Poor font size accessibility in many third party apps

[aldo82]

Due to problems with my vision I set the font size larger and I also use the screen zoom accessibility feature. The new iOS feature to individually change font size on a per app basis is interesting and potentially really useful for me. However I notice many apps completely ignore it. and that is apps from big companies such as youtube and Amazon for example. The Amazon app changes font size on a few elements but all of the important text remains one size regardless of the font size setting.

I get that creating an app that works with lots of different font sizes is a pain for the developers but I am surprised that apple do not seem to insist on this as a pre-requisite for the App Store given that iOS sells itself on the basis of accessibility. When I have used android in the past, all apps seems to obey font size adjustment much better than on iOS.

anyway not much point to the thread other than a rant. anyone else also share this frustration?

 

[BiggAW]

I just got a Pro Max 13 and the font sizing is a MESS. The default font size is TINY, so it's worst than just being not adjustable, it's tiny to begin with.

 

[tpfang56]

I’m still on ios 14, but this similarly applied in ipados 15 when I briefly had my ipad mini. The mini has truly miniscule fonts, like they just scaled down the ipad air without much consideration for the mini’s UI.

Some fonts I could change using the per-app/system wide font size changer. It worked perfectly on twitter, then on safari (???) it wouldn’t work, but I could change the font size in the system settings under the safari app the standard way. Reddit wouldn’t work at all and their in-app setting for biggest font size is far too small on an ipad.

So, lots of inconsistency in ios/ipados in general. I hope more devs take notice of this feature. Maybe you could mail the support teams of the apps you need it in to give them a heads up.

 

[Celtan]

Same issues for my 92yo mother. Since I upgraded her iPads to iOS 15 yesterday she can no longer read any of her books because the font size doesn’t go large enough anymore. She can’t use display zoom or anything like that, it’s simply too complicated for her to understand. We just need the big fonts back.

‘Otherwise, every book we have ever purchased from the apple book store has now been made useless to her and many other vision impaired people.

is this being discussed anywhere else? Thanks.

 

[0128672]

Same issues for my 92yo mother. Since I upgraded her iPads to iOS 15 yesterday she can no longer read any of her books because the font size doesn’t go large enough anymore. She can’t use display zoom or anything like that, it’s simply too complicated for her to understand. We just need the big fonts back.

‘Otherwise, every book we have ever purchased from the apple book store has now been made useless to her and many other vision impaired people.

is this being discussed anywhere else? Thanks.

Apple needs to hear this feedback because this is (unfortunately) a great example. If it's happening to your mother, it's happening to other people worldwide. I hope you will take a couple of minutes to send this:

Feedback - Books for iOS and iPadOS - Apple

You can also email Tim Cook who reads customer emails and sometimes responds, but would certainly pass on the feedback to the right team: tcook@apple.com.

 

[Celtan]

Apple needs to hear this feedback because this is (unfortunately) a great example. If it's happening to your mother, it's happening to other people worldwide. I hope you will take a couple of minutes to send this:

Hi, I have submitted a summary of the issues at the link above and will email Mr Cook as you have suggested. Sincere thanks for your suggestion, let’s hope someone can help.

Just for context, here is a picture of my mum reading books on her iPad on IOS14. The maximum text size is now less than half what we had previous to the IOS15 upgrade. Sadly she is no longer able to make out the words at the reduced size….

 

[Celtan]

Hi Tim,

I recently upgraded the software on my 92 year old vision impaired mothers IPad’s to IOS15 and now sadly the ability to enable the large fonts that we had on all previous IOS versions is no longer available. Her iPads are now useless to her and I am certain that this situation will also soon be impacting other visually impaired people as they upgrade to IOS15.

Just for context, I am including a picture of my mum reading her books on her iPad on IOS14. The maximum text size is now about half the size we had previous to the IOS15 upgrade. She is no longer able to make out the words at the IOS15 reduced font size.

I am fully aware of the available zoom and other accessibility features but these are way too complex for my mother to understand and operate. We simply need the large fonts as shown restored or my mum will be isolated and every book she has purchased will be useless.

Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Wayne.


Sent from my iPad

 

[Celtan]

Hi Tim,

I recently upgraded the software on my 92 year old vision impaired mothers IPad’s to IOS15 and now sadly the ability to enable the large fonts that we had on all previous IOS versions is no longer available. Her iPads are now useless to her and I am certain that this situation will also soon be impacting other visually impaired people as they upgrade to IOS15.

Just for context, I am including a picture of my mum reading her books on her iPad on IOS14. The maximum text size is now about half the size we had previous to the IOS15 upgrade. She is no longer able to make out the words at the IOS15 reduced font size.

I am fully aware of the available zoom and other accessibility features but these are way too complex for my mother to understand and operate. We simply need the large fonts as shown restored or my mum will be isolated and every book she has purchased will be useless.

Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Wayne.


Sent from my iPad

Well, no response from Tim/Apple. Worth a shot but not surprised that such a small segment of the market is overlooked.

 

[aldo82]

iOS and Apple in general seems to be really highly praised for Accessibility. I have never used it but I understand VoiceOver works really well. However as a low vision user who needs large text but does not need VoiceOver I can find iOS frustrating at times. the restriction of manay many apps to not scale font size means I need to use the Accessibility zoom regularly. this is great in general but it does have its quirk. I often get unintentional taps on the screen when trying to do the three finger zoom in and out. some apps it doesn't play nicely with and trying to type while zoomed in and moving the curser can be a nightmare.

I really liked how apple were moving things forward by having app specific font size adjustment in iOS 15 but given that most apps ignore it, it didn't actually improve accessibility much in the end at all! and sadly it seems from other posts that it actually made it worse

 

[Pakaku]

I really liked how apple were moving things forward by having app specific font size adjustment in iOS 15 but given that most apps ignore it, it didn't actually improve accessibility much in the end at all! and sadly it seems from other posts that it actually made it worse

If the third-party apps aren't bothering, that's a problem on their part, and I'm not sure what Apple could do about it. You would have to try talking to the app devs themselves, and who knows how responsive they'll be

 

[now i see it]

^ That’s the underlying problem.
New versions of iOS always break and change things and many developers can’t be bothered fixing unprofitable old apps to make them play nice with the changes.

 

[aldo82]

It’s mostly true that it’s up to the app developer. But apple could do more. They own the App Store and decide the rules that apps have to abide by in order to be accepted. They could for example make a rule that the font in apps has to be coded using fonts that obey dynamic text size (or say x% of the fonts in the app should obey). And they could insist that apps obey all of the accessibility features. But apple choose not to do this which limits accessibility as app developers understandably develop for the masses and not the minority

 

[BiggAW]

The whole font sizing is iOS on non "standard" screen size devices is a mess. I've never had an issue on my iPad, which is the "standard" 9.7", but the iPhone 13 Flomax was a mess, so I ended up getting a Galaxy S21+. The S21+ has a few issues, but not nearly as bad as the Flomax.