What’s new with TalkBack 16.0

Your experience with TalkBack 16.0 is improved with:

Ask Gemini questions about an image or the screen
Describe screen
Table navigation
Braille improvements
Keyboard improvements

Ask Gemini questions about an image or the screen

Important: This feature is only available in English.

You can now ask questions about an image or the screen when you select the "Ask Gemini" button.

To find out what’s in an image or on the screen:

To open the TalkBack menu, three-finger tap the screen.
To get a detailed image description, tap Describe image. Learn more about how to use image descriptions.
To get a description of your current screen, tap Describe screen.
To ask a follow up question, tap Ask Gemini.
- You can ask questions with Gemini by voice or type out a query using the keyboard.

Tip: You can provide feedback on the descriptions using thumbs up or down buttons.

Describe screen

Important: This feature is only available in English.

To summarize the content on the screen, TalkBack uses generative AI.

To get a description of your current screen:

To open the TalkBack menu, three-finger tap the screen.
Tap Describe screen.

Table navigation

When you use TalkBack in a table, you can use table navigation to move up, down, left, and right. While in a table, make sure you’re in the “Rows and columns” reading control and swipe in the direction you’d like to go. To navigate normally, change to another reading control.

To add rows and columns as separate reading controls:

Open your device’s Settings app.
Tap Accessibility TalkBack Settings.
Tap Customize menus Customize reading controls.

To manage automatic table navigation:

Open your device’s Settings app.
Tap Accessibility TalkBack Settings.
Tap Advanced settings Automatically switch to table navigation reading control when entering a table.

Tip: To navigate and read tables, you can create custom keyboard commands.

Braille improvements

On your braille display, you can now read system messages, like toasts or notifications.

When a message comes in, it shows up on your braille display.

To dismiss the message: Press dot 8 or the routing buttons.
To access messages you've missed: Press Space and dots 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8.

Keyboard improvements

You can now customize your keyboard shortcuts by using the Search key (or the Windows key if you’re using a Windows keyboard) as your TalkBack modifier key.

To find this setting:

Open your device’s Settings app.
Tap Accessibility TalkBack Settings.
Tap Advanced settings Keyboard shortcuts.

To quickly jump between visited links:

Go to the next visited link: Press TalkBack + V.
Go to the previous visited link: Press TalkBack + Shift + V.