A screen reader that describes what’s on your screen, including in braille.
VoiceOver
For those who are blind or have low vision, VoiceOver is an industry‑leading screen reader that tells you exactly what’s happening on your screen audibly, in braille, or both. Easily control and navigate your screen through simple gestures on a touchscreen, trackpad, or Bluetooth® keyboard. VoiceOver also offers deep customization options, like modifying your favorite built-in voice for speech feedback and tailoring its verbosity, speed, and accompanying sound and haptic feedback to your preferences.
VoiceOver can also describe your surroundings in great detail. VoiceOver Recognition provides descriptions of images and screen elements on web pages and apps, even if they don’t provide accessibility information. And with Live Recognition,1 you’ll get descriptions of objects in the real world, such as people, doors, text, and furniture in indoor spaces.2
With Apple Intelligence,3 these essential tools become even more powerful. Image Explorer uses Apple Intelligence to give richer descriptions of images on your screen, including what’s in photographs, scanned bills, personal records, and other visual content. Use the Action button on iPhone to quickly ask a question about what’s in the camera viewfinder and get a detailed response.4 You can even ask follow-up questions in your own words to get more visual information.
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS or macOS for feature availability. See iOS and iPadOS for VoiceOver Live Recognition and Image Explorer availability.
Image Explorer with Apple Intelligence. Get more detailed descriptions of images systemwide, including what’s in photographs, scanned bills, personal records, and other visual content. Image Descriptions and Image Explorer are now available for macOS.
Live Recognition with Apple Intelligence. Use the Action button on iPhone to learn about what’s in the camera viewfinder and ask follow-up questions in your own words to get more visual information.
You can also connect a Bluetooth wireless refreshable braille display and use it to control and navigate your Apple device. Read and type using contracted or uncontracted braille, or enter braille directly on the touchscreen using Braille Screen Input. VoiceOver supports many international braille tables. When communicating or working with sighted individuals, you can turn on the braille panel to display a language translation of the braille onscreen. Apple devices also support multiline text braille displays. With more than 70 refreshable braille displays compatible with iOS and iPadOS, and more than 100 with macOS, you can find the right braille experience for you.
Improved support for Monarch. The latest updates to iOS and macOS have improved the compatibility of VoiceOver and Monarch multiline braille displays, making reading and navigation a smoother experience.
Updated
Magnifier
A digital magnifying glass that zooms in on, detects, and describes what’s in view around you.
Magnifier
Magnifier works like a digital magnifying glass. It uses the camera on your iPhone or iPad to increase the size of anything you point it at, so you can see the details clearly on your screen. Adjust filters to differentiate colors, use the flashlight or LED flash to light up what’s in view, or freeze a frame for a static close-up. On Mac, the Magnifier app works with Continuity Camera on iPhone or attached USB cameras so you can zoom in on your surroundings, read documents, or both. Customize brightness, contrast, color filters, and perspective and save your preferred views to reuse later. With multiple live session windows, you can multitask, such as viewing a presentation with a webcam while simultaneously following along in a book using Desk View.
You can also use Magnifier to scan your surroundings and get live descriptions of the scenes detected in the camera view. Live descriptions are available as speech or text in a high-contrast interface. On iPhone and iPad models with LiDAR, Detection Mode detects people, doors, and furniture nearby and lets you know using sounds and haptic feedback.2
With Apple Intelligence,3 Magnifier enhances assistive exploration and visual descriptions in an interface designed for people with low vision. Get detailed descriptions of what’s in view, ask follow-up questions for more information, or control the app with spoken requests like “zoom in” or “turn on flashlight.” It even works with the Action button on iPhone for quick access.4
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS or macOS for feature availability.
Magnifier with Apple Intelligence. Get detailed descriptions of what’s in view, ask questions to get more information, or control the app with spoken requests.
With Text Detection, Magnifier recognizes text on signs, labels, and screens in real time. Point and Speak lets you point your finger at text on things like appliance controls or self-checkout keypads and hear them spoken aloud.5 For longer content like books, articles, or dining menus, Reader Mode lets you capture a full page and adjust the font, size, and color to make it easier to view. Audible prompts help you frame the document before capturing, and a built-in audio player lets you follow along with text as it’s read out loud.
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS for Text Detection availability.
Set up Text Detection, Point and Speak, and Reader Mode on:
Take notes, open apps, and get real-time captions, all in braille.
Braille Access
Braille Access is a braille-first experience that turns iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro into a full-featured braille notetaker that’s deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem. With a built-in app launcher, you can easily open any app by typing with a connected braille device. You can open Braille Ready Format (BRF) files directly from Braille Access, unlocking a wide range of books and files previously created on a braille note-taking device. Quickly take notes in braille format and perform calculations using Nemeth Braille or UEB Math, two braille codes often used in classrooms for math and science. And an integrated form of Live Captions lets you transcribe conversations in real time directly on braille displays.6
Format complex texts and get summaries or translations to read at your comfort level.
Accessibility Reader
Accessibility Reader is a systemwide reading experience designed to make text easier to read for people with a wide range of disabilities, from dyslexia to low vision. Customize long-form text and focus on content you want to read, with extensive options for font, color, and spacing, as well as built-in audio controls to read text out loud as you follow along. Accessibility Reader can be launched from any app and is built into the Magnifier app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. It helps create a unified reading experience that’s tailored to you — with both digital text and text in the real world.
Accessibility Reader uses Apple Intelligence to clean up and format content with multiple columns, images, and tables in complex materials like scientific articles.3 On-demand summaries give you the option to get an overview of the article before diving into the details. And with built-in translation, you can read text in your native language while keeping custom formatting, font, and colors.
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS or macOS for feature availability.
Accessibility Reader with Apple Intelligence. Make complex layouts with multiple columns, images, and tables more accessible with on-demand summaries that give you an overview of the article before diving into the details. Use built-in translation to read text in your native language with your preferred formatting, font, and colors.
Read & Speak settings
Have any text on your screen read aloud, including letters and words as you type.
Read & Speak settings
This collection of features is designed to enhance your reading or writing with audio. Hear your entire screen read aloud with Speak Screen or use Speak Selection to have a specific range of text read to you. Speech Controller lets you keep those controls onscreen so you can easily pause the speaking, adjust the rate, or navigate forward or back to the content you want to hear.
Speak Screen and Speak Selection are available in over 80 distinct voices and more than 60 languages and locales, with options to customize settings such as pitch range for your preferred built-in voices. Languages are automatically detected to switch seamlessly between voices, so your spoken content won’t feel impersonal. Additionally, you can use Highlight Content to have words or sentences accentuated in a customized color and style as they’re read out loud. These features work with Accessibility Reader, so you can view text in a format that’s comfortable for you and hear it read out loud at the same time.
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS or macOS for feature availability.
Activate Typing Feedback to hear what you type spoken out loud character by character, word by word, and with auto-corrections and auto-capitalizations as they appear.
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS or macOS for feature availability.
Invert colors, apply color filters, increase contrast, adjust text size, and more.
Display settings & Text Size
Text Size helps make text more legible and visible with simple font adjustments. With Larger Text you can adjust the size using an accessibility slider, while Bold Text gives weight to the words on your screen. You can set up Per-App Settings to ensure that your preferred settings will be applied only to the apps you choose.
Invert display colors to make the background dark to help your text and content stand out. This can be useful in apps and websites that don’t support Dark Mode. Smart Invert reverses the colors on the display except for images, media, and some apps that use dark color styles, while Classic Invert reverses all colors on the display. Color Filters let you view the entire screen in grayscale, adjust colors for color vision deficiencies, or tint the screen a color. Use Reduce White Point to tone down the intensity of bright colors and make the display easier on your eyes. You can also use Reduce Bright Effects to minimize bright flashes when tapping on elements like buttons.
Turn on Reduce Transparency to make transparent or blurred backgrounds appear opaque by giving them a solid color, improving contrast and readability. You can also use Increase Contrast to turn up the color contrast between an app’s foreground and background colors. And for screen items that rely on color to convey information, you can use Differentiate Without Color to replace these with alternative ways to tell them apart, like shapes or text.
Set up Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast on:
Your iPhone controls brightness using a technique called pulse width modulation (PWM), which can make the display appear to flicker when dim for some individuals.7 Turn on Display Pulse Smoothing to create a smoother dimming experience at low brightness levels.
Helps passengers reduce motion sickness while using their device in a car.
Vehicle Motion Cues
When you want to use iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro while a passenger in a moving vehicle, Vehicle Motion Cues can help reduce motion sickness.8 Using sensors built into your device, dots appear on your screen and move with the motion of the vehicle to reduce sensory conflict — a common cause of motion sickness. These dots are designed to remain on the sides of your screen to avoid interfering with any content. Vehicle Motion Cues can be turned on manually in Control Center or automatically on iPhone when it senses vehicle motion. You can also customize the color, size, number, and pattern of the animated onscreen dots.
Support for Apple Vision Pro. Passengers using Apple Vision Pro while in a moving vehicle can enable Vehicle Motion Cues to help reduce motion sickness.
Motion settings
Dim flashing lights, pause moving images, simplify onscreen motion, and more.
Motion settings
Turn on Reduce Motion to decrease the movement of onscreen elements. Some screen actions, including launching and moving between apps, or the fluid morphing effects of Liquid Glass, become visually simpler for those with motion sensitivity or to lessen strain on the eyes. Apply the Reduce Motion setting only to the apps you want.
This feature can help those who want to avoid bright flashes of light watch video content more comfortably. Dim Flashing Lights automatically darkens the video display when flashes or strobe effects are detected. When this feature is turned on, the playback timeline indicates when flashing lights occur for supported media.9
If you’re sensitive to rapid movement, you have the option to automatically pause images with moving elements in apps like Messages and Safari, or videos in apps like the App Store and YouTube.
Stop the blinking of the vertical bar that appears at the insertion point where you’re typing. If you use a braille display with iPhone, the cursor indicator on the display also stops blinking.
Zoom is a screen magnifier that lets you enlarge the content you see on your device. Choose Full Screen Zoom to magnify the entire screen, or Window Zoom to magnify only part of the screen with a resizable lens.11 Follow Focus tracks your selections, the text insertion point, and your typing. Smart Typing magnifies the text area and keeps the keyboard unmagnified while typing. With Zoom Filters, you can apply Inverted, Grayscale, Grayscale Inverted, or Low Light to the magnified area.
Zoom also works with VoiceOver, so you can more clearly see and hear what’s happening on your screen. Split Screen Zoom on Mac lets you see content up close and at a distance simultaneously. And if you’re using Zoom on multiple displays with macOS, you can set a different zoom level for each display.
If you have low vision, the advanced camera system on Apple Vision Pro helps make visionOS more accessible. Zoom can magnify everything in your view — including your surroundings — using the main camera.
Shows a close-up view of selected text as you read or type.
Hover settings
Hover Text makes it easier to view text on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac or while you’re watching Apple TV content. If a paragraph, text box, caption, or footnote is too small to read, just hover over it with your pointer or Apple Pencil and press the activation key for a bigger, higher‑resolution version of your selection.12 You can even choose the fonts and colors that work best for you. Hover Color on iPhone, iPad, or Mac helps those who have color vision deficiencies or low vision decipher the color beneath their pointer by translating color pixels into simple-to-understand color names. With Hover Typing on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can see larger text when you’re typing in a text field — in your preferred font and text color, too.
Audio Descriptions provide spoken narration of important visual content in movies and TV shows on many of your devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro. Just check for the AD icon under the movie title on the Apple TV app or on the iTunes Store.
Add, organize, and customize shortcuts for the tools and settings you use most.
Quickly Toggle Settings
Control Center gives you instant access to the things you do the most. It has groups of controls, which you can access fluidly on iPhone or iPad with a single, continuous swipe down on the Home Screen. This includes categories for accessibility, hearing, mobility, and vision. Add or remove hearing features in Control Center — just go to the Accessibility menu under Settings and select Hearing Control Center. You can add more controls from the Controls gallery, which shows all your options in one place, including controls from your favorite apps.
With the Accessibility Shortcut, you can easily add, organize, and customize your favorite accessibility features in Control Center or System Settings. To quickly access the features you use most, just triple-click the side button on iPhone or iPad, the Digital Crown on Apple Watch or Apple Vision Pro, or the power button on Mac or an Apple TV remote.
