‘A Lone Voice In The Wilderness’

My friend and peer Stephen Hackett has a Now page on his 512 Pixels blog, which he describes as “a running log of things I have going on, both professionally and in real life.“ It’s a cool idea, one I’ve considered adapting for Curb Cuts, and I check the page whenever he updates it. 

The reason I write about Hackett’s Now page is because a sentence he wrote recently truly resonated with me, as it crystallized a sentiment I’ve felt deeply in the over 13 years I’ve been a tech journalist and part of the Apple community. Writing about what he calls his personal “struggle” with AI’s impact on society, he says the schism in covering the problems with data centers in and around his hometown of Memphis whilst finding AI genuinely useful makes him sometimes feel as though he’s “a lone voice in the wilderness.” 

That phrase—“a lone voice in the wilderness”—perfectly captures the essence of my entire career covering accessibility and assistive technologies. While I know several people with disabilities who work as reporters at various outlets, both corporate and independent, I don’t know many people with disabilities who cover accessibility—or disability inclusion writ large. The business desks of newsrooms cover technology like other areas of news; disability is not mainstream, so they don’t cover it. They don’t cover it, so the disability community is left yearning for exposure. Even in the Apple community, accessibility really is only covered on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, one day of the year; even then, most of the talk on blogs and on podcasts tend to patronize the people for whom these features are truly innovative and life-changing. It’s “gee whiz, these features are great” and “accessibility is for everyone” when, in actuality, GAAD is the one day when accessibility is supposed to raise awareness of their target demographic. I get it—most commentators are not accessibility aesthetes. They need not be. The salient point is simply, as GAAD co-founder Joe Devon told me last year, we aren’t a focus most of the time. Indeed, the disability community can “look forward to 364 days of global accessibility oblivion,” he said. 

So yes, I absolutely feel like I’ve been a lone voice over the last decade-plus. I cringe whenever I see media outlets falling over themselves to hire AI reporters. If they can do that, why not do so for accessibility? Why are disability-centric stories always perpetual fodder for sappy human interest stories at the end of news broadcasts? It’s frustrating, not because I crave adoration or accolades, but because I do feel so lonesome and as though every story I write, every interview I do, is destined to be swallowed up by a journalistic black hole. It’s emotionally exhausting, despite the fact I know I do what I do for the greater good. It just feels like my reporting, my insight and perspective, is perpetually being squeezed out by ostensibly more important topics. 

It’s a Sisyphean task, both coping with, and writing about, disability. 

Just please know my lone voice should matter.

Apple Announces ‘Being Heumann’ Film For Apple TV

Ryan Christoffel reported for 9to5 Mac last week Apple has announced a new film from CODA director Sian Heder, called Being Heumann. The movie, out in “select” theaters on November 6 before steaming on Apple TV on November 13, chronicles the story of disability rights activist Judy Heumann.

Christoffel writes the movie’s plot summary reads as ”based on a true story” which follows Heumann’s “turning outrage into a revolution” when, in 1977, she and more than a hundred other disabled people protested to say “the system is broken—not us.” Gerrard Hall at Entertainment Weekly wrote a first look piece on Being Heumann; Ruth Madeley plays Heumann in the film.

Heumann died in 2023 at the age of 75.

I’m excited for Being Heumann and have added it to my Apple TV watchlist, and would love to cover it in more depth later. As Hall writes, Heumann isn’t widely known outside of the disability community—but that’s what makes Apple signing off on the movie such a big deal. Yes, CODA won the Best Picture Oscar in 2022, and it was a huge moment for disability representation in Hollywood, but the category as a whole still takes a backseat to more popular things on the service like Severance and Ted Lasso, amongst others. They are great shows—I especially love Severance—but the fact Apple historically has put so much disability-centric content on Apple TV is meaningful and mirrors their ethos on accessibility in their consumer products. Good for Hall and Entertainment Weekly to run with this story; we need more mainstream outlets to care about disability awareness like this, in the movie business and elsewhere.

Assistive Access Isn’t ‘Buried’

Wired ran a story by Jeremy White earlier this month in which White talks about turning an iPhone into what he calls “the perfect kids’ dumb phone” using Assistive Access.

“Surely there must be a way to set up an iPhone as the perfect dumb phone for children—one with access to only the apps you deem appropriate, no internet browser, but with all-important tracking and navigation abilities—without having to pay another company to make it work? Well, there is. It’s been hiding in the iOS Accessibility menu the whole time. And, inexplicably, it’s a feature Apple barely talks about,” White wrote on the Fourth of July. “It’s called Assistive Access. Introduced with iOS 17, Apple designed it for those with cognitive disabilities. If you’ve never encountered or stumbled across it, it’s a distinctive iOS experience: fewer options, more focused features, easier to navigate. The aesthetic is ideal for kids: large, friendly tiles for the apps replace the smaller icons of the ‘normal’ Apple interface.”

While White’s piece is good—it’s definitely one for the accessibility-is-for-everyone canon—I quibble with its framing. First and foremost is the headline; I don’t appreciate how Assistive Access is characterized as being “buried” and “hidden.” You absolutely can make a cogent argument the Accessibility menu is as deep as it is broad, but the problem with saying Assistive Access (or any other accessibility feature) is squirreled away implies there are engineers at Apple Park who have gone rogue and purposely hidden functionality so as to make them, to White’s point, undiscoverable and thus unusable. This notion not only is irrational, it’s offensive. To say Assistive Access is buried is to imply it doesn’t matter—which, pulling the string further, also implies the people who rely on it for cognition’s sake also don’t matter. White’s intent is pure, to be sure, but the verbiage is completely wrong. This is what happens when you have writers who maybe aren’t all that familiar with accessibility or disability writ large writing about features they don’t really understand. More pointedly, it illustrates the need for accessibility in tech needing its own coverage area by beat reporters. If newsrooms can hire AI reporters, they can—and should—hire accessibility reporters.

Regarding White’s assertion Apple “barely talks about” Assistive Access, it’s fair criticism. I wish Apple would do more during its WWDC keynotes to include a section about the accessibility features announced coincident with Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The announcements are made mere weeks apart from one another, and I believe WWDC would be the perfect time for the company to remind audiences these previously-announced features are also coming to devices later in the year. Especially this year with Siri AI, it feels like accessibility is, predictably, a mere footnote. Ironic too, given VoiceOver has been revamped with Apple Intelligence.

Rylo’s Matt Sherman Talks New funding, a new name, Deaf inclusion, More in Interview

Last month, Deaf communications company Rylo put out a press release in which it announced the launch of its “next chapter” by way of having raised $85 million in new funding. The New York-based startup also noted in June it was “evolving beyond phone call captioning to build a broader AI-powered communication platform.”

Rylo was born in 2021 as Nagish. I interviewed founder and CEO Tomer Aharoni in 2024.

Fast-forward to July 2026, and I recently connected with Rylo’s Matt Sherman over email for a brief interview coincident with the news of its funding round. Sherman, who has been profoundly deaf since birth, serves as the company’s head of community. He primarily uses American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate, but is fluent in written English as well. Sherman’s been with Rylo since the earliest days of Nagish, characterizing his role as “[working] at the intersection of community building, AI tech, and brand marketing,” which includes everything from advocacy work to partnerships to other key initiatives. The overarching goal of his efforts, he added, is “ensuring our community is actively shaping the product and brand, not just receiving it.”

When asked why change their name, Sherman explained the move from Nagish to Rylo represents “where we’re heading” while acknowledging the old name “built a strong foundation of trust within the community, working alongside key stakeholders and users.” Yet as Rylo grew and its field of view expanded, Sherman said the company felt they needed something else—a new name which could “grow with us” in a way that wouldn’t detract from the core mission. “We’re still the same team with the same mission and excellent relationships with the communities we serve,” Sherman said.

Indeed, he said the goal is “[removing] the friction from everyday communication.”

As for the newfound tens of millions of dollars stuffing Rylo’s till, Sherman said the new money it has raised will go a long way towards “accelerating” the company’s vision. The Deaf and hard-of-hearing community historically has been “neglected” when it comes to research and development into technological innovation, Sherman told me, adding the new funding is a signal the industry’s mindset is “shifting.” More pointedly, the $85 million gives Rylo the latitude to “invest more deeply in AI and technology, expand what the app can do, reach more people, and build stronger partnerships.”

“For years, the industry ignored this [Deaf inclusion] space. Now we’re getting the attention it deserves,” Sherman said.

That Sherman mentioned AI tech is neither happenstance nor is it a sign Rylo is boarding the hype train. Quite the contrary. Artificial intelligence, he told me, “presents a significant opportunity” to boost not only availability but, crucially, reliability as well. As AI grows ever more capable, it will net benefits in terms of “better accuracy, faster processing, and more natural output that enables direct, independent communications.” What this means for the community is AI has the ability to remove friction, Sherman said; it can can make everyday interactions more accessible by “[making] real-time conversations feel seamless in a way that wasn’t possible before.”

Going back to Rylo’s roots in captioning calls, this is an area where AI can truly shine.

“Live captioning equals independence,” Sherman said. “Before tools like Rylo, even a simple phone call could feel like a complicated task for many Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, often requiring coordination, a third party, or an interpreter, with no guarantee it would go well. Live captions put us back in control of our own conversations with tailored communication preferences. I still remember the first time I saw closed captions on TV. It changed my life and is something I’ve never taken for granted.”

As to feedback, Sherman said community feedback is the “foundation” of Rylo’s success in many ways. Companies can’t “outsmart” their users, he added, emphasizing the importance of being present with them and building with them. That approach, according to Sherman, has led to “both a lot of positive and constructive feedback, and our users feel like they’re actively building the roadmap with us.”

“We’ve met so many users who share stories of having life-changing moments, whether it’s connecting directly with someone for the first time in a long time, or finally having in-person experiences that align with how others communicate,” he said.

As to the future, Sherman shared he’s “most hopeful” the industry is “at the beginning of a real shift toward a more equitable world. Rylo is the main contributor of that shift.” He hopes accessibility and equality will be foundational, not a checkbox to fill in solely for compliance’s sake. Rylo exists, he added, “to chip away at the barriers that the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community has been navigating that never should have existed.”

Twisted X CEO Prasad Reddy Talks EZ On Shoes, Accessibility in footwear, more in interview

Back in May, Texas-based shoemaker Twisted X put out a press release announcing its EZ On collection of footwear. The line, which includes two casual styles for men, was hailed by the company as “[providing] entry without compromising fit or structure.” Moreover, Twisted X said the EZ On shoes are “designed to keep pace with everyday life,” adding they feature “a reinforced heel that holds its shape, making it easy to slide on with no bending or fuss” and noted the shoes can be worn with or without laces.

“This collection reflects our commitment to innovation in casual footwear with a new intersection of weightless comfort and slide-and-go convenience," Prasad Reddy, Twisted X’s chief executive officer, said in a statement included with the announcement. “With EZ On, we are delivering a solution that makes every day wear easier while maintaining the product standards our customers expect.”

At first blush, it’s natural to presume shoes have no pertinence to accessibility or technology—but they really do. I caught up with Reddy by email in recent weeks for a brief interview on the news, and he said Twisted X’s North Star is guided by its belief that “Western footwear can deliver both authentic style and exceptional comfort without compromise.” Reddy, whose background lies in industrial engineering, has spent 50 years in the industry as a self-described product person and, as such, “was drawn to the challenge of improving the way people experience products every day.”

“What began as a Western boot company has evolved to also meet consumer demands for lifestyle, work and outdoor products, but our commitment to comfort remains at the center of everything we do,” he said. “My role is to help bring innovation and engineering-driven thinking into the product development process, ensuring we continue to create footwear that people genuinely enjoy wearing and can count on.”

As to accessibility in footwear, Reddy explained Twisted X institutionally believes “comfort begins before you even take your first step” and “accessibility means making footwear easier to put on, easier to take off, and easier to wear throughout the day.” The company, he went on, is continually investigating and developing new technologies towards reaching the goal of improving comfort for wearers, its efforts ultimately producing a new product or technology every six months. EZ On, in this case, is Exhibit A. The new technology, Reddy said to me, features “a patented reinforced heel frame that keeps it shape to allow the foot to slide naturally into place without resistance, creating a fast and intuitive on-and-off experience unlike other products that might bend and bounce back or require use of your hands to get on.”

“We challenge ourselves to continue innovating and improving comfort across our product line,” Reddy said. “Whether it’s new materials, new construction methods, or new technologies, our focus is always on making footwear work better for the people who wear it.”

According to Reddy, Twisted X’s target demographic are “hardworking people balancing busy lives” who are “looking for products that make everyday routines easier without sacrificing comfort, durability, or style.” EZ On exists to meet that criteria. To that end, Reddy said the company has heard from (and observed) customers over time saying they yearn for shoes that are easy and fast to get on and off, adding this matters a lot for people who, for example, struggle to bend over comfortably, and/or is constantly on the go and thus spends long hours on their feet.

“Technologies like EZ On are designed to remove small frustrations and create a better experience from the moment someone reaches for their shoes,” Reddy said.

When asked if it’s difficult to integrate accessibility with style and fashion, Reddy said it isn’t hard for Twisted X because “fashion and style are essential because consumers need to connect with a product visually before they’ll consider trying or purchasing it.” Accessibility and comfort, he added, should “enhance” visual design, not compete with it. He noted what makes EZ On so exciting to him and the company is its ability to “be integrated into a wider range of silhouettes, and we plan to explore that.”

Reddy said customers have been “raving” about EZ On thus far.

“The response has been extremely encouraging… they were surprised by just how easy the experience was,” he said. “We’re pleased with the feedback we’ve received, but innovation is an ongoing process. Our team is constantly evaluating opportunities to improve, refine, and build on what we’ve learned from consumers.”

Looking towards the future, Reddy told me he relishes spending time with Twisted X’s development team, as well as its factory partners and others, to think about what comes next. The footwear industry is rapidly evolving, he added, and although style obviously will always matter to appeal, Reddy staunchly believes “comfort is becoming increasingly important across every category” due to more “flexible lifestyles” in the wake of the pandemic. With hybrid schedules becoming en vogue, he noted people have increasingly demanded what he called “lightweight [and] versatile footwear.”

“We’re seeing strong enthusiasm from both retailers and consumers, which gives us confidence to continue expanding technologies like EZ On into additional categories, including work, outdoor, and western footwear,” Reddy said of Twisted X’s future. “That’s what excites me most—the opportunity to keep innovating and delivering meaningful solutions that improve the everyday experience for our customers.”

Latest iOS 27 Developer Beta Enables Siri Voice customization sliders for Expressivity, Pace

My friend Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch Apple has enabled the voice customization features for the new Siri. The company showed them off at WWDC last month, with the sliders enabled with this week’s release of iOS 27 developer beta 3.

“With the latest iOS 27 developer beta, Apple is giving testers an early look at one of the upcoming improvements to its AI-powered Siri: the ability to adjust how quickly and expressively the AI assistant speaks. In iOS 27 beta 3, out today, Apple has enabled the voice controls for ‘Pace’ and ‘Expressivity’ that were previously labeled as ‘Coming soon’ in the first developer beta releases,” Perez wrote. “The update is part of Apple’s broader effort to make Siri feel more natural and personal, as it rebuilds the assistant around generative AI. Like ChatGPT and others offering voice AI assistants, letting users customize how the AI sounds is an important aspect in helping connect people with the new technology.”

Expressivity is subjective—maybe you want Siri to be less friendly—but the Pace setting is relevant from an accessibility standpoint. Particularly for those with cognitive conditions which affect language processing, that a person now has the ability to slow down (or quicken) Siri’s speaking rate and cadence may well prove to be a de-facto accessibility feature. What’s more, Siri’s voice adjusts in real time, which means users get immediate feedback on their changes and can shift accordingly.

Apple says on the screen “you’ll hear this voice in Siri, Maps, and Safari.”

Four weeks removed since WWDC, and I’m still not running any of the OS 27 betas. On a personal level, the first week of July has proven as chaotic as the whole of June was, so my priorities haven’t included downloading developer software. Maybe that will change with the presumably imminent release of the public betas, but we’ll see how my life looks in the next few weeks. That said, I’m comfortable offering informed speculation on the usefulness of, say, natural language in Calendar and Reminders as well as the new Siri voice sliders. To me, these features have clear accessibility gains.

Meta Paywalling Possible Accessibility Feature For smart glasses, report says

Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5 Mac today about a report from The Verge’s Sean Hollister on Meta paywalling what could be an accessibility feature, called Conversation Focus, for its Meta Glasses. The change is purportedly retroactive to glasses already sold.

The feature, which rolled out to customers last winter, is described by Meta as “[using] the open-ear speakers on your Al glasses to amplify the voice of the person you’re talking to,” adding users have the ability to “hear the amplified voice sound slightly louder, which will help you distinguish the conversation from ambient background noise so you can stay tuned into the moments that matter” while also saying users are able to “easily adjust the amplification level by swiping the right temple of your glasses or through your device settings to match the volume of your environment.”

According to Hollister’s report, Meta has limited usage of Conversation Focus to only three hours per month unless users pay up for a Meta One Premium subscription for $19.95 a month. When reached for comment on this policy, Lovejoy said Meta noted in response the limitation currently applies only to Conversation Focus.

As Lovejoy rightly notes, to paywall an ostensible accessibility aid, is “unacceptable”—especially considering Conversation Focus functions on device. Meta’s smart glasses indeed are popular with the Blind and low vision community, and to have to pay $20 for what may well be empowering technology feels downright sleazy. In a broad scope, this story highlights the institutional disparities between Meta and, as Lovejoy also mentioned, Apple. Whenever Apple’s glasses competitor hits the market, none of the product’s accessibility features will be paywalled or rate-limited. No accessibility feature on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, or watchOS is pay-to-play because doing so would belie the point—and Apple’s values—of accessibility in the first place.

By gatekeeping Conversation Focus, Meta undercuts its messaging on accessibility.

Ex-NFL Player Chris Johnson Shares ALS Diagnosis

ESPN reported this week former NFL running back Chris Johnson announced he has ALS. Johnson, 40, made the announcement on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Johnson told Michael Strahan—a fellow ex-NFL player—he was diagnosed last year.

“There’s no history of ALS in my family,” Johnson said during his interview on Monday. “My doctors believe my case is what’s called sporadic ALS, which is actually how the vast majority of ALS cases happen.”

He continued: “That’s one of the reasons this disease can be so shocking. It can happen to someone who never expected it.”

Johnson spoke with Strahan using eye-gaze technology and a speech synthesizer based on recordings of his voice. He told Strahan he can’t “ever fully process” his diagnosis, adding he was “in shock” upon first learning of the news. “Then, you realize you have two choices. You can give up, or you can fight. I chose to fight,” Johnson said.

Johnson entered the NFL in 2008 as the 24th overall selection of the Tennessee Titans, rushing for over a thousand yards in each of his first six seasons and eclipsing the vaunted 2000-yard mark in 2009 (2006 on 358 carries). After leaving Tennessee, he played for the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals before ending his career in 2017.

The accessibility of this year’s World Cup

I missed this news when it happened, but FIFA last month put out a press release in which it announced this year’s World Cup matches would be accessible to people with disabilities. Notably, FIFA noted this year’s World Cup would be the first-ever tournament to feature sign language interpretation broadcasts for every match.

“FIFA is dedicated to making sure that all fans—including those with disabilities and their families and friends—have an excellent experience at this year’s FIFA World Cup,” FIFA wrote in its May 21 announcement. “Featuring 48 teams for the first time, this year’s tournament will be more inclusive than ever—not only expanding participation among nations, but also enhancing accessibility for fans with disabilities through expanded resources designed to make the matchday experience truly memorable. Some initiatives build on activations used successfully at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, such as sensory bags and audio-descriptive commentary. New this year—and a first for any FIFA tournament—sign language broadcasts will be available for every match, allowing fans both inside and outside the stadium to follow the action and excitement through play-by-play coverage and interpretation of key audio cues. In preparation for the biggest FIFA World Cup yet, world football’s governing body is working hard to raise the standard for inclusion in the sport, and to provide services and support that allow all fans to enjoy the beautiful game.”

Other “accessible innovations,” as they’re called by FIFA, includes sensory bags and sensory rooms at stadiums for neurodivergent people, mobility assistance at venues, and the FIFA tournament app supports adjustable font sizes, captions, and customizable color contrast. As to the sign language interpretation, FIFA said “all group-stage matches played in the United States and Canada will feature American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation, while matches in Mexico will feature Mexican Sign Language (LSM).” Moreover, during knockout rounds, “most matches will be available in ASL, with LSM provided for select matches featuring Spanish-speaking countries.”

I’ve been watching the World Cup matches on FOX and have been enjoying them. FIFA deserves kudos for its work in making the tournament accessible to all; last July, I posted a story about the Club World Cup being made accessible to the disability community. It featured an interview with FIFA’s accessibility coordinator, Natalie Gross.

The World Cup Final will be held on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New York/New Jersey.

Siri App Allows Users to switch between chatbots

Marcus Mendes writes today for 9to5 Mac about how, in iOS 27, the all-new Siri app enables users to switch between Siri AI and ChatGPT on the fly. Tapping on “Ask” in the text input field prompts the user to select which chatbot they wish to interact with.

“That [action] brings up a pop-up that lets them choose between Siri and ChatGPT,” Mendes wrote. “Apple could potentially add support for other chatbots in the future, though only those two options are currently available.”

There are caveats to this feature, however. According to Mendes, “conversation context does not transfer when switching chatbot providers,” which means Siri has no knowledge of messages with ChatGPT and vice-versa. In addition, quitting and reopening the Siri app defaults to Siri—naturally—as the system’s preferred AI provider, although ChatGPT remains an option to, again, switch to if users so choose.

Following the WWDC keynote earlier this month, I was speaking with someone at Apple and mentioned how the Siri app is cool from an accessibility standpoint because it’s self-contained. As it stands today, I bounce back and forth between the bespoke ChatGPT and Gemini apps on my devices—which is fine, but nonetheless requires a bit of cognitive recalibration as the interfaces obviously differ, etc. To Mendes’ point, that Apple allows users to switch on the fly—even if conversations don’t—is a de-facto accessibility feature insofar as I needn’t have to bounce between apps any longer. Think of it as akin to changing models in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. You stay in the app, but you’re switching contexts or underlying intelligence. In the Siri app’s case, that Apple can (will?) integrate more partner models in its canonical app means reduced cognitive load, as well as tapping/swiping. Better even would be the ability to import/export conversations with ChatGPT, Gemini, et al, into the Siri app via some API.

There are reasons to use bespoke apps, but they don’t discredit the point made here.

For my usage, I’ve been using ChatGPT more often over Gemini in recent weeks. In that case, I would much rather boot the ChatGPT app from my iPhone’s Home Screen, for example, and replace it with Siri since I can access ChatGPT just as easily from there.

Apple Raises Prices on iPads, MacBooks, more

As foretold last week by Tim Cook, Apple on Thursday instituted price increases for several products, including iPads and MacBooks. Notably, the iPhone is unchanged.

Chance Miller at 9to5 Mac has the story. He points to a statement Apple gave Reuters, wherein the company said in part it has “shielded” customers from price hikes, but have reached a point of untenability where changes are necessary. “We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions,” Apple said.

Per Miller, these are the products affected by Apple’s price increases:

• MacBook Neo: $699 (up from $599)

• 13-inch MacBook Air: $1,299 (up from $1,099)

• 15-inch MacBook Air: $1,499 (up from $1,299)

• M5 MacBook Pro: $1,999 (up from $1,699)

• M5 Pro MacBook Pro: $2,499 (up from $2,199)

• M5 Max MacBook Pro: $4,099 (up from $3,599)

• iMac: $1,499 (up from $1,299)

• M4 Max Mac Studio: $2,499 (up from $1,999)

• M3 Ultra Mac Studio: $5,299 (up from $3,999)

• iPad: $449 (up from $349)

• 11-inch iPad Air: $749 (up from $599)

• 13-inch iPad Air: $949 (up from $749)

• 11-inch iPad Pro: $1,199 (up from $999)

• 13-inch iPad Pro: $1,499 (up from $1,299)

• iPad mini: $599 (up from $499)

• Apple TV 4K: $199 (up from $129)

• HomePod: $349 (up from $299)

• HomePod mini: $129 (up from $99)

• Vision Pro: $3,699 (up from $3,499)

Besides iPhones, AirPods and Apple Watch pricing is unchanged—for now.

To reiterate a point I made earlier this month, price hikes will have a disproportionate effect on people with disabilities by virtue of the majority in the disability community have less money and commensurately less margin to absorb higher prices. Some things, like the Mac Studio, are so niche in their target demographic that its $1,300 (!) increase barely registers; something like the base iPad or, notably, the brand-new MacBook Neo, even their $100 jumps can be substantial, relatively speaking. As I said previously, it’s not implausible that a disabled person needs and/or wants an iPad or MacBook because the accessibility features on iPadOS and macOS help them be more productive because their computer is more accessible to them. Ergo, if said person lives and dies on a shoestring budget, then the MacBook Neo’s new $699 starting price perhaps could postpone a needed upgrade if their current machine is older.

If you need accessibility, today’s news is the shittiest. Apple acknowledges that.

The good news is today’s price increases have yet to hit Amazon.

Waymo ‘Won’t Be on Your Streets Anytime Soon’

David McCabe reported for The New York Times last week about the “political roadblocks” Waymo is facing as it looks to expand around the country, particularly in New York City. City leaders are predictably worried about jobs and, crucially, safety.

“Waymo is increasingly facing political roadblocks as it tries to roll out its self-driving taxis powered by artificial intelligence nationwide. After early successes winning over politicians in California—its home state—and elsewhere, Waymo has stumbled in unlocking some of the biggest markets in the country,” McCabe wrote last Wednesday. “New York abandoned its proposal to allow self-driving taxis earlier this year. New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has said he would heavily weigh the interests of taxi drivers in deciding on rules for the technology. In Illinois, legislation to authorize the service stalled after labor unions protested. And in Washington, the city’s Council has for years delayed a decision about whether to allow robo-taxis.”

New York City isn’t particularly special in this regard, insofar as places where Waymo is entrenched—like San Francisco—there has long been pushback on its merit and utility.

I’ve made this point numerous times before, but it bears repeating: Waymo is an assistive technology, full stop. The service is not perfect—it needs to do better by wheelchair users, for instance—but the naysayers who insist on resisting robotaxis almost certainly fail to consider the genuine good they provide for people like me who are Blind and low vision. For us, driving isn’t an option, and historically we must rely on the whims of public transit or rideshare or the goodwill of family and friends to get around. Those all are good options in a vacuum, but nonetheless require us to compromise some level of agency and dignity in the process. It’s somewhat of a Faustian bargain in that sense. By contrast, with just a few taps on one’s iPhone, someone like myself can request a Waymo independently and, within a few minutes, be riding independently to the grocery store or doctor’s office or a friend’s house or wherever we need to go. This is not a trivial detail; so much of the general narrative around using autonomous vehicles is for coolness or novelty’s sake—and Waymo is cool and futuristic that way—but my affinity for it is far more pragmatic in nature.

Safety and smarts are crucial considerations, to be sure, but so should accessibility. The able-bodied masses ought to recognize what services like Waymo enable for us as people who don’t have the privilege of owning a car and driving whenever we feel like it. The problem is, the more municipalities resist Waymo ostensibly for the “betterment” of “everyone,” the more people with disabilities are going to end up collateral damage in politicians’ quixotic quest for “better” transit for the citizenry.

All hail vehicle Motion Cues on iPhone

Thomas Ricker of The Verge wrote about Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues feature. He experiences motion sickness while riding in cars, and found the so-called “weird” accessibility to actually deliver on its promise. His wife uses it to great success as well.

“Introduced in 2024, Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues promise to tap into your device’s accelerometer and gyroscope to reduce or, in my case, even eliminate the motion sickness felt when trying to use an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook inside a moving vehicle,” Ricker wrote on Tuesday. “According to big-S Science, this type of vehicle motion sickness is caused by the eyes staring at a static display while the inner ear feels the car turning, braking, and accelerating. Motion Cues solve this by placing dots around the periphery of the display that move in harmony with the motion of the car. When the car turns right, the dots sweep across the screen to the left; when the car brakes the dots slide forward.”

Ricker used the feature to read books in the Kindle app and write thousand-word reviews, and has enlisted Back Tap on his iPhone to quickly bring up the feature.

There are a couple high-level lessons from Ricker’s story. First, Vehicle Motion Cues strikes me as one of the quintessential “accessibility is for everyone” features. It’s a curb cut. I’m uncomfortable with Ricker characterizing Vehicle Motion Cues as “weird” and “obscure,” but will admit it’s a fairly niche feature. Regardless, Vehicle Motion Cues is one of those accessibility features who can help anyone who feels nauseous while riding in a car and that’s a good thing. I personally find it instructive in to notice how able-bodied people write and talk about accessibility features. Accessibility neither makes headlines nor is regularly covered by publications like The Verge, so Ricker’s piece struck me as reading a bit incredulous, however appreciative, that Vehicle Motion Cues actually works. This is kind of response you get from people (plural) who don’t regularly go spelunking in the Accessibility menu on an iPhone or iPad or Mac. This is why accessibility deserves more than tokenism, coverage-wise.

Secondly, Vehicle Motion Cues also is a quintessential example of Apple’s vaunted vertical integration. Especially on iPhone, Apple can use the accelerometer and gyroscope data and tune it finely to the software powering Vehicle Motion Cues. The company does this because, of course, they build the hardware and software together

Tim Cook: Apple Price Hikes ‘Unavoidable’

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke exclusively with The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler about the tech industry’s RAM crisis and how it affects Apple. The effect is, Cook told Winkler, the company indeed will be raising prices on its products to compensate.

“Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal,” Winkler reported on Wednesday. ‘Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,’ he said. ‘We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.’”

Winkler continued: “Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone… Cook said Apple wouldn’t use its cash and silicon expertise to build its own memory and storage factories.”

Cook was forthright in describing the severity of the RAM situation, saying it’s “a hundred-year flood” and he’s “never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”

From an accessibility perspective—in the literal sense—Apple’s looming price hikes will have a profound negative effect on the disability community. I’ve written in the past about how people with disabilities by and large are a low-income lot, so spending big bucks on top-tier devices like iPhones and iPads and MacBooks isn’t easily doable, if at all, for the majority in the community. The economic tension is made worse if, say, you’re someone who likes Apple products especially for the accessibility features. If an iPhone is harder to come by because you can’t afford one, then obviously you’re denied access to the technologies which help you work, play, and socialize in everyday life. In other words, Apple is doing what it has to, business-wise, but the ripple effects will be felt deeply—even if the company raises prices by, say, $200, that’s a substantial increase; it potentially makes a product out of reach for many disabled people.

I’m appreciative of John Gruber’s take on the situation. “Credit to Tim Cook for taking this one personally, months ahead of the iPhone 18 launch, rather than leaving it to John Ternus to serve up a surprise shit sandwich in his first keynote as CEO,” he said.

Be my eyes now available on huawei’s HarmonyOS

San Francisco-based Be My Eyes announced on Monday the availability of its app on Huawei’s HarmonyOS. The move is touted as “significantly expanding access” to Blind and low vision people in China. Be My Eyes is downloadable from Huawei’s AppGallery.

“The initial release of the app brings the call-a-volunteer functionality to HarmonyOS, enabling blind and low vision users to connect with sighted volunteers through live video calls. The volunteers then provide real-time assistance with everyday tasks such as identifying products, reading labels, sorting items, and more,” Be My Eyes said in its press release. “The launch marks another important step in Be My Eyes’ underlying mission which is to make the world more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision, wherever they are, and whatever device or operating system they happen to use. With an estimated 17 million or more blind and low vision consumers living in China, this partnership brings Be My Eyes to a huge population of people who would otherwise have no access to it.”

The company said it has a “long-term plan” to bring Be My Eyes’ full functionality—including artificial intelligence—to HarmonyOS as time progresses, adding the initial launch is laser-focused on supporting “volunteer calling functionality—including private groups—allowing users to receive assistance from the community that has been at the heart of the service since its inception.” Moreover, Be My Eyes noted “additional features and enhancements will be evaluated for future releases.”

“Accessibility should not depend on which phone someone owns,” Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, said in a statement for the announcement. “Our mission has always been to connect people who are blind or have low vision with assistance whenever and wherever they need it. By bringing Be My Eyes to HarmonyOS, we’re extending that mission to a new community of users and helping ensure that more people can access support on their terms.”

I don’t have much analysis about this news except to say given China’s population is 1.4 billion, it’s a big market for Buckley and team to tap. It’s estimated there are 83 million people with disabilities in the country, or 6% of the populace; it means there are a lot of Blind and low vision people to help. Be My Eyes clearly saw the opportunity for them.

Gemini can control settings on tCL Televisions

Ben Schoon reported for 9to5 Google this week Gemini is gaining the ability to control Google TV settings via voice—but only on certain TCL TVs currently. Announced earlier this year, a software update is rolling out now to users to enable the functionality.

“Diving into your TV’s settings menu to make adjustments can be a bit exhausting, but that’s something Gemini can now do for you,” Schoon wrote on Thursday. “With an update rolling out now, Gemini is able to adjust TV settings such as brightness, volume, sound, and picture modes. It can even tune settings to specific use cases.”

According to Schoon, this Gemini feature is exclusive to TCL for 60 days and requires Android 14 or later. It’s also exclusive to the United States and supports “select” 2025 and 2026 TCL TVs, including the QM9K, QM7L, RM7L, X11L, QM9L, QM8L, and RM9L.

From an accessibility perspective, this news is big. To be able to have hands-free access to things like adjust audio and picture mode settings can be huge for someone who, for instance, may not be able to use the TV’s remote control very easily, if at all. Likewise, it could be cognitively and visually taxing to manually navigate through the Google TV user interface despite how ostensibly simple and straightforward it’s designed; having a robot do it for you is not mere cool, futuristic luxury but downright life-changing for a certain swath of people (yours truly included). Not a trivial point.

Amazon has given Alexa similar powers with their Fire TV Cube, so this is Google jumping on the bandwagon. Apart from supporting larger text sizes, tvOS 27 seems (predictably) light on features; if the next-generation Apple TV 4K indeed is on the way and brings with it support for Apple Intelligence, it’s a golden opportunity for Apple to let Siri AI control tvOS hands-free too. Beyond a wholesale user interface revamp to make tvOS more like Google TV—or the TV app, if you prefer—having Siri AI soon be able to control various settings would absolutely add to the laundry list of de-facto accessibility features spanning Apple’s panoply of platforms. Also not a trivial point.

Apple Reminders Gets Natural Language in iOS 27

Ryan Christoffel reports today for 9to5 Mac about key changes to Apple’s stock Reminders app in iOS 27. The headlining new feature is natural language input.

“Reminders has offered some level of natural language support for new reminders for a while. But in iOS 27, Apple Intelligence brings a new take on the feature,” Christoffel wrote on Friday. “When creating a new reminder, you can still use the same old system where you type certain reminder info, like a due date, and the keyboard row will suggest adding that date to the reminder.”

He continues: “But Apple Intelligence now goes a step further, letting you describe a reminder and have it automatically adopt all of the relevant metadata you mention.”

Christoffel also mentions copy in a splash screen. Apple says users can “[use] your own words to describe a reminder and Apple Intelligence will help create it for you.”

Like in Calendar, that Reminders is getting support for natural language input in iOS 27 is a big deal—and a big de-facto accessibility feature to boot. I use Reminders as my task manager—as with Mail and Podcasts, it does the job for my needs—and am very excited by the notion I can “casually” write a short blurb and the system will parse it into something coherent and actionable. The accessibility win is exactly the same as Calendar, insofar as users (like me) needn’t be so precise in their language to get an event and/or task in their phone. That you can now use natural language means there’s less cognitive overhead in remembering how and what to write, but also remembering to dig deeper and fill out the important metadata like location, date and time, etc. In other words, this kind of automation is a prime example of AI’s strengths, be it from Apple or OpenAI or Anthropic or Google. (See also: Shortcuts and Xcode this year too.)

Other new-to-Reminders-in-iOS 27 upgrades are a redesigned metadata editor within lists, as well as improvements to managing grocery lists, according to Christoffel.

‘That WWDC Glow’

Myke Hurley has a piece on his The Enthusiast blog about attending this year’s WWDC and what Apple’s announcements mean to him. One part of it caught my attention.

“Over my years of covering WWDC, I have observed a phenomenon that I call the ‘WWDC Glow.’ After the keynote, our minds are full of wonder and possibility about all the new things we may be able to do. In the coming days and weeks, we get to understand the reality of the features. In some cases, it results in us learning a little more about the constraints of a feature, which brings us back down to Earth,” Hurley wrote on Thursday. “I fully understand I may be in that WWDC Glow right now when it comes to Siri AI. I want to preface this before I say what I am about to say, which is that I imagine that after Siri AI ships later in the year, I will not have much need for any of the general-purpose chatbots like Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, or others. I feel like 90% of the things I may want to use an AI assistant for can easily be covered by Siri AI, with the added (huge) benefit of it being able to access my Personal Context, see exactly what I am looking at anywhere on my devices, and take action with the apps I use.”

I think I spotted Myke out of the corner of my eye on Monday morning before the presentation, but wasn’t able to say hello. Ditto for Nilay Patel from The Verge whilst riding a crowded elevator. Although I’ve covered some notable odds and ends in the days since the keynote, I’ve purposely refrained from posting a larger feature article with my thoughts because, to Hurley’s point, I’m still very much basking—and ruminating—in that “WWDC glow.” Which is to say, my thoughts on Apple’s announcements aren’t quite fully formed yet, and I don’t want to publish slop or share half-baked analysis that I can’t cogently articulate. Accessibility has a strong undercurrent at every WWDC, with this year’s conference being no different. Siri already has helped me—and others—manipulate things like my smart home setup for years; Siri AI looks poised to do that and then some, finally. Anyway, readers certainly should expect to see my expounded thoughts on WWDC 2026 in the days to come.

You should add Curb Cuts to your RSS reader so you don’t miss it when the story runs.

Relatedly: MacStories’ Federico Viticci shares similar sentiments as Hurley.

My Original HomePod Will Have life in it yet

Tim Hardwick reports today for MacRumors on the HomePod Software 27 features and compatibility. The big feature is support for AutoMix, which Hardwick says is “Apple’s AI-powered Apple Music feature that blends songs using matching key and tempo.”

“Apple says it has improved AutoMix’s underlying algorithms to generate new transition types, making for more seamless blends between tracks, so this should also benefit the newly introduced feature for HomePod,” Hardwick said of the enhanced AutoMix. “Running Apple’s current HomePod Software 26, the AutoMix feature in Apple Music is not available on HomePod. Users running the existing software only have access to the crossfade feature that improves transitions between songs.”

More exciting personally is news the new OS supports the OG HomePod. The smart speaker, released in 2018, runs an A8 chip—the same silicon which powered the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus—and I’ve been using the very same original HomePod (in white) since it came out. It’s perched on a cart stationed next to my desk, and I use it every day via AirPlay (from my Mac) to listen to music and podcasts. The HomePod still looks, and sounds, phenomenal in 2026. Ditto for the blue HomePod mini in my bedroom, which also gets the update later this year. The HomePod “runs a custom, slimmed-down version of tvOS,” according to Gemini, with the 2020 transition “[streamlining] integration with the Apple TV and support advanced smart-home features.”

On a related note, the first-generation Apple TV 4K from 2017 won’t get tvOS 27.

All the ‘small things’ coming to apple’s platforms

Rishi Ó compiled a list of all the “small things” from Monday’s WWDC announcements.

“My favorite Apple updates are not the flashy new features, but the quiet little touches: annoyances fixed, workflows made smoother, rough edges sanded down, and longstanding flaws thoughtfully reworked. To me, they’re the clearest sign of a company that cares about its craft,” they wrote. “Here’s a collection from a WWDC26 screen-grab, organized for easier reading, on improvements coming later this year.”

There’s a cornucopia of bullet points in Rishi Ó’s post. Undeterred, however, I went through them all and managed to pick out the new features pertinent to accessibility.

Beware: there are going to be a lot of bullets in this post too.

• Easier PDF editing with VoiceOver

• Faster Voice Control response

• Streamlined Assistive Access setup

• Faster entry/exit from Assistive Access and Guided Access

• Show Borders accessibility feature

• Streamlined Touch Accommodations setup

• MFi hearing device pairing improvements

• Larger text sizes in tvOS

• Improved PlayStation Access controller support

I haven’t downloaded any developer betas—I typically don’t grab the public beta until the iOS RC build ships in late summer—but maybe I’ll break historical precedent this year and try the developer beta on a secondary device. I’ll post a piece on my big picture thoughts on WWDC soon, but suffice it to say I’m excited and intrigued by Siri AI and the Apple Intelligence upgrades. I should also note some of these smaller updates, like the overhauled UI in Wallet on iOS, will likely manifest as de-facto accessibility features—particularly considering I use Apple Pay whenever and wherever possible.