History of Apple Accessibility

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Today we’re going to explore the history of Apple accessibility, a topic which doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention that it deserves, but that hasn’t kept Apple from pioneering some of the most life-changing accessibility features. So you may have heard the word “accessibility” before, but what does it mean exactly? Well the word itself refers to how easily something can be obtained or used. And when considering technology, accessibility is extremely important. Part of the reason why the iPhone has been so successful is because its technology is easily accessible to anyone. Its straightforward touchscreen interface makes interaction feel natural and intuitive. The Blackberry on the other hand, wasn’t so accessible, and suffered a terrible fate. So it’s easy to recognize how accessible or inaccessible products are in our daily life, but what if we took this a step further? If your vision or hearing was impaired, that suddenly makes certain products much less accessible. And Apple’s response to those challenges is what we’ll be covering in this video.

[AppleExplained]

Do any of you guys use accessibility features? My favorite is definitely three finger window dragging on my MacBook Pro.

[mziminski]

I'm a technology instructor for people who are visually impaired. I teach VoiceOver and Zoom to many of my students. Personally, I love Apple's approach to accessibility. Many of my students would not be where they are today without it!

[craigslater]

I am blind and use Apple products. I love the fact that I am able to use them in the same way as anyone else. I have recently bought a MacBook Air and find it easier to use than every other laptop I've ever owned which were all Windows laptops. I have decided to switch to using all Apple products where possible as I feel it is important to support companies that are making there products accessible because they want to, rather than because they feel they should.

[acerbt]

I'm a blind user of apple products and I always have come back to apple because of the great accessibility. I just started watching netflix about a year and a half ago, and the audio descriptions do work in there. I got the mac because of garage band and logic, for the good voiceover accessible interface. There are still huge problems like games being programmed in unity and developers not adding good accessibility labels to buttons among others that make apps like audio unit plugins and more inaccessible.

[dita]

Great video. I am not disabled and I think that accessibility is fundamental. It is respect for all the people, respect for humankind and therefore also for ourselves too.

[alexadkins]

You forgot to mention that some people also have learning disabilities. For someone like me, with dyslexia, speech to text is awesome. Another great feature is for the option for iOS read something to you. You should show how these features can help people with learning disabilities. Not everyone just has physical disabilities.

[shaunteckno]

Hello! Great video! Thanks very much for covering this topic. I'm blind, myself, but I also love to explore different accessability features for individuals with different disabilities. There is a menu in iOS that allows you to select any accessability option that you have put into the menu. This menu can be found under accessibility options in the Accessability’s setting. You get to this menu, if you have created it, by triple tapping the side button, or the home button. In this menu, for example, I first have VoiceOver in the menu, followed by the magnifier, then folllowed by switch control. I started using switch control when VoiceOver was really buggy in iOS 8. Since switch control has speech capability, I set up two virtual switches that can be controled by the front facing camera. This accessibility feature has proven to be very useful.I was wondering if you would mind doing a video on the newly released Voice Control feature in iOS 13. Thanks very much. Again, great video!

[judgewest]

Hey man. I don’t know how long you’ve been creating videos but I completely appreciate the time and effort you put into em.
Keep up the good work :)

[SamareckRage]

I don't know if this was deliberate, but I noticed you narrate your videos in such a way to where I don't have to look at the screen to know everything thats going on. Its a nice thing to have in the background while i work :)

[manuelvelasco]

I use voiceover on the iPhone. I’ve been using it for the past four years and I don’t think I’m going to switch over to android anytime soon, unless they step up their game.

[elgarsstupans]

Assistive touch was my life with old iPhones and their crappy home buttons

[dhara]

I love that you have added captions for almost every one if your videos. Hope other creators do the same.

[phonetic]

Being Dyslexic i often use Siri to help with spelling

[deshpandemediaservices]

Subtitles are one of the reason I watch your videos

[Jaminux]

i thank you for adding subtitles to your videos; as a person living with apd, it's much more convenient for me to have something to read while i listen. it's very frustrating when i turn on subtitles for a video and the subtitles are either poorly formatted, incorrect, or jokey because i need those to truly understand what is being said.

[matthewsmatters]

Thank you for creating this beautiful and well considered insight into Apple and accessibility! You have done yourself proud. Speaking as someone who has been visually impaired all of my life, I switched to Apple in c.2010 when they alone produced accessible smartphones. I hated texting before this, because it was so hard to read what I had typed, or read what others sent to me. A few years later when I became infuriated with constant stability issues using Windows with third-party accessibility software, I switched to Mac, and have never looked back. Those words about product delighting people, they are so true. Because I don’t need VoiceOver all of the time, I make regular use of a feature that you didn’t cover in this video, called read selected text — with a keyboard shortcut, or button, but you choose, it will start reading the entire document in compatible apps (like enabling and reading through reading mode on pages in Safari), or will read whatever text you highlight with your mouse or keyboard shortcuts; and it will keep reading in the background so you can change app and start doing something else while you listen to what it is reading.

[josephsmith]

I use the flash LED for alert setting on my work iPhone. I do on-call work once every six weeks and I use the LED flash to help wake me up or get my attention if I get a call in the middle of the night or if I have my headphones on. It also works as a visual cue to remind me that I need to get into my work mindset when I answer.

[DerekRoig]

History of Logic Pro would be so interesting

[KatelandVu]

Apple explained your videos are my weekly go tos for 12 mins Apple lectures

[somhrsh]

I've started to love Tim because of you thank you