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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

#241

Post by cancerhacker »

asadotzler wrote: post #117
devinprater wrote: post #3

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…

My friends that use synthetic voices prefer cleanliness of the older and familiar voices. One friend listens at about 900 WPM in skim mode and none of the more realistic voices work well at those rates.

Back in the 90s we reverse engineered / patched the classic MacInTalk to speed up playback. Our testers had it cranked so fast as they navigated the UI that to me it sounded more like musical notes than text.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#242

Post by bdzr »

cainxinth wrote: post #239
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #234

This is why Apple is the best. They’ll make features like this because it’s the right thing to do, even if it won’t really make any difference to 99.99% of their customers. They really earn consumer loyalty.

This was the right thing to do, but I doubt “the right thing to do” was the primary motivator for it. This is smart marketing that helps position them as the more caring, inclusive, and capable tech brand. It also expands their reach more than a fraction of a percent. 13% of Americans have some form of disability.

I feel like it also helps them get an edge in the healthcare sector, which has buckets of money in the mix.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#243

Post by nick7376182 »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #88
Shank wrote: post #13

> Vehicle Motion Cues is a new experience for iPhone and iPad that can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles. This excites me so, so much! I can't really use my phone as a passenger in a car without getting motion sick after 1-2 minutes. This seems like it might be a promising thing to try.

I have motion sickness... It's so hard to movearound for me and I am still not able to find what works best for me

[dead]

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#244

Post by s_dev »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #234

This is why Apple is the best. They’ll make features like this because it’s the right thing to do, even if it won’t really make any difference to 99.99% of their customers. They really earn consumer loyalty.

The accessibility features are also useful for automated UI testing.

>They’ll make features like this because it’s the right thing to do

While the positivity is great to see -- I'd temper that expectation they're simply doing the right thing and definitely acting in their perceived interest. People can and often do the right thing -- large companies rarely do.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#245

Post by dhosek »

joezydeco wrote: post #48
andrewmunsell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CarPlay is rendered by the phone itself, so it's not strictly a function of how powerful the car infotainment is. You've been able to talk to Siri since the beginning of CarPlay so additional voice control is really just an accessibility thing

Some cars already have a voice control button on the wheel for their existing system which, if done correctly, is overriden by Siri+CarPlay. Which is really nice when it works.

I’m able to control carplay by just saying “Hey Siri.” Siri’s abilities tend to fluctuate based on what Apple is doing on the server, the phase of the moon and whether I remembered to sacrifice a chicken that morning, but otherwise, it seems to work fine.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#246

Post by dhosek »

joshstrange wrote: post #99
s3p wrote: 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?

I think it's more of "clearing the decks" for stuff that didn't make the cut for WWDC. I assume WWDC is going to be all about AI and they couldn't find a good spot to put this announcement. "Clearing the decks" isn't a very kind way to refer to this accessibility tech since Apple has always been better than almost everyone else when it comes to accessibility. I don't see this as "we don't care, just announce it early…

As noted elsewhere, Apple always does their accessibility announcements in advance of WWDC.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#247

Post by dhosek »

mdm_ wrote: post #78

My first thought upon seeing the Haptic Music feature is to wonder how long until they make compatible headphones and I can relive my high school years, walking around listening to nu-metal and hip-hop with a Panasonic Shockwave walkman.

Surely, this would be a headphone feature possible without having to be supported by the player.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#248

Post by floydnoel »

anyfoo wrote: post #164

I have better than 20/20 vision (yes, really) and now mobility problems, but there are some macOS accessibility features that I love. One is Zoom: I hold down two modifier keys and scroll, and can instantly zoom in to any part of the screen. It is extremely smooth, the more you scroll the higher you zoom, instantly and with high frame rate. Great when you want to show someone something, or just zoom into a detail of…

three finger dragger for life here. whenever I see colleagues struggling to drag items on a Mac, I show them three finger dragging and it blows them away. total game-changer!

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#249

Post by jncfhnb »

Shank wrote: post #13

> Vehicle Motion Cues is a new experience for iPhone and iPad that can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles. This excites me so, so much! I can't really use my phone as a passenger in a car without getting motion sick after 1-2 minutes. This seems like it might be a promising thing to try.

Vaguely related anecdote.

I used to get bad nausea from aggressive physic-y VR games. But I heard people claim it can be grinded through. So I did that, and they were right. I can do VR games without needed to vomit although it’s still uncomfortable.

However… I am now much more sensitive to non VR motion sickness. :|

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#250

Post by filleduchaos »

nottorp wrote: post #216
alwillis wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reduce Motion. Is it an accessibility feature Yes--some people can become ill with certain types of motion on a screen [1]. [1]: https://www.a11yproject.com/posts/understanding-vestibular-d...

Yes they can, but I don't and I still hate needless animations and turn them off. The point is, why is it in "accessibility" when it should be more visible?

It's plenty visible right where it is to people who don't have odd hangups about "accessibility".
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