How to make the most of your iPhone’s accessibility features

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There are a lot of accessibility options for the phone. Do you find it hard to see things on your phone? They should be made larger. If you have a form of colorblindness you can make them brighter. If you want to make them less migra-inducing, you can have Siri read and describe what's on your screen to you.

You can adjust audio dynamics, read transcriptions, or have your phone flash a bright light if you need help hearing sounds and voices on your phone.

Maybe you like a different way to use your phone. If you want to use single taps where more complicated touch gestures are not needed, you can use the AssistiveTouch feature. It's possible to integrate peripherals so you don't have to touch your phone a lot. Voice commands can be used.

Maybe you need something else. This article will help you get off to a good start.

The Accessibility Menu

You can find the accessibility options in the menu by going to the settings section.

• Vision: features that will help you see things better or that will describe what’s on your screen
• Physical and Motor: features that can help you control your iPhone using your voice, external switches, or physical movements
• Hearing: features that will help you hear your iPhone better and/or create a visual aid to accompany sounds
• General: a catch-all category of miscellaneous features

There is a place where you can access and modify accessibility features. There are some accessibility settings that are easy to understand. A lot of options and features are presented in others.

Here is an introduction to each accessibility setting.

Vision Accessibility Options

• VoiceOver: When VoiceOver is enabled, your phone will read out loud any text selection you tap on your screen (and/or a description thereof, where text may not be applicable) — and add or substitute new touch gestures for certain functions — opening up a new world of commands through multi-fingered taps and swipes. (For instance, by default, VoiceOver enables a one-finger triple-tap to enable the long press command — such as you might use for dragging an icon.) The VoiceOver setting screen is also where you can connect and configure an external Braille display.
• Zoom: Magnifies the entire screen or separate windows.
• Display & Text Size: Allows you to adjust text size, button outlines, brightness, colors, and contrast, among other options.

• Motion: Reduces on-screen animation/motion effects and/or autoplay features like video previews and fullscreen message effects.
• Spoken Content: Enables your phone to speak words, letters, and emoji descriptions — even as you type them. You can choose voices for different languages and the speaking rate. You can also add the pronunciations of common words or names.

• Audio Descriptions: Autoplays audio description tracks of videos, when available.

Physical and Motor Accessibility Options

• Touch: Enables and adjusts alternative tap- and touch-based controls for the iPhone, including AssistiveTouch; more explanations a little further down. (The Verge has written about one of these controls, called Back Tap.)
• Face ID & Attention: Allows you to set your iPhone to check that you’re looking at it for Face ID unlocking and other features to work.
• Switch Control: Lets you control your device through ability switches, devices that offer an alternative method of controlling your computer. (WARNING: Do not turn this on if you do not use ability switches. Some users report that turning on Switch Control without having an ability switch configured pseudo-bricked their phones.)

• Voice Control: Lets you control your device through voice commands instead of taps and gestures.
• Side Button (or, for older phones, Home Button): Changes side button or home button settings; for example, slows down click speed, or controls voice assistants.
• Apple TV Remote: Lets you control your device with the directional buttons on an Apple TV Remote.
• Keyboards: Lets you use an external keyboard to control your device.

By default, certain tasks on the iPhone require a certain degree of precision, and even simple tapping and dragging have to be done with a certain degree of precision. You can tap and drag to move the transparent button on the screen when you turn Assistive Touch on.

It's possible to turn on Assistive Touch.

• Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch
• Select AssistiveTouch at the top of the screen.

The AssistiveTouch menu can be opened with a single tap on the screen if you hit the button once. You can change the top level menu from the Assistive Touch settings screen.

You can connect a mouse or other peripheral device to your phone and use AssistiveTouch to control it on the AssistiveTouch page.

Hearing Accessibility Options

• Hearing Devices: Allows you to pair your iPhone with “Made for iPhone” hearing aids and sound processors. Also has an audio optimization setting for hearing aids.
• Sound Recognition: When you turn Sound Recognition on, your iPhone will listen for specific sounds that you select (such as alarms, pets, appliances, people, etc.), and then notify you when one of those sounds is detected.
• RTT/TTY: Enables the ability to make RTT and/or TTY calls. (This may not be available on your phone depending upon your carrier and/or your country or region.)
• Audio/Visual: Allows you to optimize and customize audio quality, volume, balance, and dynamics when listening with headphones or earbuds (with additional accommodations available for official Apple and Beats headphones). There is also an option to have your iPhone’s LED light flash to alert you to incoming calls and other alerts (you can turn LED flash alerts off when your iPhone is in silent mode).
• Subtitles & Captioning: Enables captioning and transcriptions for supported video content and/or HomePod announcements.

General Accessibility Options

• Guided Access: Restricts use of your device to a single app for a period of time or indefinitely until a passcode is entered. This can work well if you’re trying to get something done on a phone app, but you’re subject to distraction by other apps on your phone. It also means you can let someone else use an app or watch a video on your phone without worrying about them poking through your personal business.
• Siri: Adjusts settings for Siri. You can enable typing to Siri instead of talking, indicate when you want Siri to speak her responses, turn on ambient listening for the activation phrase “Hey Siri,” and set apps to remain visible behind an active Siri interface.
• Accessibility Shortcut: Sets an accessibility feature to be activated by triple-clicking the side button (or, for older phones, the home button).
• Per-App Settings: Enables app-specific accessibility settings for any apps you add here.

Many of the accessibility features have a lot of sub- features and sub-features to tinker with. There is a chance that the iPhone can offer a solution.