Apple Preview of New Accessibility Features Coming later this year: Accessibility Nutrition Label, Enlargement for Mac, Braille Access Mode, and more

Ahead of the Global Accessible Awareness Day (GAAD) Apple offers preview accessibility features that come to the platform later this year; Including the Nutrition Label Accessibility for App Store applications, enlargers for Mac, Braille access, and more.

Accessibility nutrition label

• Similar to the Privacy Nutrition Label for App Store applications introduced by Apple in 2020, the developer will soon be able to send the Accessibility nutrition label to make users know what accessibility features are supported by, or have been tested, their application. According to Apple, the nutritional label of accessibility will volunteer from the beginning, to provide sufficient opportunities to prepare and evaluate their applications; With the requirements for developers to share this information in the future.

Vision Accessibility Features

• The enlargement for Mac will allow you to use your iPhone camera, or other cameras installed on your Mac, to enlarge your environment, such as a screen or blackboard. Some simultaneous sessions will allow you to, for example, participate in presentations using your built-in Mac camera, while at the same time reading the document using the table display with a camera on your iPhone.
• Access Braille seeks to imitate the experience of using not braille taking on iOS, iPados, MacOS, and Visiono by providing special interfaces for the general function of the special note Braille. With Braille access, you will be able to make notes, do calculations using the Nemeth code, and directly the Braille Ready (BRF) format file. In addition, the form of integrated text will allow you to write conversations in real time on the Braille display.
• Visionos get some improvements that can increase their potential accessibility, including direct recognition, zoom, and a new “trusted application” that will allow applications such as my eyes to use the Apple Vision Pro’s main camera to facilitate visual assistance of live people and interpretations.
• Accessibility Reader is a new reading mode designed to improve text readability, with the ability to adjust fonts, colors, and distances, useful for those who have low vision, besides those who have reading defects such as dyslexia. This can be used throughout the systems on iOS, iPado, MacOS, and Visiono, and integrated with an enlargement application, allowing you to take advantage of its benefits to reading text in your physical environment.
• Carplay will support a big text.

Hearing accessibility features

• Direct text will come to Watchos, allowing you to see information on your Apple Watch when live listen is active. In addition, you will be able to turn on directly and turn off from your Apple Watch, eliminate the need to interact with your iPhone to do this task.
• Direct information will work with live listen, allowing you to read your iPhone microphone speech taken when live listen is active.
• EQ background sound will be adjusted, which might help in increasing focus or relaxation, especially for those who have tinnitus. In addition, the background sound gets a new shortcut action, as well as the ability to determine how long they have to play.
• Haptics music on the iPhone gets a new customization option to convey various parts of the song, as well as the intensity of tap, texture, and vibration.
• Introduction of sound gains the ability to recognize when your name is called.
• With carplay, those who are deaf or difficult to hear will be able to use sound recognition to detect the sound of a crying baby, in addition to other sounds outside the car.
• Direct information adds support for English (India, Australia, English, Singapore), Chinese Mandarin (mainland China), Canton (mainland China, Hong Kong), Spain (Latin America, Spain), France (France, Canada), Japan, Germany (German), and Korea.

Other updates

• Personal sound will be faster and sound more natural, with sound creation takes less than one minute, and only requires 10 phrases that are recorded, which are contrary to 150 which are currently needed. In addition, sound will be made in Spanish (Mexico).
• MacOS will support the movement of vehicle movements, which can help reduce motion disease when using your Mac in moving vehicles. In addition, the screen points that appear when using your iPhone, iPad, or Mac with this feature are turned on will be adjusted.
• Eyes tracking on iOS and iPados will integrate with switches and stay control for faster choices and typing, in addition to increasing keyboard support on Visiono.
• Head tracking will allow you to control your iPhone or iPad with head movements.
• iOS, iPados, and Visionos will add a new protocol to support the control switch for the Brain Computer Interface (BCIS).
• The TV application will support access to assistance with simplified media players. In addition, the developer will be able to use new API to create a special application interface for access to assistance that is adjusted for those who have intellectual or development disabilities.
• Sound control will have a new programming mode on Xcode for those who have limited mobility.
• Similar to portable preferences on MacOS, you will be able to temporarily share the iPhone or iPad accessibility settings to other devices, useful if you, for example, borrowing devices or using devices in kiosks.

Availability of features

According to Apple, this new accessibility feature will be available later this year. At the time of publication, we do not have more information about how these features will be implemented or other possibilities for future changes for blind, deaf, or low vision users.

What do you think about the accessibility features announced by Apple for the day of awareness of global accessibility 2025? Tell us in the comments!