This list of accessibility issues is roughly sorted by severity/how much this impacts my daily use. Last retested in March 2024.
These issues make it impossible for me to use Android as a primary mobile operating system.
The TalkBack Braille keyboard cannot be installed or accessed in a work profile, making typing in work apps extremely inefficient.
These issues make usage of Android as a primary mobile operating system very difficult.
Custom accessibility actions work well when used. Unlike on iOS, they are not consistently implemented. Well designed actions implementations can allow for a very clean swipe order and efficient app navigation. Ticked boxes indicate good custom action coverage.
- Pixel Launcher
- Gmail
- Google Messages
- [...] Outlook (behind feature flag)
- Signal
- [...] RedReader (see "efficient Reddit client", filed as quantumBadger/RedReader#964)
Espeak TTS intermittently changes to US English (filed as espeak-ng/espeak-ng#970)
When navigating the system, Espeak suddenly and intermittently changes to US English even with a UK English Espeak and system language. The language resets to the user preference when TTS settings are opened.
Update 2024-03-23: Now, I'm seeing it change to the RP variant. I wonder if this is a language fallback issue along the lines of espeak-ng/espeak-ng#1200?
These issues should be investigated and fixed if possible, but do not seriously impeed my usage of Android as a primary mobile operating system.
It seems that incoming notifications that appear at the top of the screen aren't interactive (i.e. double tapping one just opens the notification shade, not the associated app). Is this expected, a bug, or am I doing it wrong?
A two-finger double tap (or the user-defined start/stop activities gesture) should start/stop voice typing when in an edit field. If not possible, there should otherwise be a quick gesture/method to do this that doesn't require hunting for the icon or exiting the Braille IME.
The new two-finger double tap gesture for starting/ending an action does not work universally. For instance, while it works for answering/ending PSTN and WhatsApp calls, it does not work in Signal. Not specifically calling this a Signal issue, since I'm not sure if it's a matter of Signal not implementing the right APIs or something about Signal/other apps that makes these APIs inconvenient to implement.
The official Android build of Espeak linked in the readme on GitHub is extremely out-of-date (has some rhdunn changes but may even predate the espeak-ng fork). Maybe I could build a new apk from source?
Update 2024-03-24: The latest eSpeak release on GitHub has a signed apk available, and their CI builds a debug apk on every commit. The Play Store would of course be the ideal delivery vehicle, but binaries of recent eSpeak code are available via semi-official alternative channels. I'm bumping this down the list.
Android has no equivalent to Dystopia, a highly accessible Reddit client that makes heavy use of iOS accessibility actions and allows for extreme customization of screen reader output. Our best bet seems to be RedReader but no accessibility actions and no announcement of relative level of a comment within a thread/ability to collapse threads/comments. I've also asked the Boost developers to consider accessibility as they seem very active and possibly receptive.
Update 2022-04-07: I've sent in several issues and PRs to the RedReader developers to improve the app's accessibility. Alpha 309 (upcoming app version 1.19) now implements announcement of relative level of comments and has far less verbose accessibility labels (including an optional, Dystopia-style "concise mode"), making the app at least comperable to Dystopia on iOS! Also, it turns out that you actually can collapse comments with RedReader, just double-tap to toggle the collapsed state (customizable in settings).
The list of accessibility actions can currently be brought up using a user-definable gesture/command, but it would be nice if it were a reading control similar to hide screen or speaking rate. While the actions list can be efficiently accessed via the gesture, adding it as a reading control might reduce user confusion for iOS/VoiceOver users as it is closer to the way actions are handled on that platform.
Update 2023-01-18: Android Accessibility Suite version 13.1 was just released which includes this feature. This will seriously improve productivity on Android!
It seems that, even though "speak passwords" is enabled in TalkBack settings, password characters are not always echoed when typing using the Braille keyboard.
Update 2023-01-19: Cannot reproduce this issue as of Android Accessibility Suite 13.1 on Tiramisu.
Enhanced editing and selection in Braille keyboard (was "Allow gesture customization in Braille keyboard")
Support for customizing Braille gestures should be added, similar to the gesture customization in the rest of TalkBack. This would allow, for instance, more flexibility for editing text while typing in Braille without need to hide the keyboard/switch to another first. It is possible to move the caret with the volume keys while in Braille typing which allows for some editing, but selection is not possible without switching to qwerty.
Update 2024-03-23: As of Android Accessibility Suite 14.1, new caret movement and selection gestures have been added to the Braille keyboard. While gesture customization isn't possible, I'm marking this resolved since the intent of my request has been enabled via these new default gestures.