Apple’s Door Detection uses advancements in hardware, software, and machine learning to help people who are blind or low vision use their iPhone and iPad to navigate the last few feet to their destination.
This is one of several innovative software features unveiled Tuesday with new ways for users with disabilities. These include Live Captions, Apple Watch Mirroring and more.
Apple plans to release software updates this year that will make its devices far easier to use for people with mobility, vision, hearing and cognitive disabilities.
The features include AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch, which offers astonishing new ways for people with limited mobility to control the smartwatch without tapping its screen. The new feature uses Apple Watch’s array of sensors to interpret the wearer’s movement into interactions.
Cupertino showcased AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch — which lets users maneuver a cursor on the wearable’s screen simply by clenching their fist and pinching their fingers together, among other things — in a remarkable video. (We embedded the video below — definitely watch it.)
But AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch is just the beginning of Apple’s latest big push into accessibility.
Apple has been pretty outspoken about bringing coding classes to everyone — and that most assuredly includes the deaf and blind communities, too.
Timed to coincide with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple has revealed that it is making it easier for students with vision, hearing or other assistive needs to take part in its Everyone Can Code curricula for Swift.
The Apple website has today been updated to highlight the accessibility features of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. The change is in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a yearly event that promotes digital access and inclusion for those with different disabilities.
A cup of coffee with Tim Cook can cost thousands of dollars, but to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day Apple’s CEO has made an exception.
To promote Apple’s stance on Accessibility, Apple invited three YouTubers with disabilities to its campus for a cup of joe and a casual chat with Tim Cook. In their brief interviews, they discuss everything from the challenge of getting Apple Watch algorithms to recognize wheelchair movement to Apple’s history as a company with values.
Check them out below.
