility. Even if the entry itself has not been updated recently, each app page in the directory has a comment section. If you want to be sure that the app will be accessible before updating, you can always check the comments on AppleVis to see if anybody is making notes of any accessibility issues with the latest app update.
Windows
Due to the way Windows handles software, you have more options for ensuring that app and software updates are accessible. As an example, let's take a look at NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA). Similar to iOS operating system and app updates, before I update my NVDA version, I always check the update log to see what has been added in the new version. For NVDA in particular, you have the option to install packages called add-ons that will extend NVDA functionality. In recent years, NVDA has set up a system in which add-ons can be blocked from being installed if they do not support the NVDA version. Because of this, I always wait before updating my NVDA to be sure the add-ons that I use have been updated to the latest version of NVDA as I personally rely on them heavily.
One helpful feature that NVDA in particular has is that you can install a portable copy of NVDA instead of overwriting your current install. This allows you to test out the new version without making changes to your existing copy, so you can determine if the changes to the screen reader will meet your needs before updating. In addition, if you are concerned about potential bugs, you can always check the NVDA mailing list where any bugs would most likely be posted.
Regarding Windows operating system updates, minor security updates generally pose few problems. For feature updates or updating from, say, Windows 10 to Windows 11, users would probably want to check the content of the update as well as search to see if there are any discussions of potential bugs or issues.
The Bottom Line
Overall, the pattern is clear. Personally, I found the best way to ensure a balance between accessibility and cutting-edge technology is to always check the update log before updating any operating system or software, as well as be sure that I search for any potential bugs other users have encountered before updating. I still get caught off guard with unexpected issues every so often, especially for rare pieces of software or more obscure bugs, But for the most part, I found this strategy to be fairly solid in achieving my goals.
