This video of a visually impaired person using an iPhone shows how pointless arguing about different icon styles is

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Accessibility features iPhone 7
Accessibility features iPhone 7 (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple wants everyone to be able to use iPhones.
  • It has tools in place to make that possible.
  • One visually impaired person has shared a video of how they use their iPhone, including with a braille keyboard.

We all take it for granted that we can look down at our iPhones and use them without giving it much of a second thought. But not everyone is that fortunate and whether your eyesight is beginning to fail or you're legally blind, accessibility tools are vital. Apple has a great track record in terms of accessibility and the iPhone and one visually impaired person took to Twitter to show how it all works.

Kristy Viers posted a video to Twitter yesterday in which she shows how she navigates around her iPhone's Home screen and launches apps. She even shows us how she types on her iPhone and, honestly, I'm blown away.

It's truly amazing to see an iPhone used in this way and while I'm sure Apple could still do more, I'm glad there are ways for people of all levels of sight to enjoy iPhones. But if there's one thing this video does show it's that we probably get a little too hung up on whether an icon perfectly aligns with some text or if that new Slack icon is the exact color we'd like.

We should probably just be happy we can see well enough to argue about it.

You can learn more about the iPhone and iPad accessibility options, here at iMore.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.