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I'm developing a newspaper, magazine and book reading app for the visually impaired. How can I keep track of VoiceOver speech progress in an UITextView with a lot of text so that I can bookmark where VoiceOver speech was interrupted? Can VoiceOver be paused for a specific element (UITextView) and then unpaused (if that's a word ;)

I can't have VoiceOver start reading a long text from the beginning every time the user reopens the app (ex. the user answers a phone call and then wants to continue listening to a book).

Melodius
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  • Are you using AVSpeechSythesizer to speak the text? – Umair Aamir Jan 16 '18 at 16:23
  • I am using out of the box iOS VoiceOver – Melodius Jan 16 '18 at 16:27
  • This behavior is impossible. Alternative solutions are available, but the answer to the question as posed, is, it can't be done. The APIs don't support it. – MobA11y Jan 19 '18 at 04:51
  • @ChrisCM If you post your comment as an anwer, I'll accept it as the right answer as I have come to the same conclusion. I'll have to code my own tts support for the UITextView with AVSpeechSynthesizer and hide it from VoiceOver while the rest of the app uses VoiceOver. – Melodius Jan 19 '18 at 09:59

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This behavior is impossible. Alternative solutions are available, but the answer to the question as posed, is, it can't be done. The APIs don't support it.

Alternative solutions involve things like: utilizing AVSpeehSynthesizer. However, once you get into this, you have to worry about things like localization of speech, language, and such. While AVSpeechSynthesizer is a handy API, I definitely do not recommend utilizing it to circumvent VoiceOver behavior. You would almost certainly inadvertently make things worse.

MobA11y
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  • My client want's behaviour that can only be accomplished with AVSpeechSynthesizer. Since the app is intended explicitly for finnish speaking users, localization is not an issue. – Melodius Jan 19 '18 at 19:35
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    This is only one example of why this is really a terrible idea. – MobA11y Jan 19 '18 at 21:00