Apple's new accessibility features empower disabled people to lead independent life

Apple's latest iOS/iPadOS 18 update brings several accessibility features including eye tracking, vehicle motion cues (to reduce motion sickness), voice control and colour filters on CarPlay on automobiles.

In September, Apple rolled out software updates (iOS/iPadOS 18) with several value-added features to enhance user experience on its devices.

A very important thing to note about the latest updates is that they bring several accessibility features including eye tracking, vehicle motion cues , voice control and colour filters on CarPlay on automobiles.

With International Day of Disabled Persons celebrated on December 3, we had the opportunity to interact with people with disabilities who have found these features to be of real help in improving their day-to-day life better than before.

Dhanya Ravi is an accessibility evangelist and an executive with EnAble India. She was India's Locomotor Disability Ambassador at Purple Fest 2023 and was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI). It is a very rare genetic disorder that causes brittle bones and makes her highly vulnerable to breakages. Dhanya has fractured 200 bones since birth, which is why she is called a 'glass woman'.

Dhanya loves the new eye tracking and also voice control feature that lets her use Apple devices to get work done faster and more efficiently than ever before.

"The assistive features help me complete my tasks more easily and in a stress-free way. Voice Control is my favourite, and I'm so happy with the fixes provided in the new update. What I love most about eye tracking is how we select options. Using eye tracking to check my unread WhatsApp messages helps me read a lot of messages in a short amount of time.," said Dhanya.

Dhanya Ravi is an accessibility evangelist and an executive with EnAble India.

Earlier users with vision disabilities needed to buy separate accessories to navigate through Apple iPhone and iPad.

Now, with the availability of eye tracking features within the Apple device, they never have to rely on another gadget. Apple's feature makes good use of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities of the device and front camera to follow the eyes of the users to help them navigate through settings and switch between apps with less hassle.

Aman Verma, who also works at Enable India as a Digital Accessibility lead, recently moved from Mumbai to Bengaluru. He is a passionate tech enthusiast and loves trying out new features and tools. He likes Apple's latest Vehicle Motion Cues feature that helps people recover from motion sickness when travelling in an automobile.

Aman Verma,Digital Accessibility lead at Enable India.

"Vehicle Motion Cues have been really helpful for me in the long never-ending Bengaluru commutes. Having the tendency to scroll through social media or finish up on my binge-watching sessions I would feel nauseated at times but the motion cues seem to have reduced that feeling by a great extent," Verma noted.

When a user is feeling discomfort while travelling on a bus or in the car, he/she can turn on Vehicle Motion Cues— on iPhone/iPad. onscreen cues that may help reduce motion sickness. Vehicle Motion Cues appear as animated dots on the edges of the screen that represent how the vehicle is moving without interfering with what you’re doing on the iPhone.

Vehicle Motion Cues  on iPhone and iPad can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles.

Here's how to turn on the Vehicle Motion Cues feature on an Apple device:

Step 1: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion.

Step 2: Tap Show Vehicle Motion Cues, then tap an option. If you choose Automatic, animated dots appear on the screen when the iPhone detects that you’re riding in a car or other on-road vehicle; the dots are hidden when the motion stops.

To manually show or hide Vehicle Motion Cues, open Control Center, tap the Vehicle Motion Cues button, then tap an option.

Stallone Peris, accessibility tester at EnAble India also swears by Apple's new features.

Peris loves the new VoiceControl feature that has greatly helped him use social media apps on iPhones, which he previously couldn't.

"Voice-over has tonnes of features that I use extensively. For example, if VoiceOver did not provide accessibility to various apps, I wouldn’t be able to use them. VoiceOver has the screen recognition feature and it’s really helpful for me during testing, because I can get a partial visualisation of that particular screen, even if it's not accessible, and then we can generate a report with our observations.," Peris noted.

Stallone Peris, accessibility tester at EnAble India.

"The biggest differentiator of VoiceOver for me is that it is very fast. On Apple, the optimisation of the VoiceOver and its code is very light, so because of this optimisation, we can scroll it fast. Just like sighted people, how they scroll on iOS, we get the exact buttery smooth experience on our apps with VoiceOver. Because of this, I especially enjoy using VoiceOver, especially for apps like WhatsApp and Facebook where using other tools is difficult owing to their slow responses. In the case of VoiceOver, there is no such lag. Even while typing, there’s a feature called direct touch, and that helps me be super productive.," Peris said.

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