Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Eye tracking: potential and limits

  • Many see eye/gaze tracking as a major accessibility win, especially for people with ALS or severe motor impairments, and much cheaper than current specialized “eye gaze” devices.
  • Some debate how much Vision Pro tech really transfers to iPhone/iPad; hardware is different but UI models and security abstractions may carry over.
  • Several want the feature on macOS for pointer control and UX research, and note existing “head pointer” and facial-expression click features on Mac.

Privacy, surveillance, and ad-tech worries

  • Strong concern that eye tracking implies an always‑on camera and could be repurposed to measure ad “attention” or feed advertisers.
  • Others counter that, as on Vision Pro and with Face ID “attention,” Apple appears to keep gaze data OS-only, exposing only higher-level events (e.g., taps) to apps.
  • Debate over whether regulators (especially in the EU) might eventually force more openness to third parties.

Blind/low‑vision and VoiceOver discussion

  • Blind users are enthusiastic about ongoing VoiceOver work (e.g., legacy TTS like Eloquence, braille improvements) but note Mac accessibility still lags Windows.
  • Image descriptions are sometimes impressive but often too generic; users want richer, controllable descriptions (e.g., read social post headlines) and the ability to train on local context (“kitchen fridge”).
  • Reports that audio image descriptions don’t work reliably across all iOS 17 devices, possibly a bug; this interacts badly with locked-down, MDM-managed setups.

Vehicle Motion Cues and motion sickness

  • Many are excited about “Vehicle Motion Cues” for passengers who get carsick when using phones. Some share strong motion sensitivity, especially in specific cars (hybrids/EVs, jerky drivers).
  • Hunger and other conditions may modulate motion sickness for some users.

Music haptics and hearing loss

  • Haptic music is seen as promising for deaf/hard‑of‑hearing users (e.g., feeling the beat in dance classes) and potentially fun for everyone.
  • Existing third‑party haptic music apps are mentioned; Apple’s integration is welcomed but not novel.

Accessibility as UX and ecosystem politics

  • Many praise Apple for deep accessibility investment, noting these features often benefit everyone (motion reduction, color filters, back‑tap, Zoom, three‑finger drag).
  • Frustration that some “plain good UX” options are buried under Accessibility and that basic things (tab navigation, HN‑style tiny click targets) remain poor.
  • Discussion of legal/ADA pressure, device segmentation (features tied to newer chips/LiDAR), and the relative weakness of accessibility on Linux.