The Power of the Rotor

A Vista Digital Dynamos Zoom session

Brian Negus 22 October 2020, updated 21 February 2022

The rotor

VoiceOver’s Swiss Army knife

The rotor is a VoiceOver gesture that you use to choose what happens when you swipe up or down with one finger - and there is a huge range of tools to choose from.

Think of turning the rotor as moving a pointer on a circular dial. Each pointer position selects a tool; it’s a circular dial so you can go either way round and there are no end stops.

The selected tool defines what happens when you swipe vertically with one finger. For example, if you turn the rotor to speaking rate, the speed of VoiceOver speech can be increased by swiping up and decreased by swiping down.

There are two exceptions to this vertical swipe behaviour - handwriting and Braille Screen Input, the subject of another session.

The rotor gesture

Turn two fingers clockwise or anti-clockwise on the screen.

Could be a finger and thumb or even one finger from your left hand and another from your right hand.

If you find that hard try resting two fingers on the screen and rotating the phone instead; probably not hugely practical on an iPad!

When the rotor turns an image appears briefly on screen displaying the tool that you have chosen and VoiceOver also speaks that tool’s name.

Practice voiceOver gestures

Some people find the rotor gesture tough and it may need practice.

You can practice VoiceOver gestures with no risk of unintended consequences.

First ensure that Zoom is not enabled. VoiceOver practice doesn’t work properly if Zoom is enabled.

On the Home screen, double tap with four fingers. It might be easiest if you hold the phone in landscape orientation. You can also get here via VoiceOver settings.

You should hear “starting help”.

Now perform a gesture and VoiceOver will tell you what it thinks your gesture was.

If you try the rotor gestures, clockwise and anti-clockwise, you should hear “two finger rotate”.

When you have finished, double tap again with four fingers.

What’s on the rotor dial

The rotor will already have several tools pre-installed around its dial, but you can decide which tools you want to appear. You can remove unwanted tools and add new tools.

Too many tools and it may take a long time to find the one you want, so remove any you don’t use after a while; you may need to add some that aren’t pre-installed, for example handwriting or Braille Screen Input.

To check what’s currently on your rotor or to add or delete tools, ask Siri to open VoiceOver settings, swipe right to rotor and then double tap.

You can now swipe right through the list of all available tools. If the tool’s name is preceded by “selected” then that tool is currently available on your rotor.

You will also hear “reorder” options which allow you to move tools around the dial. Let’s leave these alone for now.

If you want to remove a tool that is currently selected, double tap.

If you want to add a tool that is not selected, double tap.

A note about the rotor dial

Your iPhone or iPad is a bit smarter than a Swiss Army knife and it knows what you are doing right now and will only offer tools on the rotor dial that are useful now, so you don’t have to wade through loads of useless tools.

If you were called out to do a plumbing job, you would probably leave your electrical tools at home. That’s how the rotor works.

For example, you will find fewer tools around the rotor dial when you are on the home screen, but most tools, including those to navigate and edit text, will be available when you are composing an email and entering text.

I can't do the rotor gesture

If you can’t do the rotor gesture - Don’t Panic!

All VoiceOver gestures can be reassigned.

We can change the rotor gestures to two finger swipes right and left, which are otherwise used for a feature many people won’t need to use.

Changing the gesture is a bit fiddly, but it’s a one-off effort.

It is done in the commands section of VoiceOver settings but inexperienced users should probably seek assistance either in person or over the phone.

So just to be clear - you can choose to use either the standard rotor gestures or the easier two finger swipe right or left gestures.

How to change the rotor gesture

How to change the rotor gestures to two finger swipes

Instruct Siri to open VoiceOver settings.

Swipe right to “commands” and double tap.

Swipe right to “touch gestures” and double tap.

Swipe right repeatedly or otherwise locate “two finger swipe left” and double tap.

Swipe right to the search field and double tap to edit it.

Either dictate or type “rotor”.

Slide a finger from top of screen to locate “previous rotor” (NOT previous rotor item) and double tap.

Use a similar process to assign a two finger swipe right to “next rotor”.

What can you do with the rotor? - The two exceptions

You can change the method of text input to one of:

Handwriting;

Braille Screen Input.

No vertical swipe is required, just start handwriting or entering Braille.

Finish the handwriting or BSI session with a two finger scrub gesture or the standard rotor gesture.

What can you do with the rotor? - Change the value of some settings

Speaking rate - this is the speed of VoiceOver’s speech

Swipe up to make speech faster and down to make speech slower
don’t make it too fast - you may not be able to reset it without sighted help!

Volume - changes the VO speech volume relative to media volume.
subject to Settings/ Accessibility / VoiceOver / Sounds & Haptics / Match Speech Volume being turned on

Swipe up to increase VO volume and down to decrease VO volume
same warning - don’t make it too quiet

It’s a good idea not to leave the rotor on these setting, since an unintentional vertical swipe could make unwanted changes. Move the rotor to a setting like words after using speaking rate or volume.

If you are confident you won’t use these settings remove them from your rotor settings.

What can you do with the rotor? - Turn VoiceOver Recognition features on or off

Only available on recent models (XS and later, including the new SE and recent iPads);

Still a work in progress, but impressive when it works;

Image Descriptions can be turned on and off using the rotor;
I was pleasantly surprised when VO spoke a scan of a handwritten attachment to me as soon as I opened it

Screen Recognition can be turned on and off using the rotor;
attempts to render inaccessible screens accessible

Safe to leave image descriptions on but screen recognition should be used only when attempting to work with inaccessible screens.You may not need image descriptions on your rotor.

If you use screen recognition then it must be put on your rotor so it can be turned on and off easily.

What can you do with the rotor? - Control how you move around text in apps or on web pages

Works everywhere, text in apps, on web pages and text you are entering;

Rotor settings are: lines, words and characters.

To read an email a line at a time, set the rotor to lines and swipe down.

If you didn’t quite catch a word, swipe up to get to the beginning of the line, turn the rotor to words and swipe down to hear the line a word at a time.

If you still didn’t get it, swipe up to go to the beginning of the word, set the rotor to characters and then swipe down to have the word spelt, character by character.

What can you do with the rotor? - Control how you move around simple text

A word about the insertion point or reading position

If you swipe down to move forward, the insertion point or reading position is now after the item you just heard.

If you swipe up to move backwards, the insertion point or reading position is immediately before the item you just heard.

So, if the rotor is set to words and you swipe down and hear a word spoken, the position is after the last letter of the word.

If the rotor is set to words and you swipe up to go backwards one word, then you will hear the word spoken the position will be immediately before the first letter of the word.

What can you do with the rotor? - Control how you move around more complex screens, e.g. web pages

Lines, words and characters still available

The headings rotor setting lets you skip from hearing to heading, a great way of skimming. There are headings, sub headings and so on - heading level 1, heading level 2, etc.
You will find headings in apps and on web pages.

The links rotor setting lets you skip from link to link.

What can you do with the rotor? - Headings, the good and the bad news

Some web site authors do a great job of marking up their web pages so that headings are fantastically useful for discovering stuff quickly. Many of my web pages are quite short and have no need of headings and sub-headings but I do try to provide headings to make it easier for you to find your way around longer pages.

Some website authors aren’t so careful and headings are marked up haphazardly or not at all.

Try bbc.co.uk or the BBC News app for a good headings experience. Find a heading that’s of interest then swipe right to explore its content or, if it is also a link, double tap it to follow the link.

What can you do with the rotor? - If headings don’t work well...

For web pages, first try the links rotor setting.

On a greeting cards website that I’ve helped with, we eventually found that the best way to skip from card to card was to use the images setting on the rotor, since each card began with it image.

Sorry, there is no substitute for persistence, experimentation and ingenuity. Web pages are getting more accessible, especially new ones that want your money, but there’s a lot of catching up to do. If headings or links don’t let you skip easily, try swiping right through the page to listen for clues about how it is organised.

What can you do with the rotor? - Some other settings to consider on web pages

Visited links;

Non-visited links;

Buttons;

Text fields - could help you skip from item to item on a form; Search fields;

There are others, but that’s enough to experiment with for now.

A word about actions - The actions setting on the rotor

Many apps offer a menu of choices called actions when you swipe up or down. VO sometimes speaks “actions available”. For example the Mail app offers several actions, including delete and activate, which is the default action. (Activate just opens the mail).

Usually the rotor will be set to actions automatically by these apps.

Occasionally, this may fail. If your favourite app dxoesn’t do what you expect when you swipe up or down, try turning the rotor to actions.

What can you do with the rotor? - Correcting text

Let’s assume that you just dictated an email, double tapped with one finger to go to the beginning, swiped down with two fingers to listen and heard a few mistakes.

“Hi Gill, how are you getting on? Fumble Brian”

Double tap again to return to the start.

Set the rotor to characters and swipe down until you reach the G.

Your insertion point is now after G so find the delete key and double tap. Type J.

Turn the rotor to words and swipe down until you hear fumble then delete repeatedly to take it out letter by letter.

What can you do with the rotor? - Making big changes to text

Let’s say you decide to delete a whole paragraph from an email. Double tap with one finger to move to the start.

Set the rotor to lines and swipe down until you hear the beginning of the paragraph then swipe up once to move the insertion point to the start of the paragraph.

Turn the rotor to Text selection and swipe up until you hear line selection. Swipe right to add the paragraph to your selection line by line.

Use the delete key on the keyboard to delete it. Of course, if you wanted to replace the paragraph, you could dictate or type a replacement instead of using delete.

What can you do with the rotor? - Copy and paste text - even between apps

It’s just the same as on computers.

Use the rotor in lines, words or characters to position at the beginning of the text.

Turn the rotor to text selection. Swipe up to choose one of select all, line selection, word selection or character selection and then swipe right repeatedly if necessary to add the text to your selection.

Turn the rotor to edit and swipe up until you hear copy and then double tap to copy the selected text to the clipboard.

It can now be pasted in anywhere you choose either in the text you are editing or in a completely different app by using the edit rotor tool, swiping up for the paste option and double tapping.

A word about actions - The actions setting on the rotor

Many apps offer a menu of choices called actions when you swipe up or down. VO sometimes speaks “actions available”. For example the Mail app offers several actions, including delete and activate, which is the default action. (Activate just opens the mail).

Usually the rotor will be set to actions automatically by these apps.

Occasionally, this may fail. If your favourite app dxoesn’t do what you expect when you swipe up or down, try turning the rotor to actions.Any other suggestions?

Actions - drag and drop

iOS and iPadOS 15 enabled drag and drop for sighted users as a visual way to pick up items and drop them in a new location.

Actions may now include a drag option. Seems to work well within apps but a bit wayward between apps.

Try it for moving an email to a different mailbox. Locate an email in your inbox. Swipe up to “drag item” and double tap.You will hear rising tones.

Go to Mailboxes and locate the mailbox you want to drop the message into

Swipe up until you hear “drop on to item” and then double tap.

More about actions

The actions available when you swipe vertically within an app are decided by the app developer and may change as the app evolves. They will usually match features available to sighted users by various gestures, including tap and hold.

Apps like Twitter and Facebook offer actions to do app specific things that would otherwise require searching for a button.

It’s unlikely that you will find these features fully documented and experiment is your best approach

Alternatively, if it’s an Apple app seek help from Apple Accessibility. If it’s not Apple, then seek support from the developer.

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