Apple previews new accessibility features coming later this year: improved visual descriptions, auto-generated subtitles, and more

While these accessibility features are definitely helpful for users, I feel that the new additions are quite minimal and do not represent any major or groundbreaking improvements. Although they offer some benefits, the changes are relatively small compared to what I was expecting.

I will be very grateful to Apple if they fix quick nav issues on the Mac. For anything else, thanks Apple, I am really happy with the fixes, if they ever come.

Because at least this is honesty from apple. Bad, shows clear neglect of the screen reader on this os, but I am happy that at least they don't act like vo on mac is great like its ios and other platforms, which is simply isn't.
My poor iphone will not get any of the apple intelligence :( maybe time to upgrade? :) Will definitely try this out on the mac though.

wish it will become useful, and to see, how apple will do it.
as for me, my hearing aid always concentrate on 1 sound source, so, if apple can help me in crouded environments, it will be great.

These are nice upgrades. From the rumours, I didn't expect anything major or groundbreaking this time around. To clarify rumours are pointing to a Snow Leopard type update, with a heavy focus on Apple Intelligence, particularly the rumoured Siri upgrade. Also, during the beta cycle we will no doubt discover features or improvements neither discussed here nor are in the public domain. As always, time will tell what, if any, these will be. For now, let's all appreciate that even today Apple is commited to accessibility in their products.

Unfortunately, this is apple.
wish they will ofer more on ios27

This is awesome. Remember there are always hidden nuggets that aren't announced for Global accessibility awareness day. 2 such examples in recent memory:
1 Eloquence tts.
2 coppy speech.

Nothing too exciting for me. I wanted some more voices to check out for VoiceOver. Just because they didn’t announce it doesn’t mean we won’t get any of them so I’ll definitely be looking for those ones iOS 27 is released. I would like to know where to find one of those grippers for the phone I think that might be helpful for me as I have some mild CP and sometimes I get tired of holding the phone my hands so maybe this would help my hands feel better. Hope I have one that comes in pink.

Hi @Singer Girl,

Here is a link to the Hikawa Grip & Stand for iPhone on the Apple Store: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hsjf2zm/a/hikawa-grip-stand-for-iphone-magsafe-compatible-orange-swirl

I'm definitely looking forward to any hidden gems and/or bug fixes in macOS 27. I sadly have an iPhone 11, and it's highly unlikely I'll get iOS 27, but that's okay since I'm primarily an Android user. I still can't believe they didn't talk about built-in accessible Mac remote control from last year. Am I the only one that's really excited about that?

Last year was a huge update for accessibility, addding all the braille access stuff. while it's a shame they didn't directly mention any braille updates, the thing apple desperately needs is another iOS 12 or a mac os snow leopard. they're taking apple intellligence more seriously, which is definitely much needed.

This was before I read most of it is for apple intelligence only, we really shouldn't be limiting accessibility features like this, talkback can describe images on any device that has talkback 13.1 and newer.

Further adding I would like a comparison between Apple's new Vision Explorer, Microsoft's Seeing AI, and Google's Look Out Assistant for those of us among the Android space, one of these days.

Ah, adding EyeGuide to the list, since it also has a similar feature.

I will be happy if apple fixes the blank bug. I am not ask for much. It is not like I am asking for peace in the world. Just a blank bug fix. Long live cats and down with apple.

while yes, android has on device image description, testing it out myself on my pixel... a, it's nowhere near as good as apple's image descriptions, unless you send i up to the cloud. which, nice. also, for those on device image descriptions, you need 8 or 12 gb of ram. also, google released its gemini intelligence, and that is even more strict. it can only be ran on the pixel 10. not even the pixel 9, with its 8 gb of ram. but either way, I'm glad apple is making more changes, and some pretty significant ones at that. they're taking apple intelligence more seriously.

It sounds like for the most part, they're improving already existing features. That makes me feel hopeful that stability and bug fixes are the top priority this year. I mean... What's the point of adding a whole bunch of shiny new features when prexisting ones can be improved and perhaps long-standing bugs will be fixed? For people who are underwhelmed or say they expected more, I'm genuinely curious what else you think needs to be added at this point.

I can think of four ways to generate AI image descriptions off the top of my head. Three of them are completely free. I don't personally need another.
You know what would be great though? Knowing that any software Apple develops will be just as usable to me as anyone else.
A main focus of the accessibility team seems to be describing visual information, both from third-party apps and the environment. That's a great thing, but the priority should be making the mainstream software work better for people with disabilities. No, that's not glamorous. But neither is QA testing, and people would be justifiably upset if the QA team decided to stop testing Apple software and start developing an app that can perform QA testing on any object within the camera viewfinder. I'm not saying that's a bad idea. It might save me from purchasing a faulty air frier someday. but they have an important job that should take priority.
I hope these updates are just the flashier ones, with lots of under-the-hood improvements that weren't worth explaining to the public just yet.

Well some love shining bobbles and they easily can distractive by them. Them they worship at the apple alter and when you point it out, they call you negative and send you to the principle and he send you and email to behave yourself. Long live cats. PS. Probably get one today or tomorrow.

If the descriptions and followup questions can be directly generated from a photo in the Photos app, particularly while using the editing tool, it would help me a lot. It's exhausting to constantly go through the share sheet to get a description for each change. It doesn't replace the haptic exploration of images in Seeing AI, but that is usually for final adjustments, in my usage.
I'll have to upgrade phones, but I need to do that anyway.

These are enhancements people have been asking for for years. Now that they are coming, people still bitch and aren’t happy. If you’re so unhappy, use
another damn platform—or better yet, let’s see you develop your own screen reader. Let’s see how many bugs we can find. It isn't 30 seconds to program a new feature folks

Looks like I'm getting the thing I wanted most, native AI image descriptions. Of course the video Apple made was a good demo, but it makes them sound awesome!

I wonder how this Apple Intelligence integration into image explorer will compare to third party apps like Be My AI, Seeing AI, and probably a few more that I haven't used. I wonder if it will completely replace them for some people. The workflow sounds a heck of a lot easier than trying to send an image to another app via the share sheet, especially for ones on websites. I can't always get the share sheet to come up.

I wish this image explorer integration thing would let you choose the app you use, so you could use the on-device Apple models, or the apps we all already use without having to go through the share sheet.

For people who use native AI image descriptions on Android, what's the workflow like? I'm thinking with the new descriptions in iOS 27, you'll just flick down until you get to image explorer, and maybe there's a button there to generate a description, or maybe it automatically does it with a VO setting. Do you have to pick a service to share an image to on Android like you currently do on iOS?

I'm thinking that for the new stuff Apple announced today, they focused more on other disabilities, and I'm fine with that. Last year Braille was a huge deal. That wheelchair eye tracking thing for the AVP sounds like it would take a lot to make work, though I wonder how practical it would be.

I do wonder, if people who use the features Apple develops for people with other disabilities -- like Voice Control -- complain that they have bugs that have sat unresolved for years. Or is it just us? Or maybe we just see it more because we're in our own little bubble?

We strongly wrote mails send videos to Apple to fix Auto language detection for South Indian languages across the platforms but they are not caring but I loved the live recognition features

On android the options are in the talkback menu or can be assigned to gestures

If my comments above came across as overly confrontational, I apologize. It was not my intention to say that this entire update is going to be awful, and honestly, I don't think that in the first place.
Every iPhone user is different. I rarely need, or even want, onscreen images described. What I need most, and what the accessibility team used to do exceptionally well at maintaining, is a relatively smooth and reliable experience across core iOS apps.
These image-related features might have been requested by others in the past, and I am glad they are getting what they asked for, even if I think it should have come from another source. But not everyone wants or needs the same things. I, for example, am hoping the Notes editing toolbar can be decluttered. That does not mean I think VoiceOver is terrible. It doesn't mean I think the image-related features are inherently a bad idea. It doesn't even mean I'm not curious to try the new update. But it does mean that I feel frustrated. To me, it's a little like seeing a university campus get a brand new dormitory building while their science center is quietly falling apart.
I hope that comment clarifies things. Also, and this is unrelated, but now I'm curious... Does iOS even grant app developers enough system access for a third-party screen reader to work? If so, that's surprising, but I'd love to experiment.

I think a lot of the new features that we’re getting for iOS 27 won’t even matter because from me the devices I have don’t even have Apple Intelligence capabilities. I have a regular iPhone 15 and an iPhone SE third generation. So it’s really not gonna be much an update for the older devices. I’m mean we don’t know this yet, but I kind of wonder if those devices will even still be supported in the fall. I hope they are because I really don’t think I can go getting any new phones right now. So it seems like people with older devices are really not gonna be getting a whole lot in the flow. I mean, I could be wrong but that’s what I’m thinking at this point.

First my comment was at those that are constantly complaining no matter what apple does. They know who they are. As for the update I suspect you will need a phone that supports apple intelligence. Note this a huge guess on my part. I'm basing it on the following. 1 it uses apple intelligence. 2 Those phones that will get it are starting with the iPhone 15 pro and onward. This includes the 16 E and 17 E. Now because part of it appears to use magnifier will you need a pro phone? Who knows we'll find out in do time.

I'm not demotivating android users but Apple has far good image description feature than android you can also assign gestures

We’ll just have to see what happens. I hope that my phones will still continue to be supported.