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Accessibility settings are really a gold mine on iOS for device customization (yes, I agree, they shouldn’t be limited to accessibility). I’m particularly inte

Accessibility settings are really a gold mine on iOS for device customization (yes, I agree, they shouldn’t be limited to accessibility). I’m particularly interested in the motion cues and the color filters for CarPlay - I have color filters set up to enable every night as kind of a Turbo-night shift mode (deep orange-red color shift), would love to do the same for CarPlay. I also completely forgot iOS had a magnifier built in!

ryandrake 2y ago
Accessibility features tend to be superpowers though, and I'm glad Apple gates them behind permissions and opt-ins. We all know of applications who try to trick the user into granting them inappropriate access to the device through the Accessibility APIs. I think DropBox still begs you to grant them Accessibility access so its tendrils can do who-knows-what to your system. With great power comes great responsibility.
- roughly 2y ago
  It varies. Things like keyboard control or that kind of thing, absolutely, but mostly I've used it for stuff like "don't make an animated transition every time I change pages like an overcaffienated George Lucas" or "actually make night shift shift enough to be useful at night". I also use the background sounds to augment noise cancellation while taking a nap. All of those are just useful things or personal settings, not necessarily attack vectors.
- burntwater 2y ago
  Guaranteed that marketers are salivating at the idea of eye tracking on apps and website. It's an amazing feature that absolutely needs to be gatekept.
  - klausa 2y ago
    I wonder if it'll use the same architecture as visionOS; where the vision tracking events and UI affordances are processed and composited out-of-process; with the app never seeing them.
    - nindalf 2y ago
      That's probably how it'll go because it's the path of least resistance. A button will already have a listener for tap, so the OS translates the vision tracking into a "tap" and triggers the relevant code. There's no point telling the app about vision tracking because apps wouldn't already have a handler for that event. And for privacy reasons, there's no need to start now.
      - klausa 2y ago
        iPadOS has hover states and pointer events; those could be arguably trigerred by eye tracking.
astrange 2y ago
Well, they aren't really limited to accessibility, but they are hidden there. It's sort of like a convenient excuse to get UI designers off your back if you want to ship customization.
gnicholas 2y ago
My favorite is the "allow ANC with just one AirPod in". I have no idea why this would be an accessibility feature. If I turn on ANC, then I don't want it to be disabled just because I'm listening with one ear!
SSLy 2y ago
FYI you can also make turbo night shift by scheduling toggling of white point balance, yep, in accessibility settings

ryandrake 2y ago

Accessibility features tend to be superpowers though, and I'm glad Apple gates them behind permissions and opt-ins. We all know of applications who try to trick the user into granting them inappropriate access to the device through the Accessibility APIs. I think DropBox still begs you to grant them Accessibility access so its tendrils can do who-knows-what to your system. With great power comes great responsibility.

roughly 2y ago
It varies. Things like keyboard control or that kind of thing, absolutely, but mostly I've used it for stuff like "don't make an animated transition every time I change pages like an overcaffienated George Lucas" or "actually make night shift shift enough to be useful at night". I also use the background sounds to augment noise cancellation while taking a nap. All of those are just useful things or personal settings, not necessarily attack vectors.
burntwater 2y ago
Guaranteed that marketers are salivating at the idea of eye tracking on apps and website. It's an amazing feature that absolutely needs to be gatekept.
- klausa 2y ago
  I wonder if it'll use the same architecture as visionOS; where the vision tracking events and UI affordances are processed and composited out-of-process; with the app never seeing them.
  - nindalf 2y ago
    That's probably how it'll go because it's the path of least resistance. A button will already have a listener for tap, so the OS translates the vision tracking into a "tap" and triggers the relevant code. There's no point telling the app about vision tracking because apps wouldn't already have a handler for that event. And for privacy reasons, there's no need to start now.
    - klausa 2y ago
      iPadOS has hover states and pointer events; those could be arguably trigerred by eye tracking.

astrange 2y ago

Well, they aren't really limited to accessibility, but they are hidden there. It's sort of like a convenient excuse to get UI designers off your back if you want to ship customization.

gnicholas 2y ago

My favorite is the "allow ANC with just one AirPod in". I have no idea why this would be an accessibility feature. If I turn on ANC, then I don't want it to be disabled just because I'm listening with one ear!

SSLy 2y ago

FYI you can also make turbo night shift by scheduling toggling of white point balance, yep, in accessibility settings