Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple previews new cutting-edge accessibility features

Apple has previewed some nifty, cutting-edge accessibility features that will give iPhone and Apple Watch users with disabilities more tools to navigate the world around them. As stated in its press release, the new features will aid them in navigation, communication, hearing, and more.

The newest navigation feature Apple has introduced is called Door Detection, which will help blind or low-vision users locate a door within the last few feet of their destination. Thanks to the combination of a LiDAR scanner, camera, and on-device machine learning, Door Detection will tell users the distance between them and the door they’re approaching, whether the door is open or closed, has a knob or handle, and if it can be pushed or pulled open, as well as reading the signs and symbols around it.

Recommended Videos

For those with motor and physical disabilities, there’s Apple Watch Mirroring, which allows them to control their Apple Watch remotely from their iPhone. Using Voice Control and Switch Control instead of tapping the Apple Watch display, anything that shows up on the watch will pop up on the iPhone screen thanks to AirPlay. They can also use hand gestures, like double-pinching, to answer or end a phone call, play or pause media, take pictures, or resume their workouts, which can be extremely useful for people with missing limbs or hands.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Deaf and hard-of-hearing users will get Live Captions on not just the iPhone, but also the iPad and Mac products. This feature will help users understand the context of any audio media content and conservations, whether held in person, or via phone calls, FaceTime, or video conferences. In FaceTime group chats, Live Captions will attribute auto-transcribed dialogue to call participants so that it will be easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing users to tell who’s talking. Caption size can also be adjusted to help them read captions more easily.

Apple introduced these new features in honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and they aim to make the lives of disabled users easier than ever before. They will be released via updates later this year.

Cristina Alexander
Cristina Alexander is a gaming and mobile writer at Digital Trends. She blends fair coverage of games industry topics that…
Changing this one thing would have made the iPhone 16e much more fun
iPhone 16e in white.

What a shame the Apple iPhone 16e isn’t more fun. I don't mean exciting, and I’m not talking about the specification, or that a modem is the most technically interesting aspect (it’s important, but modems are inherently a bit dull) of the phone. I mean fun, and I’m specifically talking about it coming in only two colors, and the ones Apple chose are as vanilla and ordinary as you can get.
Two colors

The iPhone 16e is available in black or white. These are the most Apple colors it could have chosen, and fitting as the brand which arguably launched the white smartphone craze in 2008 with the iPhone 3G, when it joined the safe choice black iPhone 3G. What’s old is new again, but things have moved on since the days of a white iPhone capturing attention. Apple has actually moved on too, as we'll soon show, which makes the whole situation feel out of place. There just can’t be any fanfare around a new 2025 iPhone where the choice is either boring black, or overdone white.

Read more
The iPhone 17 Air might have a larger screen than we thought
A rendered concept of what the iPhone 17 Air might look like.

The iPhone 17 Air has been the subject of no small number of different rumors and leaks, and now the latest one suggests its screen might be up to 6.7 inches in size rather than the expected 6.6 inches. The information comes from tipster Jon Prosser on the Recycle Bin podcast.

This is far from the first rumor we've heard about the screen size. Last year, Ross Young initially suggested a 6.55-inch display — that would be 6.6 rounded up — but estimates have ping-ponged since then. Few Apple devices have had as many conflicting rumors as the iPhone 17, so take this with more than a grain of salt.

Read more
I won’t be buying an iPhone 16e for anyone in my family, here’s why
Hand holding iPhone 16e.

Apple’s iPhone 16e is a strange duck. When one sits down and considers the specs, it’s hard to figure out where it truly fits into Apple’s lineup.

It’s apparent from the name that Apple wants you to see it as the new junior member of the iPhone 16 lineup. That’s certainly fair, and it’s arguably about time that the iPhone family got a third tier. After all, Apple’s chief rivals like Google and Samsung have had their A-series and FE-series phones for years.

Read more