Apple’s Latest System Updates Include Functionality That Is Accessible As It Is Convenient
Since the WWDC keynote ended last Monday, Vision Pro has literally been the buzz all over town. An entirely new device and an entirely new software system to run it don’t come along every day, so the excitement about Vision Pro is understandable. But there was many more announcements, such as new Mac hardware and the usual glimpses of software upgrades coming later this year.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts on six non-headset-related topics from the developer conference that I feel are relevant to the disability community and accessibility issues.
Autofill PDFs. New to iPadOS 17, Apple uses its ever-expanding machine learning capabilities to help people fill out PDF documents. On its iPadOS preview page, Apple markets the feature as helping users “fill out a PDF or scanned document faster” by tapping into someone else’s address book. Efficiency is one thing, accessibility is another. For a disabled person, Apple’s use of artificial intelligence in this feature has significant cognitive and fine motor skills benefits. Regarding the former, having the system automatically recognize fields and suggest information can go a long way in relieving cognitive load. A person with cognitive disabilities does not need to think about what a field might mean or what to put in there. The latter reduces another point of friction. Motor problems can also occur with an Apple Pencil, which not only lead to signs of fatigue when holding the writing instrument, but also during the actual writing process. With the help of AI, someone no longer needs to write at all, not even a signature. You just type where prompted and the system does the heavy lifting.
All in all: what does better accessibility ultimately mean? For Apple’s marketing, this means faster and more efficient workflows.
Live Voicemail. In another twist on machine learning, Apple in iOS 17, as the name suggests, transcribes voicemails in real time as the caller leaves – all without the user answering the call. The company is more or less positioning the feature as a de facto call screener; You can look at the first few lines of text and decide how important it is. As with autofilling PDFs, Apple is pushing for Live Voicemail as a convenience feature. And that’s it, but it’s also about accessibility. For someone who is deaf and hard of hearing, the ability to “read” incoming voice messages can seem like straining to hear the message, even at higher volume or using a hearing aid. Likewise, the appearance of live voicemail on the lock screen also means the path of least resistance in terms of literal access. Instead of tediously navigating to the Phone app and finding the Voicemail tab, Live Voicemail acts as a lowercase shortcut. As I always say, the implementation details are usually not trivial for a person with a disability. The smallest details make the biggest difference.
Contact sharing with NameDrop. Also new in iOS 17 is the cleverly named NameDrop, which aims to make exchanging contacts a more meaningful endeavor. Based on AirDrop technologies, NameDrop works by placing two iPhones (or Apple Watch Series 6 and newer) close together, allowing contact information to be transferred between the two devices. From an accessibility perspective, NameDrop should reduce excessive visual and motor fatigue. Instead of typing, swiping, and scrolling to find someone in your address book Then When you pull up the stock sheet, NameDrop bundles a multi-step process into one swoop. (Yes, this is another lowercase abbreviation.) As much as I love the Flexibits Cardhop app on my iPhone (and on macOS), I can attest to the tediousness of the above process, which sometimes feels like a high-tech Operation can feel like archaeological excavation. Not only will NameDrop streamline the process, but more importantly, it will make it more accessible.
FaceTime on Apple TV. New to tvOS 17, the accessibility appeal aligns perfectly with Apple’s drive to (finally?) bring FaceTime to the biggest screen of them all on TV. The saying “bigger is bigger” sums it up perfectly here. I regularly FaceTime calls with close family and friends, mostly from my nearly four-year-old iMac. Despite my computer’s thick bezels, it’s generally a great experience, but being able to FaceTime from the living room TV will be great. The larger display not only means more real estate, but also a larger window through which I can take in the visual and emotional cues of everyone I’m speaking to. Likewise, people in the deaf and hearing-impaired community, who have long largely preferred Apple products to FaceTime, should find it easier to recognize signs and recognize cues of the deaf.
Mental health tracking on iOS and watchOS. With iOS 17 and watchOS 10, Apple made a deliberate effort to focus on mental health. At first glance, this is significant news, since Apple has spent much of the last nearly decade focusing on physical well-being since the introduction of the Apple Watch. What started out as mindfulness in the Breathe app on watchOS has blossomed into mood tracking. On iPhone and Apple Watch (and iPad, where the Health app debuts this year), the system asks users how they’re feeling and tracks progress, whether positive or negative. There is also an option to fill out standard health assessment questionnaires in the health app, which can then be easily shared with the therapist or another clinician with just a few taps.
As I’ve said countless times in this column, mental health can be just as disabling as any physical illness. Because of this, much of the coverage here has focused on the interplay between mental health and technology lately. As someone who has struggled with mental health issues my entire life and is on medication, the issue is obviously close to my heart. Apple’s use of its products as a channel to raise awareness and log data means more people can take care of their emotional well-being and treat it like any other medical problem or condition. For the same reason, the ability to fill out the aforementioned wellness surveys should theoretically be made accessible, since when a person is on someone else’s iPhone or iPad, the system’s accessibility software (VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, etc.) can use. to facilitate the completion of these essential forms.
The new 15-inch MacBook Air. A bit of hardware to address. I was able to check out the new 15-inch Air in the hands-on section after the keynote last week and it seemed like a great device. I got the 13 inch version as a late Christmas present and the larger version is almost exactly the same. Same industrial design, same finish options, same M2 processor. The only differences are the increase in screen size and, accordingly, volume and weight. The accessibility appeal is obvious: if you want a laptop with a big screen that’s lightweight and doesn’t break your budget like a MacBook Pro, the 15-inch Air is your dream laptop. Judging by the few minutes I’ve spent with the device, Apple seems to have hit the mark in terms of screen size and portability. As someone who owned an 11-inch Air about a decade ago and longed for the long-defunct 12-inch MacBook, the 13-inch Air is ideal for me given my affinity for small notebooks. I carried it with me all day while roaming Apple Park and sometimes forgot it was in my bag.
Basically, as I wrote at the beginning, I picked a few supposedly mainstream features that I think are relevant to accessibility. But lest we forget, now that iOS 17 has been officially recognized by Apple as a known entity, the accessibility features they announced last month during Global Accessibility Awareness Day will also be available this fall.
All in all, while the Vision Pro was undeniably the showstopper this year, Apple proved once again that you don’t need a mixed reality headset to see what the company has been up to with artificial intelligence and machine learning. From autofill PDFs to Live Voicemail to Personal Voice and the myriad recognition modes of the Magnifier app and more, Apple’s ecosystem is full of useful technologies that bring meaning to spatial computations all of their own.
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