Eye control

Navigating a device may be second nature to general users, but for those who have a disability, seemingly minor and easy tasks can be a challenge. The Eye Tracking capability, powered by Artificial Intelligence, will give users a built-in option for navigating iPad and iPhone with just their eyes. It makes use of the front-facing camera to set up and calibrate in seconds and work with on-device machine learning. All the data used to set up and control this feature is kept secure on device, and isn’t shared with Apple.

Eye Tracking works across iPadOS and iOS apps and doesn’t require additional hardware or accessories. With this, users can navigate through the elements of an app to activate each required and accessing functions such as physical buttons, swipes, and other gestures with the eyes.

Vocal Shortcuts

Vocal Shortcuts is a feature that iPhone and iPad users can use to assign custom vocalisations that Siri can understand to launch shortcuts and complete complex tasks. Listen for Atypical Speech, another new feature, gives users an option for enhancing speech recognition for a wider range of voice patterns. Designed for users with acquired or progressive conditions that affect speech, such as cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or stroke, these features provide a new level of customisation and control, building on features introduced in iOS 17 for users who are nonspeaking or at risk of losing their ability to speak.

Feel the music

The capability of Music Haptics is a new way for users who are deaf or hard of hearing to experience music on iPhone. With this, the Taptic Engine on the iPhone plays taps, textures, and refined vibrations to the audio of the music. Music Haptics works across millions of songs in the Apple Music catalogue and will be available as an API for developers to make music more accessible in their apps.

Vehicle Motion Cues will be a new experience for iPhone and iPad that can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles. Research shows that motion sickness is commonly caused by a sensory conflict between what a person sees and what they feel, which can prevent some users from comfortably using an iPhone or iPad while riding in a moving vehicle. With Vehicle Motion Cues, animated dots on the edges of the screen represent changes in vehicle motion to help reduce sensory conflict without interfering with the main content. Using sensors built into iPhone and iPad, Vehicle Motion Cues recognizes when a user is in a moving vehicle and responds accordingly. The feature can be set to show automatically on the iPhone or can be turned on and off in the Control Centre.

Accessibility features are also coming to CarPlay and these include Voice Control with which users can control apps and navigate CarPlay with their voice. With Sound Recognition, drivers or passengers who are deaf or hard of hearing can turn on alerts to be notified of car horns and sirens, although their eventual use in vehicles would depend on the laws in a particular country. For users who are colourblind, Colour Filters make the CarPlay interface visually easier to use, with additional visual accessibility features including Bold Text and Large Text.

Apple’s virtual reality device will get accessibility features on visionOS. This will include systemwide Live Captions to help everyone — including users who are deaf or hard of hearing — follow along with spoken dialogue in live conversations and in audio from apps.

control iPhone with eyes

Soon, you can control the iPhone with your eyes