Accessibility features in iOS that everyone should try

The Accessibility menus hold lots of little tweaks to make your iPhone and iPad easier to use, explains Jason Snell

If you’re someone who doesn’t have any specific reasons to go there, you may have never explored the Accessibility settings on your iPhone or iPad. While it’s true that those settings are there primarily for people who have special physical needs to modify how a device’s interface works, the fact is, many people who don’t consider themselves in need of any sort of accommodation can find something of value in these settings.

Accessibility has become a place where Apple buries some specific details about how its devices behave – and that’s why you should take a stroll through those settings sometime just to see if they solve problems you didn’t even realize were solvable. Here are some of my favourites.

iOS accessibility

In iOS, Accessibility settings are located in the Settings app. First tap General, then tap Accessibility.

Zoom: If your eyes aren’t what they once were, consider turning on the Zoom setting, which lets you magnify the iPhone screen with a gesture – double-tapping three fingers.

Magnifier: This setting was just pointed out to me this past weekend at a presentation I was giving to a group of mostly retired people. Activated with a triple-click of the home button, Magnifier looks very much like the interface to the iPhone’s camera. But there’s an explicit zoom slider and the shutter button is there not to take a picture, but to stabilize the image of whatever you’re magnifying so you can study it. If you’re frustrated by not being able to read incredibly small type, Magnifier can be the solution.

Colour Filters: Located within the Display Accommodations menu, Colour Filters let people who are colour blind differentiate