In September, Apple released the iOS 15 with a slew of features such as Spotlight search, better AirPlay share content, custom focus profiles, and a faster Siri experience, to name a few. But for some inexplicable reason, Apple sacrificed select Siri features frequently used by visually challenged iPhone users. There has been no fix for the issue, even months after the iOS 15 release.
We previously reported the problem back in September. With the iOS 15 update, various Siri commands used for basic tasks were nuked entirely. Here’s a list of commands that were removed, as reported by MacRumors:
- Do I have any voicemails?
- Who called me?
- Check my recent calls
- Play my voicemail messages
- Check my call history
- Send an email to [person]
However, these commands are not just useful for the visually impaired. Many users on the AppleVis forum reported how the feature was sorely missed by those who enjoyed the hands-free experience. Interestingly one user reported the issue with iOS 14 and below as well:
One of the people whom I support told me that she could no longer use Siri to send email from her iPhone 8 with iOS 14. I tried on my iPhone SE with iOS 15.0 and the response from Siri was “sorry, I can’t help with that’. Subsequently, I’ve had the same response on a phone running iOS 12.
A user on the Apple Support Community urged those affected to voice their dissatisfaction:
Today I contacted Accessibility Support for an update, and while they seemed frustrated at their own lack of updates, I received some rather forward advice:
– Contact Accessibility Support and have your Apple ID added to the official engineering issue as an “affected user” so that you receive the mass e-mails about the status of this fix.
– Submit Feedback, which does affect engineering’s prioritization of this issue.
She seemed to imply the more noise that’s made about this issue, the better.
Apple has not yet officially addressed these issues. The iPhone maker’s cavalier attitude towards a pressing problem is in stark contrast to its accessibility campaign.
Do you think Apple will finally come around and fix Siri? Let us know in the comments.
