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Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

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Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#51
post #5

I wonder what new voices will be added to VoiceOver? We blind people never, ever thought Eloquence, an old TTS engine from 20 years ago now, would ever come to iOS. And yet, here it is in iOS 17. I wouldn't be surprised to see DecTalk, or more Siri voices. More Braille features is amazing, and they even mentioned the Mac! VoiceOver for Mac is notoriously never given as much love as VoiceOver for iOS is, so most blind…

The image description stuff is already surprisingly good - I noticed when I got a photo text while driving and it described it well enough for me to know what it was.

Same, a family member send a photo while I was driving and over Carplay it was described fairly accurately.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#52
post #7

I wonder if this announcement had anything to do with the bombshells OpenAI and Google dropped this week. Couldn’t this have been part of WWDC next month?

They do it every year at the same time. Also, it’s a small announcement, not a keynote or the kind of fanfare we have at WWDC or the September events. This does not seem calibrated to be effective in an advertising war with another company. All this to say, probably not.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#53
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed any correlation between how hungry you are and how fast motion sickness kicks in?

It’s really interesting you say this. Is this a known correlation? I feel like now that you mention it, it’s incredibly fast if I’m hungry.

It is a known correlation.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for now - it is naive to think this is safe

Eye tracking has been on iOS for many years (as an option for faceid called attention).

Avoidable via iPhone SE3 and iPad Air, which both use TouchID.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#57
post #9

I love accessibility features because they might be the last features developed solely with the benefit of the user in mind. So many other app/os features are designed to steal your attention or gradually nerf usefulness.

I often use them to get around bad UI/UX (like using Reduce Motion), or to make devices more useful (Color Filters (red) for using at night). Even outside of this, even able-bodied folks can be disabled due to illness, surgery, injury, etc. So it's great to see Apple continuing to support accessibility.

The red color filter for outside when trying to preserve night vision is a great tip. Some apps have this built-in but much better to have the OS change it everywhere.

Recommend creating a Shortcut to toggle this setting.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#58
post #37

Eye tracking is not an accessibility feature, it is an advertising optimization feature disguised as an accessibility feature.

Apple are very good about not making this kind of thing available to apps that don't have an explicit reason to need it.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#59
post #37

Eye tracking is not an accessibility feature, it is an advertising optimization feature disguised as an accessibility feature.

My presumption is that apps will not be able to access this data, at least without some sort of permission gate.

Indeed they haven’t for all the years it was limited to FaceId’s attention option.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#60
post #58
post #37

Eye tracking is not an accessibility feature, it is an advertising optimization feature disguised as an accessibility feature.

Apple are very good about not making this kind of thing available to apps that don't have an explicit reason to need it.

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