Apple announces Accessibility Nutrition Labels on App Store, Braille Access, and more new accessibility features coming to iPhone, Mac, and other devices later this year

Apple announced a suite of new accessibility features Tuesday that will roll out across its device ecosystem later this year, including first-ever Accessibility Nutrition Labels for the App Store and a Magnifier app for Mac to help users with visual impairments.The tech giant's announcement, made on the eve of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, includes innovative updates to Live Listen, Personal Voice, and visionOS, alongside entirely new features like Braille Access and Accessibility Reader that leverage Apple silicon and on-device machine learning."At Apple, accessibility is part of our DNA," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "Making technology for everyone is a priority for all of us, and we're proud of the innovations we're sharing this year."Among the most significant updates is the introduction of Accessibility Nutrition Labels on App Store product pages, providing detailed information about an app's accessibility features before download. These labels will highlight support for features like VoiceOver, Voice Control, Larger Text, and captions, giving users with disabilities more confidence in their app purchases.Eric Bridges, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, called the labels "a huge step forward for accessibility," noting that "consumers deserve to know if a product or service will be accessible to them from the very start."Apple is bringing its Magnifier app to Mac, connecting to cameras so users with low vision can zoom in on surroundings like screens or whiteboards. The app supports multiple live session windows for multitasking and customizable views for adjusting brightness, contrast, and color filters.For deaf and hard-of-hearing users, Live Listen controls and real-time Live Captions are coming to Apple Watch, allowing the watch to serve as a remote control for listening sessions. Personal Voice is becoming faster and more natural-sounding, requiring only 10 recorded phrases and less than a minute to create a voice, and will add support for Mexican Spanish.The new Braille Access feature will transform Apple devices into full-featured braille note takers, allowing users to open any app by typing with Braille Screen Input or a connected braille device. Users can take notes in braille format, perform calculations using Nemeth Braille, and open Braille Ready Format files directly.Accessibility Reader introduces a system-wide reading mode that makes text easier to read for users with dyslexia or low vision. Available across Apple's ecosystem, it offers extensive customization options for font, color, and spacing, with support for Spoken Content.Apple is also enhancing visionOS accessibility with updates to Zoom that let users magnify everything in view using Apple Vision Pro's main camera, and Live Recognition will use on-device machine learning to describe surroundings and read documents.The company is celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day with dedicated retail displays, special Today at Apple sessions, and curated content across Apple Music, Apple TV+, Books, Podcasts, and the App Store.