Could 15, 2024
PRESS RELEASE
Apple broadcasts new accessibility options, together with Eye Monitoring, Music Haptics, and Vocal Shortcuts
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple right this moment introduced new accessibility options coming later this 12 months, together with Eye Monitoring, a manner for customers with bodily disabilities to manage iPad or iPhone with their eyes. Moreover, Music Haptics will supply a brand new manner for customers who’re deaf or exhausting of listening to to expertise music utilizing the Taptic Engine in iPhone; Vocal Shortcuts will enable customers to carry out duties by making a customized sound; Car Movement Cues can assist scale back movement illness when utilizing iPhone or iPad in a shifting automobile; and extra accessibility options will come to visionOS. These options mix the facility of Apple {hardware} and software program, harnessing Apple silicon, synthetic intelligence, and machine studying to additional Apple’s decades-long dedication to designing merchandise for everybody.
“We consider deeply within the transformative energy of innovation to counterpoint lives,” mentioned Tim Cook dinner, Apple’s CEO. “That’s why for practically 40 years, Apple has championed inclusive design by embedding accessibility on the core of our {hardware} and software program. We’re constantly pushing the boundaries of expertise, and these new options mirror our long-standing dedication to delivering the very best expertise to all of our customers.”
“Annually, we break new floor in relation to accessibility,” mentioned Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s senior director of International Accessibility Coverage and Initiatives. “These new options will make an influence within the lives of a variety of customers, offering new methods to speak, management their units, and transfer via the world.”
Eye Monitoring Involves iPad and iPhone
Powered by synthetic intelligence, Eye Monitoring offers customers a built-in possibility for navigating iPad and iPhone with simply their eyes. Designed for customers with bodily disabilities, Eye Monitoring makes use of the front-facing digital camera to arrange and calibrate in seconds, and with on-device machine studying, all information used to arrange and management this characteristic is saved securely on gadget, and isn’t shared with Apple.
Eye Monitoring works throughout iPadOS and iOS apps, and doesn’t require further {hardware} or equipment. With Eye Monitoring, customers can navigate via the weather of an app and use Dwell Management to activate every factor, accessing further features akin to bodily buttons, swipes, and different gestures solely with their eyes.
Music Haptics Makes Songs Extra Accessible
Music Haptics is a brand new manner for customers who’re deaf or exhausting of listening to to expertise music on iPhone. With this accessibility characteristic turned on, the Taptic Engine in iPhone performs faucets, textures, and refined vibrations to the audio of the music. Music Haptics works throughout thousands and thousands of songs within the Apple Music catalog, and can be out there as an API for builders to make music extra accessible of their apps.
New Options for a Extensive Vary of Speech
With Vocal Shortcuts, iPhone and iPad customers can assign customized utterances that Siri can perceive to launch shortcuts and full complicated duties. Pay attention for Atypical Speech, one other new characteristic, offers customers an possibility for enhancing speech recognition for a wider vary of speech. Pay attention for Atypical Speech makes use of on-device machine studying to acknowledge consumer speech patterns. Designed for customers with acquired or progressive circumstances that have an effect on speech, akin to cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or stroke, these options present a brand new degree of customization and management, constructing on options launched in iOS 17 for customers who’re nonspeaking or vulnerable to shedding their skill to talk.
“Synthetic intelligence has the potential to enhance speech recognition for thousands and thousands of individuals with atypical speech, so we’re thrilled that Apple is bringing these new accessibility options to customers,” mentioned Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, the Speech Accessibility Challenge on the Beckman Institute for Superior Science and Expertise on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s principal investigator. “The Speech Accessibility Challenge was designed as a broad-based, community-supported effort to assist firms and universities make speech recognition extra strong and efficient, and Apple is among the many accessibility advocates who made the Speech Accessibility Challenge doable.”
Car Movement Cues Can Assist Cut back Movement Illness
Car Movement Cues is a brand new expertise for iPhone and iPad that may assist scale back movement illness for passengers in shifting automobiles. Analysis exhibits that movement illness is usually brought on by a sensory battle between what an individual sees and what they really feel, which may forestall some customers from comfortably utilizing iPhone or iPad whereas using in a shifting automobile. With Car Movement Cues, animated dots on the perimeters of the display screen symbolize adjustments in automobile movement to assist scale back sensory battle with out interfering with the primary content material. Utilizing sensors constructed into iPhone and iPad, Car Movement Cues acknowledges when a consumer is in a shifting automobile and responds accordingly. The characteristic may be set to point out routinely on iPhone, or may be turned on and off in Management Heart.
CarPlay Will get Voice Management, Extra Accessibility Updates
Accessibility options coming to CarPlay embrace Voice Management, Coloration Filters, and Sound Recognition. With Voice Management, customers can navigate CarPlay and management apps with simply their voice. With Sound Recognition, drivers or passengers who’re deaf or exhausting of listening to can activate alerts to be notified of automobile horns and sirens. For customers who’re colorblind, Coloration Filters make the CarPlay interface visually simpler to make use of, with further visible accessibility options together with Daring Textual content and Massive Textual content.
Accessibility Options Coming to visionOS
This 12 months, accessibility options coming to visionOS will embrace systemwide Stay Captions to assist everybody — together with customers who’re deaf or exhausting of listening to — comply with together with spoken dialogue in stay conversations and in audio from apps. With Stay Captions for FaceTime in visionOS, extra customers can simply benefit from the distinctive expertise of connecting and collaborating utilizing their Persona. Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional will add the potential to maneuver captions utilizing the window bar throughout Apple Immersive Video, in addition to assist for added Made for iPhone listening to units and cochlear listening to processors. Updates for imaginative and prescient accessibility will embrace the addition of Cut back Transparency, Good Invert, and Dim Flashing Lights for customers who’ve low imaginative and prescient, or those that wish to keep away from vibrant lights and frequent flashing.
These options be a part of the handfuls of accessibility options already out there in Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, which gives a versatile enter system and an intuitive interface designed with a variety of customers in thoughts. Options akin to VoiceOver, Zoom, and Coloration Filters may present customers who’re blind or have low imaginative and prescient entry to spatial computing, whereas options akin to Guided Entry can assist customers with cognitive disabilities. Customers can management Imaginative and prescient Professional with any mixture of their eyes, fingers, or voice, with accessibility options together with Change Management, Sound Actions, and Dwell Management that may additionally assist these with bodily disabilities.
“Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is for sure probably the most accessible expertise I’ve ever used,” mentioned Ryan Hudson-Peralta, a Detroit-based product designer, accessibility guide, and cofounder of Equal Accessibility LLC. “As somebody born with out fingers and unable to stroll, I do know the world was not designed with me in thoughts, so it’s been unimaginable to see that visionOS simply works. It’s a testomony to the facility and significance of accessible and inclusive design.”
Further Updates
- For customers who’re blind or have low imaginative and prescient, VoiceOver will embrace new voices, a versatile Voice Rotor, customized quantity management, and the flexibility to customise VoiceOver keyboard shortcuts on Mac.
- Magnifier will supply a brand new Reader Mode and the choice to simply launch Detection Mode with the Motion button.
- Braille customers will get a brand new solution to begin and keep in Braille Display screen Enter for sooner management and textual content enhancing; Japanese language availability for Braille Display screen Enter; assist for multi-line braille with Dot Pad; and the choice to decide on completely different enter and output tables.
- For customers with low imaginative and prescient, Hover Typing exhibits bigger textual content when typing in a textual content area, and in a consumer’s most popular font and colour.
- For customers vulnerable to shedding their skill to talk, Private Voice can be out there in Mandarin Chinese language. Customers who’ve problem announcing or studying full sentences will be capable of create a Private Voice utilizing shortened phrases.
- For customers who’re nonspeaking, Stay Speech will embrace classes and simultaneous compatibility with Stay Captions.
- For customers with bodily disabilities, Digital Trackpad for AssistiveTouch permits customers to manage their gadget utilizing a small area of the display screen as a resizable trackpad.
- Change Management will embrace the choice to make use of the cameras in iPhone and iPad to acknowledge finger-tap gestures as switches.
- Voice Management will supply assist for customized vocabularies and sophisticated phrases.
Have fun International Accessibility Consciousness Day with Apple
This week, Apple is introducing new options, curated collections, and extra in celebration of International Accessibility Consciousness Day:
- All through the month of Could, choose Apple Retailer areas will host free periods to assist prospects discover and uncover accessibility options constructed into the merchandise they love. Apple Piazza Liberty in Milan will characteristic the expertise behind “Assume that I can,” the viral marketing campaign for World Down Syndrome Day. And out there year-round at Apple Retailer areas globally, Right now at Apple group reservations are a spot the place buddies, households, faculties, and group teams can find out about accessibility options collectively.
- Shortcuts provides Calming Sounds, which performs ambient soundscapes to reduce distractions, serving to customers focus or relaxation.
- Go to the App Retailer to find unimaginable apps and video games that promote entry and inclusion for all, together with the accessible App Retailer Award-winning sport Unpacking, apps as instruments for augmentative and various communication (AAC), and extra.
- The Apple TV app will honor trailblazing creators, performers, and activists who passionately share the experiences of individuals with disabilities. This 12 months’s theme is Remaking the World, and every story invitations viewers to check a actuality the place everyone seems to be empowered so as to add their voice to the larger human story.
- Apple Books will highlight lived experiences of incapacity via curated collections of first-person narratives by disabled writers in e book and audiobook codecs.
- Apple Health+ exercises, meditations, and coach ideas welcome customers who’re deaf or exhausting of listening to with American Signal Language, and Time to Stroll now contains transcripts within the Apple Podcasts app. Health+ exercises all the time embrace Audio Hints to assist customers who’re blind or have low imaginative and prescient, in addition to modifiers in order that customers of all ranges can take part.
- Customers can go to Apple Assist to find out how their Apple units may be custom-made utilizing built-in accessibility options. From adapting the gestures to customizing how data is introduced on a tool’s display screen, the Apple Accessibility playlist will assist customers discover ways to personalize Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac to work finest for them.
About Apple
Apple revolutionized private expertise with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Right now, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. Apple’s six software program platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — present seamless experiences throughout all Apple units and empower folks with breakthrough providers together with the App Retailer, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s greater than 150,000 workers are devoted to creating one of the best merchandise on earth and to leaving the world higher than we discovered it.
Press Contacts
Will Butler
Apple
Apple Media Helpline
