With WWDC only weeks away, Apple on Tuesday previewed a wide variety of new accessibility software features for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The features, intended to make Apple’s devices easier to use for people with or at risk of cognitive, visual, hearing, speech, and mobility disabilities, will roll out later in 2023, but the company made the announcement to join Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which falls on Thursday, May 18 this year.
“Today we are excited to share incredible new features that build on our long history of making technology accessible,” said Tim Cook, “so that everyone has the opportunity to create, interact and do what they love.”
Support access
The first new feature is designed to make it easier for people with cognitive disabilities to use the iPhone and iPad. Assistive access works at the individual app level, providing a simplified or pared-down experience to lower cognitive requirements. Apple refers to this process as “us”.[ing] innovations in design to distill apps and experiences down to their essential features.”
For example, the Phone and FaceTime apps have been reduced to a single Calls app designed to be easier to use, while Messages offers a video messaging feature and the option of an emoji-only keyboard. Likewise, there are “distilled” versions of the Camera, Photos, and Music apps. Apple doesn’t specify whether third-party developers will be able to create Assistive Access versions of their apps, but it seems likely they will be encouraged to do so.
Finally, Assistive Access offers the ability to customize your device’s interface at the operating system level, with the choice of a traditional grid-based layout or a row-based layout. This sounds similar to the Home screen view choices on the Apple Watch, which can display apps as a honeycomb grid or as an alphabetical list, which many of us find easier to use.
Live speech
Live Speech is a text-to-speech feature for people who have difficulty speaking. It can be used during face-to-face conversations if you have the device to hand, but it can also allow iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to type responses during phone and FaceTime calls and have them spoken aloud.
This may sound like it could slow down conversations for those who aren’t fast typists, but Apple says the user can save frequently used phrases for quick responses.
Personal voice
Related to Live Speech, Personal Voice is designed for those who do not currently have prohibitive speech problems but are at risk of doing so in the future. The idea is that you spend 15 minutes reading text prompts aloud on your iPhone or iPad, which then uses this audio data and machine learning to create a digital voice that matches yours. If speech becomes impossible in the future for any reason, you can use the Live Speech feature to make calls and send messages using a voice similar to your own. Apple assures us that the data is kept private and secure to avoid the possibility of audio impersonation.
Those seem like the three biggest announcements in today’s press release, but there are many smaller announcements worth noting.
For example, Detection Mode in Magnifier gets a new Point and Speak feature. This means that a visually impaired user can run their finger over the buttons on a home appliance and the iPhone will read their labels aloud.
Text size is easier to adjust in Mac apps. Those sensitive to fast animations can automatically pause GIFs in Messages and Safari. And it will be possible for deaf or hard-of-hearing people to pair hearing aids certified as Made for iPhone directly with their Macs.
However, some announcements are beyond the scope of software features. Apple is expanding its SignTime service, which provides sign language interpretation for Apple Store customers and customers who contact Apple Support, to more countries. There will be sessions in Apple Stores to introduce customers to accessibility features, while curated collections of shows, movies and series about accessibility issues or created by people from the community with disabilities will be featured on Podcasts and the Apple TV app.
