Voice Control: unable to cancel a custom command, "cancel gesture" command does not work.

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Voice Control: unable to cancel a custom command, "cancel gesture" command does not work.

Hello, I need help in diagnosing an issue with iOS's accessibility feature, Voice Control. To be clear, I am talking about the feature found under Accessibility > Voice Control, and not Siri.

Using this feature, I can create custom commands that can playback gestures.

The problem with this though is, some of my custom commands involving gestures are quite long lasting up to a minute and more. In some cases, canceling the command is needed so that the command doesn't mess up my phone.

Under Voice Control > Commands > Advanced Gestures, there is a gesture called "Cancel gesture." Presumably, this gesture would cancel any on-going gesture, but when I speak it aloud to my phone, nothing happens.

I've tried speaking "stop listening" in an attempt to cancel my custom command, but nothing happens until after the gesture finishes playing, then voice control runs the "stop listening" command

iPhone 12

Posted on Feb 12, 2024 8:37 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

pekoe1234 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 22, 2024 11:59 AM in response to maryrs84

My solution has been the following:

Keep custom gestures short, then link them together in a voice command. You mentioned that only until the gesture finished then Voice Control stops listening. You can ensure that you can stop the gestures by keeping them short. Then you can cancel the gesture in a more reasonable time. For example, if you have a gesture that instructs to tap in different parts of the screen then swipe down, consider turning each tap and swipe into individual gestures. Then use voice commands to chain them together. This allows you to pause or stop the chain while it is still running.
Worst case scenario, you can speak "reboot device" and a popup will override everything allowing you to turn off your phone.

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Answer 2

maryrs84

Level 1

18 points

Mar 21, 2024 7:27 AM in response to pekoe1234

I have the same exact issue with Voice Control.

Using a shortcut to turn Voice Control off does not work. The command finishes before Voice Control stops listening.

My only option is to lock the device until the command is finished. However, if the command has a swiping gesture, I cannot look at my phone until I am certain the command is complete, because face recognition will unlock the device, and madness will ensue.

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Answer 3

BhadRice

Level 1

14 points

Jul 11, 2024 1:01 AM in response to pekoe1234

Saying "reboot device" does not stop the commands from running. I can't confirm if the commands will still press the cancel or accept, but your commands will still run in the background. This is just an oversight from apple and should have a straight-up override by saying "stop gesture" or something similar.

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Voice Control: unable to cancel a custom command, "cancel gesture" command does not work.

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