Comment by LeoPanthera

Comment by LeoPanthera 9 hours ago

18 replies

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The post says this:

"I know there are accessibility modes, but you don’t want to have to go through all that and spend hours trying to customize the phone."

I don't think the author has actually tried "Assistive Access" mode: https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/abou...

It is ideal for the elderly or those with cognitive disabilities. It removes almost every complex feature and reduces the rest to large clearly labelled buttons. And it doesn't take that long to enable.

I highly recommend it.

eszed 7 hours ago

Earlier this year I set an iPad up for my elderly dad - it was going to be used for podcasts and YouTube, only - and it looked like it was going to be ideal. "What a great feature," I thought!

Except... There is no way to turn off screen rotation. None. It can't be done in the Assistive Access menu, and doesn't respect the setting in normal mode. It just always rotates. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support, and there's nothing to be done about it.

My dad couldn't deal with his icons rotating around on the screen, nor not being able to watch videos while lying down. It gathered dust.

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  • albumen 12 minutes ago

    Re rotation lock: iOS 18.6.2 does disable rotation lock whether you've turned it on or off; I just tried Assistive Access in both configurations.

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  • JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago

    > There is no way to turn off screen rotation

    Control Center > Rotation Lock [1]. It's been a feature for years for pilots.

    [1] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/rotate-your-iphone-sc...

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    • mulmen 6 hours ago

      Does this work in Assistive Access?

      I would try it myself but I’m scared I will get trapped.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • lucb1e 7 minutes ago

        I had the same worry but after pressing "next" like 15 times and waiting for 15 pages to load, the last page of Apple's documentation on Assistive Access tells you that you can exit it by triple clicking the "side button" (pointing to the power button, so not the side volume buttons I guess but idk). I went ahead after that and while it needed a few more presses, it ended up working that way, so you can enter and exit at will (at least, once you managed to enter; see my other comment for issues on that front...)

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      • yard2010 an hour ago

        I think this comment is the essence of this post and the general sentiment. They make software the user is scared to interact with. This is backwards Apple. They just need to do the opposite of what they're doing and they nail it.

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    • squigz an hour ago

      GP already said it doesn't respect that setting.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • albumen 13 minutes ago

        iOS 18.6.2 does disable rotation lock whether you've turned it on or off; I just tried Assistive Access in both configurations.

        Reply View 0 replies
heavyset_go 8 hours ago

The author says this in their OP:

> The phones are too fiddly now, and pressing random things as they try to hold the phone meant the phone got lost in a sea of opening stuff up. So, I tried the assistive access, but why isn’t this an option from the get-go? It asks you the age of setup; why not have a 65+ or something for a senior mode?

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  • wickedsight 7 hours ago

    > why not have a 65+ or something for a senior mode?

    Damn... I'm guessing OP is pretty young or something. I know people 80+ who have hardly any problems with regular iOS. I also know people under 60 who do. Age isn't a great thing to assume ability from.

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    • ChrisMarshallNY 3 hours ago

      63, and I learn new stuff, every day.

      I need to remember that I don't represent the norm, when it comes to stuff like that.

      I guess the saddest thing (to me), is seeing people that consider learning to be a pain point. Even young folks don't want to learn. Us geeks aren't exactly representative of the vast majority of folks. That often makes it difficult for us to design stuff for them.

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    • julian_t 5 hours ago

      Dam' right (he says, still developing at 70). Getting older may be compulsory, but I regularly have to help the youngsters out with tech-related matters.

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creata 8 hours ago

Maybe it's the best compromise, but there's something sad about Apple essentially making an entire second set of apps because they couldn't make the main ones accessible enough. It's like siloing people off into their own universe instead of making this one comfortable for them.

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  • Barbing 7 hours ago

    I can’t speak to whether it’s the _best_ compromise but if you see a screenshot of the way they dumb down the Camera app I think it does make it more clear that for example perhaps not a single reader of this website would ever find it remotely acceptable.

    Like no video if I recall correctly. I mean I’m sure with infinite time someone would find a better compromise.

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    • heartbreak 2 hours ago

      You can turn on video in assistive access, but it’s off by default.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • amelius 2 hours ago

    And nobody can write an app that helps the user use other apps, because apps are not allowed to do that. Only Apple is allowed.

    Thank you Apple nanny state.

    Reply View 0 replies
lucb1e 41 minutes ago

I just tried going through the setup on a friend's work phone to try it out because it looked useful for my grandpa (he currently has a dumbphone due to eyesight issues, can't really use a touchscreen, but maybe this mode might work with big enough buttons and TTS)

Issues:

1. It says "no results" if you look for "assi" in the settings. I wondered if this phone model doesn't support it, but ended up finding it manually near the bottom of the accessibility settings

2. The setup process is confusing, asking questions we don't know. E.g. need to confirm we know the "passcode" without saying what that is or having a field to try it out on. Does it mean lockscreen PIN? Then sure. We just pressed continue and hoped for the best. It also asks whether apps, that have been on the phone since forever, suddenly need a bunch of permissions. Will this mess with the friend's old settings outside of this special mode? We have no idea what was set and what to pick, e.g. does WhatsApp need contact access to work? Speech recognition? One of them even says "this is unexpected, please report this" How? Where? To what end?

3. Eventually got to the last screen and pressed the button for "Ok, we're ready now, enable!" and it pops up an error message: can't enable with the SIM PIN active, disable this in "settings" (ok which settings, where? Why not link it?)

4. Thankfully, this time we can find that in settings' search and... it's already disabled. I go back to assistive access and the error persists

I literally can't get this set up...

Edit: wanted to show the friend whose work phone this is the silliness of an error that says X and another screen saying the opposite. Now the SIM PIN shows up as enabled! So I pressed disable, they entered the PIN, and it gave another error message. But upon closing the screen, it showed as disabled again. Hoping it was real this time, went back to assistive access and now it could be enabled!

Turns out... assistive access only works for the standard apps: Phone/dialer, SMS, camera, gallery, magnifier

You can enable e.g. Google Maps but it has no idea that you're in assistive mode and shows you the normal UI. It also tells you to go and enable location access in settings, which you can't do in this mode. (I had enabled precise location during the setup of assistive access, but apparently it's broken.)

This does have TTS for the SMS messages, that's nice, but he'd not be able to answer them and have a conversation anyway

The magnifier is too jittery to be useful (his dumbphone has the same feature and issue)

Going back out of assistive access mode, it seems the new app permission levels persisted outside this mode and some things are messed up now (whatsapp complaining it is missing access, for example)

TL;DR same functionality as the 60€ dumbphone / flip phone my grandpa has, except (pro) you also get SMS TTS, (con) it's all non-tactile buttons, and (con) you can't flip the phone open to unlock the screen or accept a call. Especially that last one turned out to be really easy for the two grandparents that can't use a smartphone (one with visual, one with mental impairments). I'd recommend saving 500€ and going for the more accessible option instead

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fragmede 8 hours ago

Someone later on in the thread very gently tells OP about them, but how frustrating is that!

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