A friend was over for Christmas and his iPhone’s camera LED flashed when it rang. I thought it might be a jailbreak hack but it’s actually one of dozens of features in the accessibility section. Which I’d never looked at - go and take a look if you haven’t seen it. It’s a phenomenal piece of work, and one that Apple, and any other manufacturers who have taken similar care, deserve recognition and praise for.

Here are some things I discovered exploring:

  • Some deaf people like video-calling because they can use sign language - so front-facing cameras have been revolutionary for them. Others prefer texting - iMessage, WhatsApp and BBM have dropped this cost nicely.

  • The iPhone can be connected to a braille display (an amazing device in itself) and blind users can interact without seeing or touching the screen. Just think how incredible that is - it’s a device which is defined by its TOUCH SCREEN, but can be used by people who neither touch, nor look at, the screen. It’s mindboggling - see this video to see this in action.

  • Siri and voice assistants have really opened up touchscreen devices for the blind. Setting an alarm or a calendar appointment is now effortless (when they work).

I tried out the VoiceOver feature while squinting my eyes. I think it’s intended for the partially sighted rather than the completely blind as you still need to aim your fingers onto targets but text is read for you. Try it out Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver.

The basic mechanism is that you tap an item (eg. an icon on the home screen) and it is highlighted and its label is read out loud. You can then double tap anywhere on the screen to open the icon. There’s a nice touch when you highlight the Calendar icon - it reads out the date as well as the label. I had to look up how to scroll (swipe three fingers up the screen).