Explained: Apple’s accessibility features can help users with disabilities

Apple has shared a new YouTube video that celebrates the upcoming International Day of Persons with Disabilities. While sharing the video, the Cupertino-based tech giant has described that accessibility has been “a longstanding value at Apple,” and the accessibility features have been “infused” into most of its products to make them usable by everyone.
In the video, Apple focuses on the accessibility features available on Apple devices. This video aims to raise awareness about the innovations that Apple has made towards accessibility features. The video also shares the authentic experiences of people with vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive disabilities. Here we have explained how Apple’s accessibility features can help users with different physical disabilities.

Apple’s new accessibility video: Features shown
This new video is about the journey of seven Apple users with different physical disabilities. The video also shows how these users utilise the company’s suite of accessibility features to make their lives easier. Multiple Apple products including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac have been featured in this video.

The accessibility features that have been displayed in the video include Door Detection Mode on iPhone. This feature allows users with low vision or blindness to navigate doors, objects and people in their environment. The video also shows the Sound Recognition alerts feature available on Apple Watch. With this feature, users struggling with deafness or are hard of hearing can get alerts for a wide range of sounds including a baby’s cry or a doorbell.
Apple’s accessibility feature video has also demonstrated two other features — Voice Control and the AssistiveTouch feature. The first one opens up new ways for users to operate Apple devices only through their voice, while the other one helps users with upper-body limb differences to use the products.
Other accessibility features shown in the video
Apart from this, the video also includes other options from Apple’s suite of accessibility features. The vision accessibility features include VoiceOver, Magnifier and Image Descriptions on iPhone along with the Zoom used with Logic on Mac. The video also shows another mobility accessibility feature which is the alternate pointer controls on Mac, including head tracking & facial expressions.
For cognitive accessibility, the video includes the Spoken Content feature on iPads. Some of the other accessibility features were also shown in products like Siri, HomeKit, CarPlay and Apple Maps along with features for the iPhone Camera and Apple Watch Camera Remote.