I don’t believe “sexy” is driving their software feature decisions. Do you think the accessibility features they’ve created over the years are “sexy”? Most users probably don’t know they exist.
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Apple Announces iOS 18 Accessibility Features, Including Eye Tracking
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The point I was making was that Apple is great at releasing a technology on one device and incorporating that technology into another device. Does anyone know how well eye tracking works on Android devices? Because on the Vision Pro, it is near flawless. Being first doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t work as intended.
We should all be happy about this. We never know what disability we might find ourselves with someday!
My mother-in-law is deaf and some of these changes are going to be great for her. I hope they come out with a cheaper Vision Pro sooner rather than later, as she could really benefit from the live caption overlays at family gatherings. Not everyone knows sign language, and while she can lip read reasonably well, it can be difficult when there is a lot of conversation going on to follow everything. It can be very isolating and she ends up feeling left out through no fault of her own. My wife is fluent in sign language being a CODA, but most people don't realize interpreting is extremely exhausting as well as a different, difficult skill to master. So she can't just sit there and interpret the whole time, and hiring specially trained and experienced interpreters for various events is also quite expensive, so it basically only happens at weddings.
My mother-in-law is deaf and some of these changes are going to be great for her. I hope they come out with a cheaper Vision Pro sooner rather than later, as she could really benefit from the live caption overlays at family gatherings. Not everyone knows sign language, and while she can lip read reasonably well, it can be difficult when there is a lot of conversation going on to follow everything. It can be very isolating and she ends up feeling left out through no fault of her own. My wife is fluent in sign language being a CODA, but most people don't realize interpreting is extremely exhausting as well as a different, difficult skill to master. So she can't just sit there and interpret the whole time, and hiring specially trained and experienced interpreters for various events is also quite expensive, so it basically only happens at weddings.
Ideally, at a certain point, you should be able to tell Siri what you want to change on your iPhone without needing to search for a specific setting.
really just speaking to my experience with Apple implementing eye-tracking software (hence me bringing up the AVP demo I did)—obviously that’s anecdotal, I just doubt they would bring the same feature to market on iPhones if they didn’t feel confident that it’s as on-par with a $3500 device as it can be. Apple’s statement on the true extent of this feature is vague, so we will see what it looks like once the 18.0 betas are out. (for reference, I did watch the full tutorial on Switches for Android—great accessibility feature, just doesn’t seem as…natural? can’t find the right word.)
and yes, I am a huge supporter of open-source software. I think we’re more in agreement than disagreement over Gameface. I hope it sees some widespread adoption beyond Android—would go a huge way to lower the bar for disabled people to enjoy video games.
to speak to your point at the end: I’m not one to believe Apple is the only company creating accessibility features (that’d be an absolute farce of an argument), I simply believe they’re (in terms of companies with platforms as massive as theirs) the best at implementing such features in an intuitive fashion.
Some of these look very useful! I will be excited to try eye control. Imagine being able to scroll a feed without touching and tapping your phone! I always thought that there was more they could do with Haptics. They dedicated an entire hardware box to be a Haptic Engine inside the iPhone, without much application or utility. Something fun like music, is a great start.
Vocal shortcuts would be very useful. Perhaps I can get siri to "unmute" or "volume up" when I ask it to play the news. If only Siri could dependably switch from apple music / podcasts / spotify when you ask it to specifically play from one of these sources. It tends to get stuck or just says "something went wrong
".
Vocal shortcuts would be very useful. Perhaps I can get siri to "unmute" or "volume up" when I ask it to play the news. If only Siri could dependably switch from apple music / podcasts / spotify when you ask it to specifically play from one of these sources. It tends to get stuck or just says "something went wrong
".
i dont think they’re “neglecting” existing features. they add new features and fix existing ones with each major ios release. so i do not agree with this argument at all. and using “sexy” to refer to stuff like this isn’t super appropriate.
Maybe a more important reason: they get good PR from it, and Apple loves positive PR.
Most of this is not something that is a want or a need from my perspective. More features, more bloat, less fixing of current issues and gaps. More of the same process we have seen for the last few years.
Hopefully I am wrong about this.
Take a hard look at the new features Apple has rolled out over the last three years. How many do you use?
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I can see it now. Watch a show that has lots of gratuitous beach scenes and imagine the ads I would get.
Oh Hell No!
Just because I am on a restricted diet doesn’t mean I cannot browse the menu
.
Ugh, I sure hope that isn't true
Don't get me wrong, the current design really has grown on me, but a lot of design elements really haven't changed that much after we got away from skeuomorphism from iOS 7 on
So with that, aside from a few little changes, the fundamental design of iOS has been about the same since then
Nothing wrong with that per say, but some kind of other tangible visual changes would be good every now and then
The Music Haptics thing is interesting!
Fun fact: Did you know that the Taptic Engine is actually a small bass shaker? It works through sound waves like a normal speaker. Even the UI vibrations like the camera click or the vibrations you feel when you mute your iPhone are stored as WAV files in the system, and they just play through the Taptic Engine. It's a clever little thing!
What I suppose they're doing with the Music Haptics feature is just playing the same audio that's playing to the speakers to the Taptic Engine, too.
Fun fact: Did you know that the Taptic Engine is actually a small bass shaker? It works through sound waves like a normal speaker. Even the UI vibrations like the camera click or the vibrations you feel when you mute your iPhone are stored as WAV files in the system, and they just play through the Taptic Engine. It's a clever little thing!
What I suppose they're doing with the Music Haptics feature is just playing the same audio that's playing to the speakers to the Taptic Engine, too.
Apple does a decent job however they have also been known to pull some with no explanation.
Have you not used an Apple device before? There's an entire section dedicated to Accessibility, and they're all off by default.
Yes it is! It’s just one pixel larger! (This Is a joke don’t take me seriously)
eye tracking huh.
Imagine unskippable advertisements that pause whenever you look away; so you MUST watch it to finish the ad.
Imagine unskippable advertisements that pause whenever you look away; so you MUST watch it to finish the ad.
You do know you can adjust the text size with hover text. In fact, you can make it quite a bit larger.