I don’t want to discredit more advancements in accessibility, but this feels like accessibility porn.
I have fond memories of an old coworker 10 years ago who is blind. He would use his phone no problem, texting, going about his day, he was even on Tinder (credit to Tinder for making their app so accessible long ago). He would commute on his own, walk to the train station, even transfer to another train during peak rush hour. I’m not saying it was all easy for him, but nothing in this video really stood out to me more than what shirt was on the bed. I know other services/apps have long existed to be the “eyes” for people who need support, but this video feels….uneventful?
I may be cynical about this though, as I often hate how Apple’s marketing makes these emotional bids about how life-critical they are to society - which is fair to a degree..but it just feels cheap to be glamorising “look! we saved this person from pending doom, cool right??”
I mean even if it is marketing for them they still did the work and developed these features. I had some vision issues recently and was glad there were options to make text more legible to me.
Additionally I don't believe this is just marketing. This is adaption to a changing market. Apple's customer base is aging and having these kinds of features will allow them to keep using Apple products for a longer.