Apple Watch Blood Pressure Notifications Get Regulatory Approval, will launch next week
Chance Miller reported last night for 9to5 Mac the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the proverbial stamp of approval to Apple for the Apple Watch Series 11’s new hypertension detection feature. That the federal agency has given the functionality its blessing means it can officially roll out next week as part of the release of watchOS 26.
At its event on Tuesday, Apple said the blood pressure alerts were due “soon.”
“Apple says that hypertension notifications [on Apple Watch Series 11] will be available in more than 150 countries and regions around the world at launch next week, including the US, EU, Hong Kong, and New Zealand,” Miller wrote.
The timing of this news is fortuitous, as just yesterday—albeit prior to word of the FDA’s approval—I wrote about how the aforementioned hypertension alerts aren’t limited to only Apple Watch Series 11. As Miller noted, the feature is in fact available on Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 provided the devices have been updated to watchOS 26. The software is slated to be released on Monday the 15th.
Apple Watch (along with iPhone 17 and iPhone Air) is available for pre-order today.
Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack Is no one-trick pony
The headline says it all.
Joe Rossignol reports this week for MacRumors the iPhone Air’s MagSafe Battery Pack is capable of charging other, smaller devices. Specifically, Rossignol writes Apple has given the USB-C port on its $99 accessory the nifty (and nerdy) capability to “charge an AirPods case, Apple Watch, or another small device that supports USB Power Delivery at up to 4.5W.” The information comes from Apple’s description of the Battery Pack’s specifications on its product page. Indeed, the company does state the reincarnated MagSafe Battery Pack can be used by users to “charge smaller accessories via USB-C.”
“So long as the iPhone Air MagSafe Battery has a sufficient charge, connecting a USB-C cable from the battery pack to the small accessory will initiate charging of the accessory—it could even be something like a small USB-powered fan,” Rossignol said.
He adds the Lightning MagSafe Battery Pack could not charge smaller devices.
Perhaps Apple has a MagSafe Battery Pack in its design lab that supports the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, but it isn’t out right now. Even through testing/upgrading to iPhone Air with the Battery Pack, I will keep using my two Lightning Battery Packs until the day they die or are otherwise rendered obsolete by software. I wrote about it about a year ago, and what I said last September remains just as true this September. The deep integration with iOS is awesome, as is the accessible way to get it on and of my iPhone using the magnets. Perhaps no device captures the essence of the importance of hardware accessibility more than the MagSafe Battery Pack—of either generation. Short of a USB-C version coming at some point, I strongly recommend scouring eBay for the Lightning-equipped model while it still lingers about the secondary marketplace.
The New Apple Watch’s Tentpole Features Apparently Aren’t Exclusive to Series 11
In my piece yesterday reflecting on Tuesday’s Apple event, I mentioned in the Apple Watch section that it was notable the device now supports what Apple calls “[spotting] signs of chronic high blood pressure and [notifying] you of possible hypertension.” Of high blood pressure, the company says the condition “impacts over 1.3 billion adults worldwide and is a leading cause of a heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease.”
Although Apple is (rightly) championing the new Series 11’s ability to detect possible hypertension as a marquee feature, what I didn’t know until last night is the functionality is supported on more models than only the latest and greatest. To wit, my pal Jason Snell at Six Colors reports this week the high blood pressure alerts also are available on Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2. (I have a Series 10 in silver aluminum, so this certainly is welcome news on my end.) Likewise, the sleep score feature Apple is advertising in Series 11 is also available for Apple Watch Series 6 and later. Indeed, Snell noted he received a sleep score notification on his Apple Watch just this week, which is running the recently-released watchOS 26 RC, or release candidate.
“I’m sure the announcement of the Apple Watch’s [Series 11] new hypertension alert feature helped bulk up the Apple Watch segment and reinforce its image as an important health device… I get why Apple does it, but just so we’re clear, you don’t need to buy a new watch to get a sleep score,” Snell said.
The reason I was so delighted to read Snell’s coverage of this in his story is, as I said yesterday, I’m not feeling a pressing need to upgrade my year-old Series 10. The big screen and light weight remain joyful, plus I can rest with even more assurance when I upgrade to watchOS 26 come Monday that I’ll get the hypertension and sleep score alerts. Of course, reviewing shiny new gadgets is what tech journalism is all about, and I anticipate eventually testing Series 11. The salient point is only this: for many in the disability community, most of whom must pinch their pennies, that people can go another year with a modern device—thanks to regular software updates from Apple!—means they needn’t have to unnecessarily spend on a premium, high-end product in order to get the functionality that most matters to them. It’s highly plausible, for example, certain conditions and/or medications may require closer monitoring of blood pressure spikes; that someone’s Series 9 or 10 helps do that via software only increases the device’s useful lifespan and, crucially in terms of economics, its value proposition.
Pondering this week’s ‘Awe-Dropping’ Apple Event
I was on the ground at Apple Park yesterday covering Apple’s “Awe-Dropping” event, during which the company announced a slew of upgraded iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods Pro, and more. The critiques of the new products are, for now anyway, compromised if only because I haven’t had meaningful hands-on time testing anything sans a few minutes here and there in the hands-on area in the Steve Jobs Theater. Nonetheless, I’ve spent a lot of time ruminating over everything I saw on Tuesday at a high level. My biggest takeaway from yesterday’s festivities are twofold: (1) the new iPhone lineup, top to bottom, is arguably Apple’s best in years; and (2) as ever, accessibility is a key character in these products’ respective stories. Truth is, most of the A-lister reviewers and analysts ignore accessibility because it’s amorphous and dynamic and ostensibly not newsy enough for the tech-obsessed lot that buy iPhones.
Before I get to my product-by-product analysis, I want to share a personal anecdote. At one point in the hands-on area yesterday, I ran into Apple Fellow Phil Schiller and we said our pleasantries and began commiserating on the morning’s announcements. When Schiller saw me, he greeted me with a big smile and a firm handshake, embracing me by telling me how it was “so good” to see me and how he reads everything I write while praising my talents. After the adrenaline rush of the day began to wear off, it occurred to me the exchange with him hit me in the feels. It wasn’t the first time I’ve spoken with Schiller; the salient point is how much it means, personally and professionally, that someone of his stature utterly and clearly respects what I do. As I alluded to above, working as a reporter whose beat is accessibility is neither easy nor glamorous. It has taken a helluva lot of work to get myself where I am in my journalistic career as someone from a marginalized community writing about a marginalized facet of technology. I enjoy a lot of privilege, to be sure—cf. attending Apple media events in person—but am nonetheless acutely aware of the bevy of barriers which constantly confront me. Still, Schiller’s warm embrace and kind words meant the world to my psyche because it’s more validation of the trail I’ve tirelessly blazed for over a decade.
Anyway, enough ego-stroking sentimentalism—onto the meat from yesterday’s bones.
The Air Stole The Show—And My Heart
In the lead-up to the event, rumors ran rampant about the iPhone Air. I was inclined to believe the device’s thin-and-light design would be a deterrent for many disabled people largely because, by virtue of its very nature, there’s literally less matter for the human hand to grab. While it’s still plausible the Air may not be the right iPhone for someone who benefits from thicker objects to compensate for low muscle tone or whatnot, I now believe the inverse is also equally plausible. To wit, my brief time playing around with iPhone Airs of various finishes following the keynote taught me the phone should be a boon for its thinness and lightness. Owing to its name, the Air is ridiculously thin and light; in-hand, it feels something akin to a movie prop—hollow and toy-like yet paradoxically also feels substantial and relatively weighty. I didn’t think to slip it into my pocket for a hot second, but I imagine getting the Air in and out of there should be far more accessible than my current iPhone 16 Pro Max. Likewise, walking around with the Air stashed away in my pocket seems like it’ll be easier because, again, there’s less phone to tote around. What’s more, the iPhone Air still has a large 6.5-inch display. I’ve been a devout iPhone Pro Max (née Plus) user for what feels like eons at this point because I was willing to make the Faustian bargain of smartphones: in order to get the giant screen, I must incur the costs of having an aircraft carrier in my hands and in my pocket. With the iPhone Air, however, I’m inclined to believe that sacrifice is no longer necessary—I get a big screen (the 17 Pro Max’s is, like my 16 Pro Max, 6.9”) while getting all the ballyhooed physical traits. It’s the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too iPhone to me.
In sum, I think I’ll be going from my 16 Pro Max to the iPhone Air.
Finally, a note about finishes. To my eyes—especially amidst the bright lights of the Steve Jobs Theater—the blue and white variants of the iPhone Air look effectively identical. Intellectually, I understand there’s a difference, but my eyes just didn’t notice it that much. As of this writing, I think I prefer the white because it looks super clean and premium. But blue being my favorite color, I’m partial to blue so… decisions, decisions.
Apple Watch Goes To Series 11, But 10 Is Plenty
Apple Watch Series 11 is here, but isn’t here for me. As someone who’s worn a Series 10 for the last year, Series 11 feels like a modest bump by comparison. That the new model can now measure hypertension is notable, as my doctor has talked about it with me before—which, as someone already with severe anxiety and depression, isn’t great.
Here’s a cursory shoutout to Apple Watch Ultra. I used the original for a long time, having been smitten by what was then the biggest screen on an Apple Watch I’d ever seen. The downside, of course, is the aforementioned Faustian bargain: big screen begets big, heavy object. I spent a couple minutes yesterday rekindling my acquaintance with the new Ultra 3, and while nice, it also isn’t for me anymore. As I said regarding the iPhone Air, the Series 10 (now 11) strikes the right balance of screen size and weight. I don’t foresee moving off the Series models for some time, if ever again, until and unless the Ultra’s case gets thinner and lighter. I love my current Series 10.
AirPods Pro 3 Are… Fine
I didn’t get my hands (or ears) on the refreshed AirPods Pro, but wasn’t too heartbroken about it. The update is nice and arguably long overdue, but not a must-have if you have the previous AirPods Pro 2. Both models have Apple’s hearing health features, which I covered extensively last year, and both have the Live Translation functionality. If you’re in the market for over-the-counter hearing aids and love AirPods, the $249 AirPods Pro 3 may well be the best bang-for-your-buck product in Apple’s constellation of products. For my use, I find myself reaching for the “lesser” AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation more often nowadays. I get all the “pro” features I like, wireless charging, and a smaller charging case that’s more accessible for me to carry and otherwise handle, especially when I’m out and about running errands. AirPods 4 are a great option.
Accessory Accessibility Matters a lot This Year
In an accessibility context, Apple’s accessory game seems to have leveled up several notches this year. Between the reborn MagSafe Battery Pack, the new crossbody strap, and TechWoven cases, there are accessibility implications aplenty to ponder. At first blush, I was extremely excited to see the MagSafe Battery Pack return. I have two of the old Lightning version and continue to love it. I care not that the connectors are mismatched. However festooned with USB-C, I was crestfallen when I read multiple reports, as well as Apple’s own literature, that the new Battery Pack is “exclusively,” per Apple, compatible with the iPhone Air. As I wrote earlier, I’m leaning towards getting an Air anyway so I’ll also get the Battery Pack, but it’s still a bummer it’s not simpatico with its iPhone 17 brethren. In fact, it appears I surely must’ve misheard in the loud-as-hell hands-on area; the reason I was crestfallen by the compatibility news is because I was sure one of the Apple staffers who talked up the iPhone Air with me said the Battery Pack was compatible with any iPhone that supports MagSafe—meaning, any iPhone 12 and later. Everything I’ve read thus far says the contrary, which really sucks. On the plus side, though, the iPhone Air’s Battery Pack retains the accessibility gains of its Lightning-equipped ancestor: that it uses magnetism to adhere itself makes attaching it literally a snap and eminently accessible. Proof positive yet again that MagSafe transcends sheer convenience and is actually a de-facto accessibility feature. Google was right to copy it for its Pixel 10 phones—magnets are a great conduit to charging.
Speaking of cases, as a case diehard myself—not only for protection, but accessibility too—I am deeply impressed by Apple’s new TechWoven cases. Not only are they handsome-looking, the grippy nature of the (fabric?) material adds more friction—ergo, more grip and friction means more security and ultimately more accessibility for those with fine-motor disabilities. The only bad thing is TechWoven is limited, compatibility-wise, to iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max; I wish they were available for the Air, but nevertheless I’m happy to consider the iPhone 4-like Bumper and the Frosted case for my new phone.
Finally, the crossbody strap. The new lanyard was my biggest surprise in terms of interest, as my time playing with (and wearing!) them in the hands-on area surfaced a lot of ideas about its applicability to accessibility. As someone who uses a cane more for identification than navigation, the problem for me is holding it with one hand whilst I do something else with my other hand. It dawned on me yesterday, the iPhone crossbody strap could potentially aid with that by securely “holding” the iPhone as I use it so as to not drop it or whatever. I could be, say, using the Magnifier app on my phone with it attached to the strap while still holding my cane. I just upgraded to a new telescoping cane from a folding one, named such because it folds into itself when not in use, and while much more compact, still doesn’t solve the ergonomic issue with “holding” the cane while I do something. Short of getting a belt-worn pouch for stashing my cane when not in use, the crossbody strap should make using my phone more accessible at the same time I’m holding my cane for identification purposes.
The Precious ProMotion Pearl-Clutching
It’s New iPhone Season, which means it’s time for my annual admonishment friendly reminder that ProMotion isn’t nearly as table stakes as the embargoed reviewers and influential YouTubers (👋🏼, MKBHD) insist it is in everyday life. I’ve gotten a lot of pushback for this opinion over the years, but I’m not backing down because my argument, as with most things accessibility, drips with nuance that most fail to see.
The nerds are thinking about ProMotion as a marker of technological progress. The base iPhone 17 finally gets ProMotion this year and everyone is rejoicing. I get it, and from that perspective, the jubilation makes perfect sense. What the noise of the nerds’ incessant clamor drowns out is reality: not everyone can see, if at all, ProMotion. The fact of the matter is, to many people with low vision (myself included), the iPhone 16’s 60Hz display may as well be indistinguishable to that of the “better” 120Hz screen of the new iPhone 17. Animations aren’t more fluid. Scrolling isn’t smoother. There’s surely a technical and intellectual distinction, but as a practical matter, there is none to me.
To say that ProMotion is non-negotiable is disingenuous. It’s privileged. The vast majority who crow about its superiority in reviews, on podcasts, and in YouTube videos all have sufficient vision to appreciate it. I don’t begrudge them, but it would be better to emphasize something like “you’ll get better battery” than show us a bunch of senseless scrolling that not everyone can appreciate or relate to. To reiterate, I understand the perspective that Apple should upgrade the iPhone’s display tech for tech’s sake, but that’s only one side of the story. Too much is made about the practical application of ProMotion in everyday life; accessibility aside, I’d contend a regular, non-nerdy person moving from an older iPhone to the new iPhone 17 couldn’t care less about high refresh rate displays as they scroll Instagram or TikTok. And to be crystal clear, this isn’t about taking away a feature people like. This isn’t pie. My stance is about the mainstream tech media curbing their enthusiasm, and more pointedly, checking their abled privilege.
Your eyes may be able to pick up ProMotion—but not everyone’s can! Think about that.
As they say, this is a hill I will die on again and again forevermore.
As always, stay tuned for more coverage on the new iPhones in the coming weeks.
Unity Game Engine Gets Native Support for Mac, Windows Screen Readers In Looming Update
Ian Carlos Campbell reported for Engadget last week Unity has updated its popular game engine such that the tool natively supports screen readers on both macOS and Windows. The feature is available in the Unity 6000.3.0a5 alpha, according to Campbell.
“Unity previously offered APIs for both Android and iOS’ built-in screen readers in its Unity 6.0 release, but hadn’t yet added support for Windows Narrator or macOS VoiceOver,” Campbell wrote. “With this new alpha and its eventual release as Unity 6.3, developers creating games with Unity will have access to a native screen reader in all of the engine’s major platforms. Considering how popular Unity is as a game engine, that could vastly improve the accessibility of future games.”
Campbell cites a report by Can I Play That? in which Marijn Rongen writes in part Unity’s news is significant for Blind and low vision gamers because it can “make it much easier (and cheaper) to include this essential accessibility feature for Blind players in games built with Unity,” adding “too often otherwise accessible games are still unplayable without sighted support, simply because they miss narration for the menus.”
“Supporting screen readers from Unity helps developers take this important step towards better Blind accessibility in their games,” Rongen said.
Campbell notes most game makers build their own screen-reading software, which he says oftentimes is “resource-intensive for developers to implement.” Again, last week’s news is big because Unity has built in support in its engine. In his story, Campbell shares a comment from Steve Saylor, a creator and accessibility consultant, who wrote on Bluesky Unity’s built-in support for screen readers means “the heavy lifting is done for you, and the cost of time [and] resources now is significantly lower.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve covered Unity’s accessibility efforts. In April, I wrote about the company’s 2025 Unity for Humanity Grant winners, which included those working towards greater inclusivity in gaming. Amongst the titles recognized by Unity included Jubilee Studios’ Small Talk ASL App, as well as Benvision: Melody Meets Mobility.
YouTube TV Makes ‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ More accessible this season with new monthly plan
I was watching yesterday’s Chargers-Chiefs matchup from São Paulo, Brazil when, at one point, a commercial aired in which Jason Kelce is seen crying endlessly because NFL Sunday Ticket now can be had on a month-to-month basis. The spot grabbed my attention because Sunday Ticket historically has been expensive; a season pass for YouTube TV subscribers is $276. Opting for the monthly plan, however, the price is $85.
Obviously, the news struck me as being a more accessible way for a disabled football fan—someone who must count their pennies but also lives and breathes for Sundays—to keep up with the NFL by making Sunday Ticket more economically feasible. Better to break up the cost month-to-month than be forced to plunk down nearly $300 all at one time. What’s more, as with YouTube TV proper, Sunday Ticket can be cancelled anytime. In an accessibility context, flexible payment options—paying smaller amounts of money over a longer period—means those in the disability community potentially can have more “fun” with what disposable income is available to them because, in Sunday Ticket’s case, NFL games can be enjoyed for mere morsels relative to its total cost.
As a devout YouTube TV subscriber—with the 4K Plus option, natch—I’m feeling mighty tempted by Sunday Ticket’s new pay-as-you-go option. I watch the NFL every week during the season, and loved watching the aforementioned Chargers-Chiefs game on my 77-inch LG C3 OLED TV. The picture quality was spectacular whilst the sheer bigness of the screen made watching the action (as well as reading the graphics) eminently more accessible. A nice touch for last night’s game was YouTube TV replacing the stock circular playhead in the scrubber with the Brazilian flag (🇧🇷) to pay homage to the event. YouTube TV does this with other programming too—e.g., The Simpsons has a donut while Law & Order: SVU uses a gavel—and Google is to be commended for incorporating whimsy into the software’s user interface design. My only gripe with YouTube TV is they don’t carry MLB Network and NHL Network to complement NFL Network and NBA TV.
YouTube TV acquired Sunday Ticket in 2023, for which Google pays $2 billion annually.
Los Angeles beat Kansas City, 27–21. The newly-engaged Travis Kelce caught a touchdown pass. He finished the game with 2 catches for 47 yards in the loss.
How AI Is Making Job Interviews Accessible to all
A cogent argument could be made that, at its core, Ribbon is all about accessibility.
On its website, the Toronto-based company bills itself as “the #1 AI recruiter” and says it’s “built for recruiters to effortlessly interview at scale.” The AI part comes in by way of Ribbon’s software providing insights about job candidates to human recruiters, while candidates reap the benefits of being able to sit through an interview on their terms.
Ribbon has a video demonstrating its software on YouTube.
Ribbon’s applicability to accessibility is right there on its website. Take a scroll down the homepage a bit and you’ll find a few callouts of statistics and testimonials, where Ribbon boasts about its software saving more than 10 hours per week per recruiter whilst seeing an 60% increase in times to hire. Indeed, a user named Elena McGuire testifies to Ribbon’s efficacy by saying in part it has “has helped [their team at Thrive] make our hiring process faster and better.” The moral here is simple: Ribbon leverages artificial intelligence to make recruiters’ jobs not merely more efficient—it makes it their work accessible too by taking on much of the grunt work associated with the position. If you’re someone with a disability who works in recruiting, that AI could help you, say, identify skillsets and the like means less scanning and typing—which could be burdensome in terms of visual and/or motor acuities depending upon the condition(s).
Ribbon’s co-founder and CEO is Arsham Ghahramani. His background is in AI research, back in the days when AI was described as “machine learning” and, as he told me during a recent interview via videoconference, an area in which “not a lot of people were super interested in this space.” The impetus for Ribbon’s mission lies in the workings of another startup, Ezra, where previously Ghahramani led AI and would meet his Ribbon co-founder in Dave Vu. It became apparent, Ghahramani explained to me, there were problems to be solved for all involved in the hiring space. The ways in which most companies hire, he said, are (a) oftentimes inflexible about catering to people’s needs and tolerances; and (b) personal interviews are increasingly important given applicants oftentimes employ chatbots to assist them as they’re seeking employment.
“The example I always give is if everyone uses the same version of ChatGPT to create the perfect résumé for one role, it becomes really hard to discern who is the right candidate for this [job],” Ghahramani said of Ribbon’s goal. “In that world, interviewing someone becomes more important than ever, but also harder on both sides. We started Ribbon with the idea that let’s make it easier for candidates [by allowing] them to interview anytime, on their own terms, and under on much pressure as well. Then also, let’s make it easier for companies to understand who’s the right match for jobs.”
“Ribbon is an AI interviewer that can interview people for almost any role,” he added.
Besides his history working in AI before it was crazy cool, Ghahramani has another facet to his background that helps inform his work on Ribbon. Like yours truly, he’s a lifelong stutterer. He called accessibility something that’s “always been close to my heart,” adding his stutter has been at the forefront of his mind “in every interview I’ve ever taken.” Job interviews, he told me, are “high pressure environments” for the candidate, which is exacerbated for people coping with a speech delay. However unfair, the coldhearted reality is interviewers judge candidates in large part on their presentation, speech-wise. Ribbon, according to Ghahramani, gives more control back to candidates such that it becomes “a much friendlier environment” for them. By leveraging artificial intelligence, users can rest assured “you’ll get the same experience every time.”
Ghahramani noted Ribbon does its best to stay faithful to other aspects of accessibility, such as ensuring adherence to the WCAG standards for best practices on the web.
Ghahramani’s lived experience as a stutterer gives context to Ribbon’s raison d’être because, as he told me, recruiters obviously want applicants to be at their best during interviews. The problem, of course, is a high-stakes situation like a job interview often induces stress and, commensurately, often worsens someone’s fluency and intelligibility. It then becomes a lose-lose proposition: companies can’t pick up laborers because the people aren’t looking their best. In this sense, then, Ribbon is providing an assistive technology insofar as, as Ghahramani said, it’s a “huge advantage” to be able to complete an interview on your own terms. He pointed to users of the platform who report Ribbon is “not the same as a regular interview” because technology can accommodate for a wider swath of people. To wit, Ghahramani said it isn’t merely stutterers who benefit; indeed, people who are neurodivergent also see gains in terms of “saying the wrong thing [and] wishing you could redo.” All told, he believes Ribbon is offering “a massive accessibility bump” for everyone—to recruiters and applicants alike—compared to the tried-and-true rigamarole of conventional job interviews.
Ghahramani believes having a speech disability puts you at a steep disadvantage.
“I’ve always felt, in the situations where you have to perform on the spot, that’s where [stuttering has] the biggest disadvantage,” he said of stuttering. “In my job now, I have to present to a lot of investors and pitch them. I’ve always felt [his stutter] is a disadvantage there. In job interviews, I’ve always felt the same, I’m making a giant assumption here, but I think the average person who has never had a stutter, and never had an issue with that, probably watches me stutter and thinks I’m dumber than them. I’m making, like, a massive leap there. I’ve always had that feeling, and I felt you have to overcome that [perception] in other ways and demonstrate there’s not something wrong with me, or I’m not dumber than you. It’s hard to fight that perception.”
When asked about how technology can enable greater accessibility, Ghahramani conceded my question, while good, lies in an area at the “edge of my knowledge.” Speculatively, however, he answered by telling me technology has the capacity to expose things to “a much wider range of people.” Ghahramani has never seen a speech-language pathologist for therapy, saying he probably would have had he parents in the United Kingdom possessed the resources to do so. This all is Ghahramani’s roundabout way of illustrating that his company’s technology has profound potential to help people. He believes people should have accessible ways of practicing for interviews, on both sides of the desk, and that Ribbon can be a conduit for said practice. Moreover, Ghahramani told me technology can help in “our understanding of speech and like cognition and the way the brain works.”
In terms of feedback, Ghahramani reiterated Ribbon’s conceit that it exists to make interview processes smoother and more streamlined for recruiters and applicants alike. It’s a virtuous circle: if companies are able to hire people with increased efficiency and rapidity, the job market as a whole is able to become fuller and less exasperating to navigate. Ghahramani said it’s a “paradox” that AI can be so humanizing, able to offer more intimate, personalized questions that a human may not think of because they’re overburdened with work and back-to-back meetings. Users, he added, have reported feeling like Ribbon “actually cared” about them and their candidacy; simply asking about one’s last big project can be lazy whereas Ribbon can surface more thoughtful questions that can lessen stressors which contribute to disfluency for stutterers.
As to the future for Ribbon, Ghahramani of course expressed the boilerplate enthusiasm regarding the continued growth of his startup. More poignantly, though, he expressed excitement for a future he and his team are building towards in which “you can get hired in under 24 hours for almost any role.” He envisions Ribbon users completed one, in-depth interview and using that as a template for a hundred others. The company, he said, believes recruiters and job-seekers will be happier and more productive in positions that are more finely tailored to their skills and interests. The job process can be improved by shortening it—thereby making it more accessible to boot— by taking the tedium (and the stress) out of it for both recruiters and applicants alike.
‘What You’ll Miss When It’s Gone’
PBS public editor David Macy wrote a piece about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) choice to cease operations in the wake of the Trump administration’s choice to cease funding the nonprofit organization. Trump’s behest stems from a desire of his (and his cronies) to “end wokeness,” as right-wingers call it.
As Macy noted, the CPB was established by way of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.
“By now, most Americans are aware that PBS and NPR have been ‘defunded,’” Macy wrote in the lede to his piece published late last week. “Judging from letters to the PBS Public Editor, viewers believe it’s ‘public media’ that’s had the rug pulled out from under it; Some say ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘[fill in with your favorite show]’ were defunded. Or, as some put it more harshly, ‘wokeness’ was defunded. Whether these personal messages to PBS were delivered with sadness or glee doesn’t matter. What interests me is what people think they will be losing (or getting rid of?). They are about to find out.”
As I wrote a month ago, that the CPB is no longer—and PBS and NPR is defunded—will have reverberating effects on the disability community. As I said in early August, I’ve covered myriad children’s programming from PBS Kids and have interviewed many executives and showrunners; that the federal government has pulled funding very much threatens not only PBS Kids’ ability to function—the consequences ultimately means less visibility of people like me. Of course I’m an adult, but the salient point is disabled people are showcased in series like Carl the Collector and its brethren. More poignantly, that disability is featured so prominently means able-bodied children (and their families) are exposed to the ways in which people are different and implicitly teaches viewers to be empathetic of such a reality. Likewise for children with disabilities, the feelings of heightened self-esteem are immeasurably important because they get to see characters who look like them on television. As Hollywood and media reckon with its historical moribund, woeful portrayals of disability and disabled people, that PBS Kids—as well as Apple TV+ and Netflix, for that matter—allocate a significant number of resources to furthering diversity and inclusion in this manner is absolutely non-trivial. That’s precisely why Trump’s mandate is so damning and disdainful—it puts the future of such vital productions in serious peril while also underscoring his (and his cronies’) desire to effect changes which only serve to better the lives of the white, wealthy, and abled people. The fact of the matter is not having to cope with disability, if not multitudes, is as much privilege as being a well-off white man. It’s ignored, but abled privilege is, and always has been, a real thing in this world.
The disability community indeed will miss the representation when it’s gone.
Uber, Best Buy Team Up For Electronics Delivery
San Francisco-based Uber this week announced it has partnered with Best Buy on an initiative that allows shoppers to buy electronics from the retailer through UberEats and have the item(s) delivered to them. The service is available now and runs nationwide.
To mark the partnership’s launch, users will get $20 off the price of orders $60 or more using the promo code BESTBUY10. Additionally, Uber One subscribers (like yours truly) get $0 delivery fees and other perks. The promo ends on September 29, Uber says.
“From headphones and chargers to laptops, gaming gear, and small appliances, Best Buy customers will now enjoy the convenience of on-demand delivery or scheduled drop-offs, all within the Uber Eats app,” Uber said in its press release on Tuesday.
As someone who fairly regularly gets food and groceries delivered via UberEats, Uber’s collaboration with Best Buy only increases its value proposition. Especially from an accessibility standpoint, that a disabled person—who may not be able to venture out to their neighborhood Best Buy store, if one exists at all—could get a MacBook or AirPods or whatnot brought to their house on-demand is worth its weight in gold. It transcends sheer convenience into something much more impactful; it’s plausible, for instance, that someone needs new AirPods for a virtual appointment with their medical team. Instead of asking someone to run the errand of going to the Apple Store posthaste, or perhaps postponing the meeting so as to accommodate shipping of an online order, the earbuds could be brought to them prior to the meeting. It sounds trivial, but it’s really not—the reality is, as with using UberEats to grocery shop, not everyone can (or should) leave their home to do shopping for health and/or logistical reasons, or a combination thereof. Most people fancy Uber Eats as an amenity: it’s cool and nice to have, but perhaps not essential to everyday living. The flip side of that argument, however, is that what’s a nicety to some could very well be a lifesaver to others. And of course, the conduit for this service is the technological marvel known as the modern smartphone.
“Consumers today expect everything from groceries to gadgets to arrive at their doorsteps quickly and reliably,” Hashim Amin, Uber’s head of grocery and retail in North America, said in a statement included with the company’s announcement. “With this partnership, Uber Eats and Best Buy are making it easier than ever for customers to access the latest technology, whether it’s a necessity or something fun. We’re thrilled to help bring Best Buy’s trusted assortment into the on-demand economy.”
The Uber × Best Buy deal comes after Uber announced in July it was expanding the roster of SNAP-friendly retailers in order to make getting groceries more accessible.
The Relay for St. Jude Fundraiser is happening Now
If you didn’t know, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. My friends at the venerable Relay podcast network, co-founded by Stephen Hackett and Myke Hurley, hold an event every year for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month; the proceeds go towards research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
The 2025 fundraiser is underway. As of this writing, $45,949 has been raised this far.
“Since 2019, the Relay Community has raised over $4 million for St. Jude,” reads Relay’s fundraiser webpage. “Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the U.S. childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80%. St. Jude won’t stop until no child dies from cancer—that’s why St. Jude shares its breakthroughs. Every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save even more children. Join Relay this September for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to help give them more tomorrows.”
Since 2019, Relay has raised $4,109,514.51.
My ties with cancer, as well as with Relay, are snug. I’ve lost multiple people close to me (albeit adults) to cancer in my life, most notably my mother—she died from breast/skin cancer in 1998 when I was just 16. I’ve written about cancer before and how disabling it can be for the patient and others in their orbit. As to Relay, I’ve known Hackett and Hurley for over a decade; I’ve met both in person and consider them friends; Hackett once upon a time was a guest on an early iteration of my old Accessible podcast. Also, I was a guest on an old Relay show called Less Than Or Equal in August 2016. What’s more, Shelly Brisbin, whom I also know and who currently contributes to Six Colors, hosted an accessibility-themed show called Parallel—on which I also guested once—that was part of Relay for awhile before its 93-episode run ended back in June 2024.
Anyway, please give to Relay for St. Jude if you can!
‘when will Waymo come to my city?’
Waymo on Friday posted an item to its Waypoint blog with a short update on its popularity and commensurate expansion plans for the future. In the new blog post, the Alphabet-owned company boasted about completing “hundreds of thousands of weekly fully autonomous trips and over 100 million miles of public road experience.”
“Today, the Waymo Driver can navigate new cities safely and faster, validated by our expansion from Phoenix to the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and soon Miami, Washington, D.C., and Dallas,” Waymo wrote. “Operating in 5+ major U.S. cities and testing across the country and Tokyo has strengthened our system, creating a robust and adaptable Waymo Driver that can expand to new cities.”
As this story’s headline quotes, Waymo says the top question it gets from people is when its robotaxis will start rolling around the streets of their cities. I wonder that myself here in the Bay Area too, as there are parts of the region—namely, the East Bay—which currently isn’t served by Waymo. Uber and Lyft are entrenched there, of course, but not Waymo. In all honesty, I acknowledge the tone of the company’s blog post is self-congratulatory; it’s important to recognize the function of a company-run blog—by any company, not just Waymo—but its laudatory messaging is deserved in at least one respect. As I’ve written numerous times, I’m a huge fan of Waymo’s product for its accessibility; without any hyperbole, Waymo has utterly transformed how (and when) I get around as a lifelong member of the Blind and low vision community. I won’t rehash my platitudes here, but suffice it to say, the autonomous driving technology is ducking cool and speaks to my tech nerd soul, while the “taxi” essence of the service makes getting around my city of San Francisco eminently more accessible. In other words, while the journalist in me is keenly aware of skepticism surrounding safety and other issues—Waymo isn’t without its warts, after all—the more salient message for me is as a user who more or less is dependent upon third parties for transportation. That Waymo gives me back such strongly explicit agency and autonomy, which then boosts my historically low self-esteem to all-time highs, is neither trivial nor is it fanboyish.
Waymo’s app has earned its permanent place on my iPhone’s Home Screen.
Today’s news from Waymo is complemented by news from The Verge Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana—whom I’ve interviewed before—talked up the company’s aforementioned expansion ambitions on the latest episode of the Hard Fork podcast. “You’re going to start seeing our cars in a lot of cities,” Mawakana told hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton of Waymo’s growth. “If you think about our business in terms of scale, we’re currently giving hundreds of thousands of rides every week and, in all likelihood, by the end of next year, we’ll be offering around one million rides per week.”
Anyway, if Waymo is in (or will come to) your city and you haven’t yet tried it, do it.
Walmart Offers Apple Services Deal with Purchase of Any Google TV-Powered Onn Streaming Box
I missed the news when it hit a month ago, but Ben Schoon at 9to5 Google reported at the time Walmart is offering a promotion whereby if you buy one of their house brand Onn streaming boxes, you get three months of Apple TV+ (and other Apple services) thrown in for free. Schoon specifically calls out the Onn 4K Plus box in his story, but the promotion does extend to the Onn 4K, Onn Full HD, and my favorite, the Onn 4K Pro too.
Schoon wrote the aforementioned 4K Plus is “the most affordable and best value in Google TV hardware”; priced at just $44.73 as of this writing, he wasn’t wrong. For my money, however, I highly recommend “splurging” by instead opting for the 4K Pro. Its price is exactly the same and you get twice the storage (16GB vs. 32GB) and an extra gig of RAM (2GB vs. 3GB), plus an Ethernet port and the box serves as a smart speaker when you’re not watching anything. I wrote about the Onn 4K Pro earlier this month, saying in part Walmart’s box “pleasantly surprised” me. Moreover, the 4K Pro is an inexpensive entry point into Google TV; as I also said, although I prefer tvOS on the Apple TV 4K overall for its polish and especially its performance, Google has imbued its TV platform with lots of thoughtful touches and functionality I yearn for Apple to someday adopt for their own software. Apple TV+ indeed is available on Google TV, with all the same great content that make subscribing well worth it despite the recent price hike to $13/month.
Besides TV+, the Onn deals include 90 days of Apple Music and Fitness+ as well.
Apple Ships Xcode Beta with Claude, GPT-5 Support
My pal Chance Miller reports for 9to5 Mac Apple on Thursday shipped Xcode 26 Beta 7 to developers. The release is noteworthy because it includes support for AI models in Claude and GPT–5. Miller writes using artificial intelligence to assist with programming software helps developers “write code, fix bugs, access documentation, and more.”
GPT–5 is the default model in Xcode. Users can opt for GPT–4.1, according to Miller.
“ChatGPT in Xcode provides two model choices. ‘GPT–5’ is optimized for quick, high-quality results, and should work well for most coding tasks,” Apple says in describing Xcode’s newfound AI integrations. For difficult tasks, choose ‘GPT–5 (Reasoning),’ which spends more time thinking before responding, and can provide more accurate results for complex coding tasks.”
Notably, Miller (as well as Jason Snell at Six Colors) says developers can run their own models locally on their Mac and even “use API keys from other AI providers,” Miller said.
I wrote about the accessibility implications of this feature last week, so it’s good to see the rumor become reality. As I said then, that programmers have the ability to lean on, say, Anthropic’s Claude for writing code and referencing documentation has the potential to be a de-facto accessibility feature for developers with disabilities. In very much the same way chatbots like ChatGPT can make web searches more accessible by doing the grunt work, so too can it help in coding. It’s important to emphasize the distinction here; leaning heavily into AI in this way isn’t cheating or lazy. On the contrary, it’s downright savviness—it leverages what’s arguably a computer’s greatest strength: automation. More pointedly in accessibility terms, using AI in coding makes what could plausibly be inaccessible in ways much more inclusive. Of course vigilance is necessary for spotting errors or hallucinations, but the genuine good AI can do as assistive technologies is neither trivial nor a viewpoint seen from rose-colored glasses.
How A Robot Makes the Mundane Meaningful
My close friend and tech press compatriot Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal is currently on book leave, as she’s busy reporting and writing a book (due out next year) on artificial intelligence. As good friends do, I’ve been keeping tabs on Stern’s progress by reading her newsletter—which is totally worth subscribing to—and today’s edition really piqued my interest. In her piece, Stern chronicles her time having a robot, built by a startup called 7X Robotics, in her basement that (slowly) helps with folding laundry.
On its website, 7X Robotics bills itself as “[making] Windows standalone software to make your robot do autonomous home tasks like wash dishes and fold clothes,” adding the laundry product has the ability to “[fold] three t-shirts one after the other with no human aid.” The company has posted a short demonstration of the robot on YouTube.
Logistics notwithstanding—Stern writes in part 7X Robotics hopes to “package this up and start selling it soon”—the company’s laundry robot has immense applicability to accessibility, disability-wise. As a disabled person who copes with visual and motor conditions, it isn’t at all difficult for me to imagine how a mainstream consumer version of this product could make folding laundry eminently more accessible. Three t-shirts today isn’t that impressive, but that belies the point; the point is somebody like me, with lackluster hand-eye coordination and partial paralysis due to cerebral palsy, could have the robot assist with me a task that would otherwise be burdensome and inaccessible. Moreover, it’s a prime example of the genuine good AI can do as assistive technologies. As with chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini helping with web searches and essay research, for example, this laundry robot—or 7X Robotics’ dishwashing one—can help with household jobs that many disabled people can’t (or shouldn’t) do. Maybe you’re someone with arthritis. Maybe you have chronic fatigue. Maybe you can’t always remember the correct way the fold the kitchen towels. The resonance runs deep, transcending sheer coolness or convenience. Although it’s true there does exist a slew of on-demand wash-and-fold services to sign up for that offer accessibility gains too, they don’t take away from a future—however far-flung it feels in the present—where a disabled person could get one of 7X Robotics’ robots to fold their clothes in their home.
For more on robotics and accessibility, I wrote last year about Amazon’s Astro.
Google Translate Receives Live Translation, Language Learning Features In Recent Update
Abner Li reports for 9to5 Google this week Google has updated its Google Translate app with a live translation feature, as well as a new Duolingo-like language learning feature.
The real-time translation features obviously uses Gemini models.
"The new ‘Live translate’ capability lets you have a ‘back-and-forth conversation in real time with audio and on-screen translations,’” Li wrote last week in describing Google Translate’s new functionality. “After launching the new interface, select the languages you want, with 70 supported: Arabic, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish, Tamil, and more. With a thread-based interface, Google Translate will ‘smoothly’ switch between the pairing by ‘intelligently identifying conversational pauses,’ as well as accents and intonations. Meanwhile, advanced voice and speech recognition models have been trained to isolate sounds and work in noisy, real-world environments.”
The live translation feature is available on iOS and Android to users in the United States, India, and Mexico. Google has posted a video to YouTube showing off the functionality.
From an accessibility perspective, live translation is helpful insofar as people who are visual learners—essentially, the inverse of audio versions of Google Docs—can follow along with the scrolling text in the Google Translate app as someone is speaking. The bimodal sensory input could make conversations in a foreign language more accessible both ways: linguistically and disability. What’s more, there are many neurodivergent people for whom reading a textual version of someone’s words is more accessible than aurally comprehending an unfamiliar language. Put another way, that modern smartphones are powerful enough to be able to generate real-time translations means more accessible and comprehensible conversations; a person needn’t look at a guidebook or stumble through words or use gestures, which can be socially awkward.
The same argument applies to the language learning feature in Google Translate. To wit, Google has smartly provided options for listening and speaking words, phrases, and/or sentences such that a person can choose the modality that is most accessible to them depending on their needs and learning style(s). They’re de-facto accessibility features.
Google Docs Gets New Text-to-Speech Feature
Earlier this month, Abner Li reported for 9to5 Google Gemini has gained the ability to read the contents of Google Docs with a new AI-based text-to-speech feature. The functionality arrives a few months after it was announced by Google back in early April.
“On the web, go to the Tools menu [in Google Docs] for a new ‘Audio’ option in-between Voice typing and Gemini. Tapping ‘Listen to this tab’ will open a pill-shaped player, with the duration noted. You can move this floating window anywhere on the screen,” Li wrote of how the audio feature works. “Besides play/pause and a scrubber, available controls include playback speed and changing the ‘clear, natural-sounding voices.’”
Li adds editors are able to “add an audio button anywhere in the document.”
Li hits on the accessibility angle to this recent news, quoting Google’s rationale that using the audio feature can be beneficial for “[wanting] to hear your content out loud, absorb information better while reading, or help catch errors in your writing.” Indeed, that Google Docs—which I hate but know is immensely popular—can be read aloud should be a real boon for people who may retain information better as aural learners. Likewise, it’s also true many neurodivergent people find spoken material more accessible to grasp than merely reading the textual version. Relatedly, I’ve noticed an increasing number of news outlets, namely Forbes and The Verge, including a button on a story’s page to turn it into an audio version. It effectively turns the article in an audiobook or podcast, the former of which having roots in the disability community. Still, given the mainstream popularity of both mediums, audio-based versions of Google Docs—even if it’s limited to a particular section of the overall document—it makes perfect sense to want to lean in strongly with audio production vis-a-vis AI.
The Google Docs audio feature is available only in English and on the web for now.
News of the Google Docs enhancement is complemented by news Microsoft Excel has gained support for Copilot AI to assist in filling out information for users’ spreadsheets.
A bit About The Cracker barrel Controversy
I was reading my friend John Gruber’s post about the Cracker Barrel controversy just now when it occurred to me there’s an accessibility angle to Cracker Barrel. It isn’t pertinent to the brouhaha itself—that the company’s rebrand is supposedly “woke”—but rather to the experience of eating at a Cracker Barrel restaurant as a Blind person.
Back in December 2014, when my journalistic career was nascent, I took my first-ever big trip with my partner and her mother. We flew cross-country to Florida, in part to visit the tourist traps in Disney World and Kennedy Space Center, as well as some friends of theirs who lived in the “Sponge Capital of the World” known as Tarpon Springs. The trip was also memorable for being only the second time since 2002 that I flew in an airplane and slept in a hotel. (Take a quick glance at my Flighty history and you’ll notice I’ve done much more flying in the years since. Last year alone, I flew 17 times! This year? So far, 0.)
Anyway, about Cracker Barrel. One night somewhere during the trip, we had dinner there. Upon sitting down at our table, I was especially delighted to discover Cracker Barrel offered a large print version of the menu for guests who request one. At the time, my iPhone 6 Plus didn’t have a bespoke Magnifier app as iOS does now; because of this, I was grateful for the large print menu because, obviously, I could actually see what I wanted to order. More pointedly, I was tickled to get the large print menu because no other place had one before. To this day, that Florida Cracker Barrel remains the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that had an option for a more accessible menu. I don’t know if it existed due to a display of empathy or the restaurant’s clientele of older people—maybe both?—but it was damn cool to learn as someone who copes with low vision. I left hoping to see other places offer a large print menu, but alas, never saw another one then and since. I imagine given the power of smartphones nowadays—cf. Magnifier on iOS—perhaps the costs incurred with printing a second menu, however great, isn’t the most economically prudent path for most eateries (especially small ones) to walk down.
For the record, I’m with Gruber in that Cracker Barrel’s new logo is nicely done.
Revisiting the original Siri Remote for apple tV
I was doing some much-needed cleaning my living room this weekend when I stumbled across my OG Siri Remote. The much-maligned remote for Apple TV debuted with the first-generation Apple TV 4K (which I also still have) in September 2017. The Siri Remote looked perfectly good, if dead and a bit dusty. After wiping it off and charging the battery via the Lightning cable attached to my iMac, I decided to pair the old remote with my A15-powered Apple TV in said living room (attached to an 77-inch LG C3 OLED) and take a quick stroll down a technological memory lane. It was an experience I would describe as simultaneously enlightening and enraging—but undeniably fun/nerdy too.
First, the enlightening parts. For one thing, I think I prefer the trackpad on the OG Siri Remote to the trackpad on the new model. It feels easier to swipe and click because there’s more surface area; with the new remote, Apple surrounded the trackpad with a D-pad (which you can actually click, if desired in Settings) and the surface area feels smaller. I know the D-pad acts effectively as an iPod-like “click wheel” for certain actions in tvOS, but for my usage, I like the bigger, standalone trackpad on the original Siri Remote. The other controls on the Siri Remote are fine too, working just as well as their counterparts on the new remote. As a practical matter, I’d gladly trade the new version’s trackpad for that on the old one. It just feels nicer, akin to the Magic Trackpad I use at my desk with my Mac (I’ve switched from being a mouse user to a trackpad user).
Second, the enraging parts. First and foremost, it annoys me to no end that Apple omitted a Mute button on the OG Siri Remote. It was a curious design decision, especially considering most everyone wants to mute their audio at some point on another. Perhaps the company’s design team thought years ago pressing Pause was a good enough proxy, and they weren’t wrong per se, but Pause and Mute are bespoke functions for a reason: they exist to accomplish different tasks. Nonetheless, as someone who uses Mute a lot when, say, my partner wants to talk to me, playing around with the old Siri Remote reminded me how much I loathed not having a proper Mute button to quickly push. Elsewhere, I actually dislike the OG Siri Remote’s thinness. The remote, while svelte and sleek as a physical object, can be hard to hold (for me, at least) because its thin profile makes it such there’s less to grab onto. What’s more, the remote’s aluminum-and-glass composition makes it hard to grip, friction-wise; more often than not, I’ve inadvertently dropped the remote because it’s (a) super thin; and (b) a slippery sucker. As I wrote last week about Google Pixelsnap, hardware accessibility matters—this is the main reason I’m dubious the purported iPhone 17 Air coming next month will be right for me. To wit, like the OG Siri Remote, while I’m appreciative of cool industrial design, it’s true thinness can be nothing more than a parlor trick for people (like me) who have lower-than-average muscle tone. The aforementioned iPhone Air, as with the old Siri Remote, could be less accessible to carry and hold because, again, there’s less material to grab onto. It’s for this reason I insist on using cases with the thicker iPhone Pro Max phones because a case, besides adding protection, also crucially adds more friction and grip for my hand(s) to cling onto. On that note, I wonder if those inside Apple have considered such a thing given recent reports the company has contemplated offering an iPhone 4-like “bumper” case for the incoming iPhone Air.
A bugaboo for both generations of Siri Remotes: no backlit buttons.
On the whole, I find the new Siri Remote better for accessibility than the old one due to its discrete Mute button and more girth. The trackpad isn’t as nice as the old one’s, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. I hope a “Siri Remote 3” adds a larger trackpad and backlighting—wireless charging would also be helpful—but I’m happy to keep the OG remote around for emergencies. tvOS still supports it and it works great—if you like it.
As Apple TV+ Gets Pricier, Its focus on furthering disability representation makes it worth the cost
Benjamin Mayo reported for 9to5 Mac earlier this week Apple has raised the price of Apple TV+ to $13 per month in the United States and “some international markets.” The price hike comes from the previous $10 a month. TV+ cost $5 per month at the start.
The yearly subscription price of $99, as well as Apple One pricing, remains the same.
Mayo notes Apple said in a statement TV+ has grown its roster of original content since the service’s launch in November 2019, adding Apple One is “the easiest way to enjoy all of Apple’s subscription services in one plan at the best value.” (As an Apple One subscriber myself, that sentiment isn’t the least bit blustery; it really is a good deal.)
Although $13/month is on the expensive side (if you don’t get Apple One, anyway), I’d argue the money is well worth it—especially if you, like yours truly, are interested in seeing the disability community earnestly and genuinely represented in film and television. As I’ve said numerous times, it’s extremely noteworthy how Apple took its product-focused ethos on accessibility and adapted it for Hollywood. That the company chose to invest in, say, Deaf President Now and its history-making director is a direct reflection of the company’s empathy for the empowerment of disabled people vis-a-vis technology. Of course Apple’s motives aren’t entirely altruistic, but as with its software, that it has imbued TV+ with similar sensibilities is important considering the historical portrayal of disabled people in Hollywood—not to mention society’s viewpoint writ large. Moreover, while it’s valid to criticize TV+ for having a lackluster back catalog of licensed content, a cogent argument could be made that Apple has assembled the deepest roster of disability-forward storytelling of anyone in the game. And that includes Netflix, what with titles like Deaf U and All the Light We Cannot See. TV+ is popular because of Ted Lasso and Severance, and rightfully so, but it nonetheless shouldn’t go unnoticed how impactful something like Deaf President Now is on its own.
I’ve covered most, if not all, of these disability-centric shows on TV+ in the past:
Best Foot Forward
CODA
El Deafo
Life By Ella
Little Voice
See
Even if you dislike their entertainment value, all these shows deserve acclaim for their representational gains. They shouldn’t be disregarded simply for being a “bad” show.
Apple TV+ is much more than merely The Severance Service—and I love that show.
Nyle DiMarco makes history as first deaf director nominated for an emmy for ‘Deaf president now’
Brande Victorian at The Hollywood Reporter has a story on the site this week which features interviews with Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim, the two men who are primarily responsible for Deaf President Now. The Apple TV+ documentary, which was released onto the streaming service in mid-May, chronicles the events of the so-called “DPN4”—Tim Rarus, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, Greg Hlibok, and Jerry Covell—who, in March 1988, spearheaded a protest over the selection of yet another hearing woman, Elizabeth Zinser, over a Deaf person to be president of Gallaudet University. The institution, established during the Civil War and based in Washington DC, is the world’s only college which caters (almost) exclusively to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
(I say “almost” because Gallaudet does admit a small number of hearing students.)
Victorian’s piece is timely, as DiMarco has made history by becoming the first Deaf director to receive an Emmy nomination for Deaf President Now. Moreover, the film itself has been nominated for Outstanding Documentary. As far as talking points go, they’re pretty much exactly what I covered when I interviewed DiMarco and Guggenheim about Deaf President Now back in early May. To wit, both men told Victorian what they said to me: the film’s essence is truly about centering the Deaf experience and point of view. The DPN protest, as it’s colloquially known, is a part of Deaf history that’s well known to the community—but not to the wider, hearing world.
I’ve covered Gallaudet at close range over the last several years, including writing about its football team and, perhaps most apropos in context of DiMarco’s triumph in bringing Deaf President Now to life, profiling its current president Roberta Cordano back in 2022.
I. King Jordan became Gallaudet’s first Deaf president following the DPN protest.