Apple’s official iOS 19 preview will take place during the WWDC 2025 keynote in June. That’s still a month away, but the company might unveil some iOS 19 features as soon as next week. If Cupertino follows a recent trend, it will reveal several new accessibility functionalities coming to its operating systems in their next iterations.
This trend started ahead of the iOS 17 announcement in 2023. As WWDC keynotes became longer, Apple decided to unveil some features before the event to make the keynote slightly more dynamic. After all, Cupertino currently has six major operating systems to discuss, AirPods and HomePod firmware updates, and it sometimes presents new hardware in June.
Here’s when Apple revealed new accessibility features for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac ahead of WWDC keynotes:
- Before iOS 17 official announcement: May 16, 2023
- Before iOS 18 official announcement: May 15, 2024
The iOS 17 previewed features were announced before iOS 16.5 was released, and iOS 17.5 was released before this preview of iOS 18 features. If the company follows the same trend, iOS 19 accessibility features will be revealed between May 13 and May 15, as we expect iOS 18.5 to launch this Monday.
Last year, some of the most interesting accessibility features were:
- Eye Tracking: Powered by artificial intelligence, Eye Tracking gives users a built-in option for navigating iPad and iPhone with just their eyes. Designed for users with physical disabilities, Eye Tracking uses the front-facing camera to set up and calibrate in seconds. With on-device machine learning, all data used to set up and control this feature is kept securely on the device and isn’t shared with Apple.
- Music Haptics: Music Haptics is a new way for users who are deaf or hard of hearing to experience music on the iPhone. With this accessibility feature turned on, the iPhone’s Taptic Engine plays taps, textures, and refined vibrations to the music’s audio. Music Haptics works across millions of songs in the Apple Music catalog and will be available as an API for developers to make music more accessible in their apps.
- Wide Range of Speech: With Vocal Shortcuts, iPhone and iPad users can assign custom utterances that Siri can understand to launch shortcuts and complete complex tasks. Listen for Atypical Speech, another new feature, gives users an option for enhancing speech recognition for a wider range of speech.
- Vehicle Motion Cues: Vehicle Motion Cues is a new experience for iPhone and iPad that can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles. Animated dots on the edges of the screen represent changes in vehicle motion to help reduce sensory conflict without interfering with the main content.
There are some nifty features on that list, so we’re hoping that Apple wows us again if it makes any early iOS 19 announcements next week.
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