Apple announces Apple Intelligence-powered accessibility feature updates

Apple announced several new accessibility updates to VoiceOver, voice control, live recognition and real-time caption generation for videos that will be powered by Apple Intelligence. Vision Pro users will be able to control a compatible wheelchair with their eyes using this update. Apple said that Apple Intelligence's image-recognition feature in VoiceOver will understand the image better and describe it in greater detail. For instance, it can look at a bill and read out the details such as the amount and due date. The updated feature can also better describe photographs and personal records. Users can now use an iPhone to activate the Live Recognition feature, which uses a camera to identify content in the frame, and also ask follow-up questions to know more. Users with low vision can assign Magnifier to the action button, which presents content on a high-contrast interface, and use voice commands such as "zoom in" or "turn on flashlight" to access features. The voice command update is not limited to the Magnifier app. Users can describe tasks in natural language to take action on what they see on the screen. For instance, in Apple Maps, they can say, "Tap the guide about best restaurants," or in Files, they can say "Tap the purple folder." The company is also updating Reader, which can now handle documents like scientific papers with multiple columns, images and tables. Users can get AI-powered summaries or read the text in the native language with custom fonts and colors retained. The updated reader can cater to different disabilities such as dyslexia and low vision. Apple is adding AI-generated subtitles for videos that do not have pre-generated captions, including videos recorded on an iPhone or clips received from friends or family. These generated subtitles will work across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro, and users can control their appearance. Vision Pro users can control their compatible wheelchairs with their eyes. The feature can work under varying lighting conditions without recalibration. It will launch with Tolt and LUCI alternative drive systems in the U.S. with accessory support for both Bluetooth and wired connections. The name-recognition feature, which notifies users with hearing disabilities when someone says their name, now supports 50 languages. The company will roll out large text support to tvOS. Made for iPhone hearing aids will handle handoff between different devices better. These features will be available to users later this year. They are likely to be part of Apple's upcoming iOS 27 release.