Apple Plans Major Accessibility Additions

18 MAY 2022 - Tuesday was Accessibility Awareness Day and Apple marked it with a press release announcing a lot of upcoming accessibility improvements. “Using advancements across hardware, software, and machine learning,” Apple’s press release said:

…people who are blind or low vision can use their iPhone and iPad to navigate the last few feet to their destination with Door Detection; users with physical and motor disabilities who may rely on assistive features like Voice Control and Switch Control can fully control Apple Watch from their iPhone with Apple Watch Mirroring; and the Deaf and hard of hearing community can follow Live Captions on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple is also expanding support for its industry-leading screen reader VoiceOver with over 20 new languages and locales. These features will be available later this year with software updates across Apple platforms.

While they’re all welcome improvements, Live Captions feels like one of those “we live in the future” features. According to Apple’s press release, with Live Captions enabled:

Users can follow along more easily with any audio content — whether they are on a phone or FaceTime call, using a video conferencing or social media app, streaming media content, or having a conversation with someone next to them.

Because we live in the future.

The press release is very in-depth, with illustrative videos and a lot more in the way of planned features. It is worth a trip to Apple’s online newsroom to check out.