Accessibility Features iPads

Overview

The iPad comes with a range of built in accessibility features to assist with use of the device or simply to personalise it. These are broken up into the following categories and include (but are not limited to):

NB: The screen shots on this page have been taken in both light mode and dark mode.

You can also find information and up-to-date videos demonstrating the accessibility features on Apples own support pages:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/ipad/ipad9a2465f9/ipados

Vision

VoiceOver
Zoom
Display & Text Size (including Colour Filters)
Motion
Spoken Content
Audio Description

Hearing

Hearing Devices Support
Sound Recognition
Background Sounds
Subtitles & Captioning

Physical and Motor

Touch
Switch Control
Voice Control
Home Button
Apple TV Remote
Keyboards

Where to find these

All of these settings can be found via the settings icon on the iPad and then clicking the "Accessibility" option on the left hand side of the screen (you may need to scroll down a little to see it).

Vision

VoiceOver: Can describe people, objects, text, and graphs in greater detail. Auditory descriptions of elements help you easily navigate your screen through a Bluetooth keyboard or simple gestures on a touchscreen.

VoiceOver + Braille: Can give descriptions of exactly what’s on your screen, in braille. You can use a refreshable braille display connected via Bluetooth to your Apple device or enter braille directly on the touchscreen using Braille Screen Input. Braille is automatically converted to text in a caption panel so sighted people can follow along with VoiceOver descriptions.

Motion: Turn on Reduce Motion to decrease the movement of onscreen elements. Some screen actions, such as moving between apps or launching apps, become visually simpler for motion sensitivity or to lessen strain on the eyes.

Spoken Content: With Speak Screen - you can hear the content of your entire screen read aloud to you; with Speak Selection - you can select and hear a specific range of text.

Physical and Motor

Touch: Activate AssistiveTouch to adapt your touchscreen to ﬁt your physical needs. If certain gestures, like pinch or tap, don’t work for you, swap them with a gesture that does or create a touch that’s all your own. You can also connect a Bluetooth mouse to control an onscreen pointer for navigation.

Switch Control: control your device with a variety of adaptive switch hardware, wireless game controllers, or even simple sounds.

Voice control: Navigate your device using just your voice. Commands like click, swipe, and tap help you easily interact with your favourite apps. You can precisely select, drag, and zoom by showing numbers alongside clickable items or by superimposing a grid on the screen.

Hearing

Hearing Devices: Made for iPad hearing devices have many helpful features, and are as easy to set up as any other Bluetooth device. Instantly apply your audiologist’s environmental presets as you go outdoors or enter noisy locations, like restaurants, without having to rely on additional remotes.

Sound Recognition: Sound Recognition listens for certain sounds and uses on‑device intelligence to notify you when a specific sound is detected. You’ll receive a notification when a particular type of sound or alert, such as a doorbell or crying baby, is detected.

Audio/Visual: Customise your headphones to suit your hearing needs.

Subtitles & Captioning: Supported in apps like the Apple TV app, closed captions for movies, TV shows, videos, and podcasts. Enable this option and look for the CC icon.

General

Guided Access: Keeps the iPad in a single app and allows you to control which features are available.

Accessibility - text scanning - read aloud .mp4

Text Scanning and Read Aloud

This video demonstrates the iPads ability to scan text from an image which can then be read aloud and/or inserted into a document.

Voice Typing.MOV

Voice Typing in Pages, Google Docs and Microsoft Word Apps

This video demonstrates the iPads voice typing feature, which is built into the keyboard and can be used in any app. The feature works off-line, but can be used with online apps such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs (These apps require sign-in with Glow). We also demonstrate voice typing in Apple Pages, and suggest how the Pages document can be exported to Word or PDF formats.

Accessibility Shortcut: Configure the triple-click action of the Home button to take you to a specific accessibility menu such as magnifier, invert or VoiceOver.

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