iOS 7: Summary of Accessibility Tips To Date

Recently, The Mac Observer has published iOS 7 accessibility tips. Here's a summary of all those articles published so far. The first group of five focuses on those who are visually impaired.

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1. iOS 7: Easier to Read Settings Switches. Jeff Gamet wrote: "The slider toggle switches in iOS 7's settings don't include any words to indicate whether or not something is active -- like On or Off -- but they do turn green to show they're active. That's nice, but not all apps offer the green visual cue, and some people may have trouble with colors, too. That's an easy fix because Apple includes a setting that helps make it much easier to tell the difference between the On and Off state."

2. 4 Tips for Using iOS 7’s Calendar on Your iPhone. While not strictly an accessibility tip, this article will help you see and manage your calendar better. Melissa Holt wrote: "OK, I admit it. I'm having difficulty getting used to iOS 7's Calendar app on my iPhone. On the iPad, it's all right; there's still a month view that's similar to the one we had before, but on the iPhone, I feel as if I'm having to take more time to glean information than I'd like. There are a couple of tricks to use the app more effectively, though."

3. iOS 7: Go Bold for Easy to Read Text. Jeff Gamet wrote: "iOS 7 sports a new look all the way down to the fonts used to display text and the time, and it turns out it's just a little too difficult on some people's eyes. If that's you, it's easy to make iOS 7's text more eye-friendly."

4. Resizing the type in iOS 7 is one of the tips in: 12 New and Hidden Settings in iOS 7. Dave Hamilton wrote: "One new feature of iOS 7 I immediately wanted to use was Dynamic Type. Available from iOS 7's Settings, this slider allows you to control the relative text size across any apps that support it. All of Apple's apps will do so, of course, and third parties have had access to the necessary developer tools to implement this since WWDC in June of this year."

5. iOS 7: How to Improve the Readability of the Display, Zoom and Contrast John Martellaro wrote: "iOS 7 has several settings that allow those who are visually impaired to improve the readability of the display. This tip looks at zooming the display and increasing the contrast."

6. iOS 7: How to Disable the iPhone’s Parallax Effect. This one may not be strictly accessibility, but it does relate to a visual effect that bothers some users with reported dizziness or headaches. Jeff Gamet wrote: "Now that iOS 7 is in the wild I'm getting some interesting questions, like one from a friend who discovered the parallax motion effect that moves the background behind the Home screen icons triggers their migraines. How do you fix that, they asked. Simple: enable Reduce Motion."

Apple maintains pages on its website that describe accessibility features for developers as well as end users for both OS X and iOS.

In addition, the National Federation for the Blind has published a nice overview article on the accessibility features of iOS 7: "What’s new in iOS 7 accessibility for individuals who are blind, deaf-blind, or who have low vision."

This article will be updated as new accessibility tips are published.