Most Useful Smartphone Accessibility Features
Your smartphone’s operating system comes with many great accessibility features designed to make life better for those with vision, mobility or hearing problems. If you have any of these issues, or know someone who has them, it’s helpful to keep track of useful accessibility features that might help them, although they’re worth knowing about even if you don’t, as they can help. you find new ways to accomplish common tasks on your phone. Below, we’ve compiled the best of these features on Android and iPhone into one handy list.
Where are the accessibility settings on Android and iPhone?
Nearly all disabled-friendly features are located in Settings> Accessibility on both Android and iPhone. While we’re going to discuss the best of these features, we can’t cover every possible option. This is why we recommend that you explore this settings page and look for other specific features that you find useful, although keep in mind that some of these will only work when you connect an accessory accessory such as a braille keyboard.
Best Accessibility for Visually Impaired People
Both platforms have several useful features for visually impaired users. The most important of these is the screen reader function . As the name suggests, it sets up your phone to read what is written on the screen. From the text in articles to the text used in the operating system, the screen reader is extremely useful for the visually impaired.
You can turn this option on on iPhone by going to Settings> Accessibility> VoiceOver . On Android, go to Settings> Accessibility> TalkBack .
Magnifier is another great iPhone feature in this regard. It uses your phone’s camera so you can zoom in and see objects up close, like with a magnifying glass. You can quickly adjust colors and contrast to adjust the image so that it is easier for you to see what you are trying to see. To enable this feature on iOS, go to Settings> Accessibility> Magnifier .
Unfortunately, Android doesn’t have a similar feature built in, but you can use the camera app to manually zoom, or try a third-party zoom app like magnifying glass + flashlight .
It is also helpful to globally adjust the text size and colors on the smartphone screen according to your needs. On iPhone, go to Settings> Accessibility> Display & Text Size to make these changes; you will also find useful options here for people with color vision impairments, such as Color Filters, which make it easier for you to distinguish colors. On Android, similar options are found under Settings> Accessibility under the Display heading .
The best assistive technology for the deaf or hard of hearing.
If you are deaf or hard of hearing, your smartphone has many useful accessibility features that can help you.
The most important of these is Live Transcribe, which is built into the Google Pixel line of smartphones and is also available as an app in the Google Play Store for other Android smartphones. Live Transcribe automatically recognizes sounds around you and converts them to text. It supports multiple languages and, most importantly, can alert you to certain non-speech sounds around you, such as a crying baby, smoke or fire alarms. Alerts appear as either a blinking light or vibration, making it easy to avoid missing important alerts.
While the iPhone doesn’t have a similar built-in app, you can try third-party features like Hearing Helper and Live Transcribe . Some of these features are available through iPhone Sound Recognition, which you can customize by going to Settings> Accessibility > Sound Recognition . If you need an LED flash for alerts, you can configure this in the Audio / Video section of Accessibility Settings.
If you are experiencing hearing loss in one ear, you can try turning on monaural audio on your smartphone. In stereo sound, sometimes part of the recorded sound is placed in the left channel and another part in the right channel. Switching to monaural audio ensures that all audio is available on one channel, so you can put the headphones in one ear and don’t miss a thing.
On iPhone, you can turn this on under Settings> Accessibility> Audio / Video> Mono Audio . On Android, this setting is under Audio & Screen Text under Settings> Accessibility .
Best accessibility features for people with motor problems
If you are experiencing physical difficulties like impaired motor skills, there are some great options on Android and iPhone that can make your phone easier to use. The AssistiveTouch button has been really popular since the days when people worried about the sticky iPhone home screen buttons, and it remains a great accessibility feature in the buttonless iPhone era, allowing you to display useful features like pinching screenshots. , or starting the camera – with one on-screen button.
You can enable this feature by going to Settings> Accessibility> Touch> AssistiveTouch on iPhone. On the same page, go to Customize Top-Level Menu to add or remove actions assigned to this button. You can also customize what happens when you press the AssistiveTouch button once, twice, or hold it down on the AssistiveTouch page in the following menus: One Tap , Double Tap, and Long Press .
On Android, you can turn on the accessibility menu to get similar functionality. Go to “Settings”> “Accessibility Options” and select “Accessibility Menu” under the heading “Elements of interaction management.”
You should also consider enabling a shortcut to automatically answer phone calls after a preset time. On iPhone, go to Settings> Accessibility> Touch> Sound Routing for Calls . Here you can choose which device will play audio during a call, so if you prefer to use a Bluetooth headset or speaker, you can route the call audio directly to it. You can also set the duration for automatically answering phone calls on this settings page.
This option is available on some Android smartphones, but not all. You can find it by opening the Dialer app, clicking on the three-dot icon in the upper right corner and selecting Settings . If this feature is available on your phone, you will find it in the call settings.
Finally, dictation is a great feature that allows you to speak instead of typing. On iPhone, you can turn it on in Settings> General> Keyboard> Turn On Dictation . The microphone icon will appear both on the keyboard and in the text boxes, and you can tap on it and start speaking. The phone then converts your speech to text.
Dictation is enabled by default on Android. You can click on the microphone icon in the text box or directly above the keyboard to use the speech-to-text feature.