Linktree Chief Executive Alex Zaccaria Talks New Features, Empowering Creators, More In Interview
Popular “link in bio” company Linktree this week has announced what it describes as “smarter design tools” and more in an effort “elevate” one’s landing page on the internet. The enhancements were detailed in a blog post published on Wednesday.
Linktree was founded in 2016 and today boasts more than 70 million users.
In the post, Linktree says its mission has always been, and always will be, to “make it simple for anyone, from creators and small businesses to nonprofits and global brands, to connect their audiences to everything they do online.” The company added it has “doubled down” on furthering its mission this year by launching various tools which help so-called “Linkers” earn money by selling digital goods, running affiliate programs, and using sponsored links. The “next step” launching today, Linktree says, is giving people a means to “design a Linktree that feels uniquely and beautifully you.”
“As the platform has grown, one thing has become clear across the entire industry: design can be a barrier,” Linktree wrote. “Many creators and businesses want to look professional online but don’t have the tools, time, or design background to make it happen. With this launch, Linktree is making high-quality design accessible to everyone, helping our community look polished, feel authentic, and stand out.”
Linktree’s headlining feature is powered by—what else?—artificial intelligence. Called “Enhance with AI,” the feature is characterized as “a new feature that provides an instant, personalized design makeover [by analyzing] a profile and suggests tailored updates like refreshed layouts, wallpapers, or color schemes, based on what’s working across top-performing Linktrees.” Linktree also notes Enhance with AI was built to offer recommendations which would help spur discovery and increased engagement. Relatedly, Linktree is using the tech to “restyle” profile images so as to “[allow] users to transform their photo into different artistic styles such as cartoon, sketch, or 3D.”
Elsewhere, Linktree is making link names easier to create by suggesting good ones, as well as enabling deeper integration with popular online design tool Canva so that everyone has access to what Linktree says are “professional-grade design tools.”
In a brief interview conducted via email earlier this week, Linktree co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria reiterated the high-level talking points shared in today’s announcement, saying his Melbourne-born company has “grown into a one-stop platform for creators, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and global brands.” Furthermore, he told me the enhancements announced today, as well as throughout 2025 thus far, is a true testament to “the commitment we’ve made to our community of more than 70 million Linkers to keep innovating on their behalf.” Amongst those tens of millions of users include celebrities such as Selena Gomez and wellness entrepreneur Kelsey Rose.
But Linktree has evolved into something more than a mere “link in bio” generator.
“You can design, monetize, and grow your audience all in one place,” Zaccaria said of Linktree’s raison d’être. “I like to think of us as a digital Swiss Army knife for creators and small businesses. Whether you are selling an online course, sharing your podcast, or running a seasonal promotion, Linktree is where it all comes together.”
When asked about the gravity of the day’s news, Zaccaria said it’s about instilling “confidence” in people. Linkers, he said, know their page is important because one’s Linktree oftentimes is “the first impression someone gets.” Linktree’s value proposition, Zaccaria added, lies in the reality “not everyone has the time, budget, or skills to be a designer.” In other words, Linktree makes linking more accessible.
“These new tools give them a way to instantly elevate their profile,” Zaccaria said.
Zaccaria pointed to a Sydney small business selling handmade ceramics. With the advent of Linktree’s tools, the owners are able to “make their Linktree look like a digital storefront in just a few clicks” rather than take time from their livelihood to moonlight as amateur web designers. “That is the kind of impact we are aiming for,” Zaccaria said.
Importantly, Zaccaria stressed Linktree’s use of AI isn’t a sign of the company hopping onto an increasingly crowded bandwagon. On the contrary, he emphasized Linktree isn’t using AI “for the sake of it” simply because it’s the technology du jour right now.
“AI, for us, is about removing friction and giving people a head start… it’s about giving Linkers time back,” Zaccaria said. “A musician doesn’t want to spend half an hour wondering which shade of green will look good with their album cover. They just want to share their new track. AI gets them to that point faster, then they can make it their own.”
From an accessibility perspective, Linktree’s emphasis on ease of use, as well as its embrace of AI as automation, is deeply resonant. Although Zaccaria comments convey Linktree’s essence as a conduit for convenience, the truth is the undertones of accessibility are undeniable. To wit, while it’s true the Average Jane or Joe isn’t a web developer, able to wrangle HTML and CSS code to make their sites exude creative intent, it’s also very true not everyone is able to build a website from the ground up. Maybe someone is neurodivergent and easily gets overwhelmed by complex interfaces and instructions on how to write HTML, for instance. Maybe someone has visual and/or fine-motor disabilities and can’t spend a lot of time scanning and clicking without fatigue setting in. Maybe someone’s cognitive abilities are simply not at the level to complete a potentially complex task such as building a blog, let alone write code for it. Especially with assists from AI, Linktree can make that more accessible by lessening much of the cognitive load and assuming the grunt work. At 30,000 feet, Linktree strikes me as similar to Squarespace, the sponsor darling of many podcasts I, and legions of other tech nerds, listen to every week. Instead of self-hosting a blog—which I’ve done before because I’m a nerd, but don’t recommend it—I built this very website on Squarespace precisely because, like Linktree, all the hard work is done for me. Yes, I linked my own domain name and added a few lines of custom CSS code with help from Google Gemini, but for the most part, I don’t want the hassle. To Zaccaria’s prior point, I’m not a web developer either. I’m a journalist, and time spent monkeying around my website is time better spent doing interviews, testing new products, and writing stories.
In terms of feedback, Zaccaria told me the early response to what’s being rolled out today has been “encouraging” for the team. Enthusiasm is high amongst high-profile users such as Cardi B, whom Zaccaria said “has already experimented with video backgrounds and heading options—which is great [proof] these updates resonate at the very top of the market.” Similarly, he noted Linktree’s creator partnerships team has heard creators are “excited to finally have more expressive and customizable design options” and are appreciative of how the new functionality is “a refreshing way to make their Linktree feel more uniquely their own.” The vibe check, as they say, is positive.
Looking towards the future, Zaccaria wants Linktree to “keep breaking down barriers.”
“Our mission has always been to help Linkers connect their audiences to everything they do online… I am especially excited about the role creators are playing as the storefronts of the future,” he said of pondering Linktree’s future. “They are driving billions in sales and shaping culture in ways that traditional advertising never could. My hope is that Linktree continues to be the place where that creativity and commerce come together, and that we keep finding ways to make it easier for Linkers to thrive.”
A Look At Lucyd’s Smart Eyewear And Accessibility
Nearly three years ago, back in October 2022, I wrote a piece for my old Forbes column in which I examined Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories and Amazon’s Echo Frames after companies sent me their respective sunglasses to try out and review. To distill my conclusion from using both: While I found both pairs to be intriguing from an accessibility perspective, they weren’t essential because I more or less treated the fancy-pants glasses like the cheap drugstore dumb sunglasses I’ve used for eons.
I was recently reminded of this old story of mine, and of its sentiments, when I was approached by Lucyd Eyewear about trying out the company’s so-called “audio eyewear” for accessibility’s sake. At 30,000 feet, Lucyd’s conceit is conceptually identical to that of Amazon and Meta’s: glasses (with speakers in the frames) that let you do things like listen to audio content and more. Lucyd asked which pair I’d like to have, and being someone who leans towards casual and sporty fashion, I chose the $199 Reebok Voltage sunglasses. I’ve been using them for the last several weeks.
The glasses, from which I’ve listened to music and podcasts as well as taken a phone call or two, connect to one’s phone via Bluetooth and, like Apple Watch and Vision Pro on iOS, has a companion app. The setup process was straightforward and painless; unlike something like AirPods, for instance, the Lucyd glasses need to be turned on in order to automatically pair after the initial setup. In my testing, I’ve tended to turn the glasses off so as to preserve its battery—only to later be flummoxed for a few seconds when I go to use the audio features because they aren’t working. What I’m saying is, part of the magic of something like AirPods is there is no power button, not even on the charging case. The earbuds just know when to “spring to life.” In that way, AirPods are far more accessible than Meta Ray-Bans or Echo Frames or, yes, Lucyd, because there’s less cognitive load to remember that“Oh yeah, you gotta turn them on” in order to use the Lucyd glasses’ marquee features. Otherwise, they’re just… dumb glasses.
I compare the Lucyd glasses to AirPods to illustrate that the glasses mostly replicate AirPods’ core functionality in a different form factor. Instead of being in your ears, they’re on your face. That’s not a complaint. In fact, from an accessibility perspective, there’s a cogent argument to be made that Lucyd’s glasses have appeal to someone who, for example, may have sensory conditions such that they don’t like—or can’t tolerate—objects in their ears. Maybe getting earbuds in and out of one’s ears are too fiddly from a fine-motor standpoint. Maybe they’re, like me, too often forgetting their AirPods at home when they leave the house to run errands or whatever. For those people, then, the Lucyd glasses could be perfect. It’d be a win-win situation: they can keep the sun out of their eyes whilst still being able to enjoy audio, take phone calls, and even query ChatGPT. For my usage, it’s been a struggle to remember to turn the glasses on for the audio features, so they’ve more often than not acted like my aforementioned inexpensive sunglasses I mainly wear to keep the sun out of my eyes.
Again, not a complaint. It’s just the nature of my beast.
In complementing this mini review, I was offered the opportunity to interview Lucyd’s CEO in Harrison Gross. Gross, who also serves as the company’s lead developer, explained via email he’s been working on smart glasses for 8 years and has filed 70 patents to show for it. Gross said he’s long been “addicted to screens,” with his vision and attention span suffering because of it. He described his personal mission as “[helping] people live more in the moment with wearables and reduce the need for screen time for people to get the information and digital functionality they need.”
“The emergence of smart eyewear [as a category] and voice-based AI computing is the answer to this problem,” Gross told me of the raison d'être for Lucyd. “I am doing what I can to address the problem of excessive screen time in our society to help people get to a ‘new normal,’ where they have seamless access to computational power in a mobile-friendly, hands-free, and heads-up format. That’s where Lucyd comes in!”
Gross firmly believes consumers “100%” want connected eyewear—even if they aren’t explicitly saying so. The popularity of products like Apple Watch and AirPods are proof, with Gross telling me the reason wearable technology is so enamoring is largely due to “familiarity and convenience.” Consumers, he said, “are much more likely to adopt smarter versions of products they already use than entirely new modalities” and pointedly said that’s why things like Humane’s failed AI Pin haven’t secured a place in the market. “Consumers are resistant to learning entirely new behaviors,” Gross said.
Gross added the appeal of wearable technology is “quite simple” and expounded further by telling me “if you can add more functionality to a particular form factor, the product becomes more useful to the user.” Ultimately, appeal boils down to two things: convenience and utility. In Lucyd’s case, Gross said, “our product is like headphones and glasses in one, so it obviates the need for both traditional glasses and headphones [and replaces] both devices with one at a price that matches traditional eyewear.”
What of smart glasses then?
“The customer for smart glasses is really people who already wear eyeglasses or sunglasses frequently—or safety glasses, as we have seen huge success with our smart safety frame,” Gross said. “It’s much easier to get a regular glasses wearer to switch to smart glasses than someone who doesn’t wear glasses at all.”
When asked about smart glasses and accessibility, Gross said it’s a “really interesting topic” because he believes smart glasses have a sizable distinct advantage: glasses inherently already used “as a medical device to address a whole host of issues.” There exist a wide array of smart glasses that specialize in addressing certain disabilities, he said, and Gross expects the market to “further diversify” as time marches on. He pointed to Lucyd’s own Lyte glasses, which “offers numerous voice-based controls for accessing information and AI from your connected device [and allows] users with difficulty typing to engage more easily with many different digital systems,” as well as Meta’s ever-popular Ray-Bans—which given their partnership with Be My Eyes—enables “general guidance and object exposition for low vision users,” Gross said.
Feedback-wise, Lucyd has been well-received by customers, according to Gross. He explained to me “many of our customers convert” during live demos of the product, adding the device’s value proposition “becomes immediately obvious to them.” Moreover, Gross said many longtime customers, whom he described as “diehards,” give he and his team lots of varied feedback. These “power users,” as Gross called them, are invaluable because they “get the most out of their frames” and, crucially, give Lucyd inspiration for improvements. “We hear all the time how our technology is life-changing for so many people—especially those who love audio content but are unable to wear headphones due to safety or professional concerns,” Gross said.
As one of Lucyd’s newest users, I think they have a good product. I like the smart functions and the stylistic aspect, but to me, smarts glasses have yet to reach their zenith. Particularly for accessibility’s sake, as someone with extremely low vision—Social Security deems me “legally blind” for aid purposes—the ultimate appeal in smart glasses comes with a screen. As I wrote last year in reviewing Apple Vision Pro, the present-day headset form factor is obviously Apple capitulating to the limitations of modern technology’s capabilities. As someone deeply invested in the company’s ecosystem, my dream scenario would be to someday wear a pair of “Apple Vision Glasses” running visionOS. They could help in navigation, object and people detection, and much more. Apple may be working on it, but the current technology isn’t yet ready for the mainstream. Meta seems to think it’s ready, but I wonder about its accessibility.
So, Lucyd. Again, I like the glasses as sunglasses, smarts be damned; I’ve gotten compliments on how good I look wearing them. As someone who already is a heavy user of AirPods, the smarts of Lucyd’s glasses are somewhat stunted for me. They work as advertised, but I’m going on nearly a decade of AirPods life, and old habits undoubtedly die hard. Nevertheless, the experience I’ve had with Lucyd’s glasses has been enlightening not only to satiate my nerdy, journalistic curiosity, but also to get an early glimpse (no pun intended) of what a glasses-forward future could be like for me.
Gross and I are on the same wavelength in that last respect.
“I look forward to [a] future where all eyewear is smart and delivers heads-up functionality to everyone. [It will reduce] our reliance on those pesky screens,” he said.
iOS 26.1 Beta 1 Includes More Live Translation Languages, Apple Music Swipe Gesture, More
After its software release bonanza last Monday, Apple this Monday is onto the next one.
Juli Clover reports today for MacRumors Apple seeded to developers the first beta of iOS 26.1 (along with its brethren), and the update comes with a few notable features for accessibility. Namely, Live Translation for AirPods is being localized into more languages and Apple Music gets a swipe gesture to change tracks in the mini player.
“AirPods Live Translation works with additional languages in iOS 26.1, including Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Chinese (both Mandarin Traditional and Simplified),” Clover said.
As to the new gesture in Apple Music, I often switch back and forth between views to manually change tracks in the album view if there are only particular songs I want to hear. Thus, this new swipe move theoretically should make that task more accessible because I needn’t have to jump back and forth anymore if I know certain tracks are clustered together. Generally, though, for my most favorite albums—think Linkin Park’s Meteora, for instance—I will start with the first track and let it run from front to back. I’m a completionist that way. Otherwise, the new swipe gesture should prove really handy.
Other changes in iOS 26.1 Beta 1 include the dialer in the Phone app getting its Liquid Glass glow-up, design changes in the Photos app, and more. Based on precedence, Clover posits the public release of iOS 26.1, et al, could come sometime next month.
Amazon, publishers Pushing for Better accessibility Of E-Books, new report says
My friend (and Six Colors contributor) Shelly Brisbin links this morning to a story about Kindle books gaining more robust accessibility features for Blind and low vision bookworms. She links to a story from Michael Kozlowski of Good eReader, who reported last Friday Amazon is now “prioritizing new accessibility features” for visual disabilities.
“Amazon has been pushing accessibility hard lately, making Kindle books and Kindle e-readers better suited for people with visual disabilities. They have added a new tab to book description pages, called Accessibility,” Kozlowski said of Amazon’s zeal for stronger Kindle accessibility. “It has new Accessibility metadata, including Visual Adjustments, Non-Visual Reading, Conformance, and Navigation.”
“Amazon might be the only company to take accessibility this seriously,” he added.
Kozlowski also said book publishers “have been prioritizing the submission of e-books to Amazon that include accessibility features,” noting an extrinsic motivator is regulation. Indeed, disability-centric laws on the books such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the recently-enforced European Accessibility Act are “increasing legal pressure to make digital content accessible” by “positioning accessible publishing as both a competitive advantage and a necessity.” One of the biggest publishing houses today, the venerable Simon & Schuster, is a big proponent of better accessibility in the ebook arena; whereas only 60% of its catalog was certified accessible between 2022–2024, that number has risen to 100% this year, according to Kozlowski. Simon & Schuster is a prolific publisher, putting out 800 titles each year.
As Brisbin and Kozlowski both mention, ebook accessibility historically has been hit-or-miss. That Amazon (and publishers) are pushing to close this chasm is heartening. I have an old Paperwhite from 2018 and, while I haven’t used it for awhile since I prefer Apple Books for accessibility reasons, only ever used the larger font size on my Kindle. It was great, and I could read fine; I just prefer the bigger and brighter display of an iPad’s screen—e-ink and LCD are two entirely different display technologies—and I find the accessibility features on iPadOS to be far more comprehensive than Amazon’s suite.
Waymo Soon will go to San Francisco Int’l Airport
A bit of local news: Waymo will soon go to San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
Rya Jetha reported for The San Francisco Standard this week the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company is receiving a permit from airport authorities allowing it to eventually run service to and from SFO. According to Jetha, the experience will initially consist of three phases: (1) testing vehicles with a safety driver present; (2) offering rides to Waymo and airport employees; and (3) offering rides to the general public. The airport “did not provide a timeline for these phases,” Jetha added.
SFO joins its neighbor in San José Mineta International Airport in Waymo service.
“San Franciscans have anxiously waited for Waymo to make inroads at SFO,” Jetha wrote of the ramifications of this week’s transit news. “In December alone, more than 13,000 people searched for SFO on the Waymo app, and around 700 people installed the app while physically at the airport. A July 2024 survey by Waymo found that 89% of riders in the Bay Area are interested in using the service to get to and from SFO.”
San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie said in part in a statement shared with Jetha that the city is “expanding safe, reliable, and modern transportation options” vis-a-vis Waymo.
As Jetha mentioned, the Waymo-to-SFO news is welcome given the context that the Bay Area next year is hosting both Super Bowl LX and the FIFA World Cup at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Having Waymo available as a viable option for getting around the region makes sense—even when we’re not host to such attractions. Indeed, Jetha also noted San Jose’s mayor in Matt Mahan is hopeful people will choose Waymos instead of rental cars to get around as these big events are going on throughout 2026.
From an accessibility perspective, using Waymo to get to the airport feels like a win all around. There’s a button in the app to open the car’s trunk, so it seemingly would be easy to stash one’s luggage back there to and from SFO. Likewise, that a disabled person could use Waymo to get to the airport makes that part of the travel journey more autonomous and independent for them. Moreover, it saves on having to fight for an Uber or Lyft, or asking a friend or family member to take you and/or pick you up there.
What One Influencer’s Viral Cat Videos Says About social media and its Credibility For accessibility
It’s perfectly logical to presume cat videos and accessibility have zero correlation.
And yet, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from the ostensibly mismatched pair.
When I sat down with Amaris Branco, a 23-year-old influencer from Ontario, Canada, back in April to discuss her life and career, my interview with her felt instructive insofar as I quickly put the pieces together that her seemingly unrelated work as a content creator illustrates how accessibility pervades everything in everyday life, in ways large and small. With over 81,000 followers on her Instagram, it’d be equally logical to presume Branco is a seasoned, long-time social media maven; the truth is, though, she confided in me actively creating for her social channels was something she “never really took seriously.” She was more observer than participant, telling me she “loves” social media nowadays and began getting into it only recently, circa 2022 and 2023.
“I randomly started posting on TikTok for fun… just as something to do,” Branco said.
Her original conceit was a silly one: Pets can’t see what their humans do on a daily basis. They’re too small, too low to the ground. It “intrigued” her, for instance, that her beloved cat was unable to see into the microwave or spice cabinet. Branco initially resisted the idea to make a video about showing her cat such untraversed terrain, owing to her aforementioned apathy towards social media. Still, the notion gnawed at her… something “kept telling me,” she said, to create content and post it—so she did.
It became a viral sensation that changed Branco’s view of social media—and her life.
“That video took two seconds to make,” Branco said. “That was his [her cat’s] genuine reaction of him looking into the fridge for the first time and the spice cabinet—super raw, super real. That took me two seconds to film, then I posted it that night, not thinking anything of it… I thought, ‘Oh, just another silly video, whatever.’ I woke up the next morning to my video being at 100,000 likes! People were going insane over my cat.” A video that Branco posted on a lark born of curiosity, then shared with whimsy, would spark a trend that eventually raged through TikTok’s algorithm like wildfire.
“[My followers] were like, ‘Oh my god, your cat is so silly looking! Oh my god, your cat is insane. We want to see more videos!’ While people were telling me to make more videos of that series, people were also remaking the series on their own as well,” Branco told me of the response to her video. “They were showing their pets’ random stuff they’ve never seen before in their house, which was really crazy. People did it with their three iguanas. People were doing with their dogs, People were even doing with their babies. So many people hopped on this trend, and it all just happened like that. So I started posting more and more, and that became a huge series that blew up on my TikTok.”
One of Branco’s videos has 30 million views. She has 136,000 followers on TikTok.
Branco, who does contract work at an agency called Cornelia Creative that specializes in meme advertising, told me the cat who catapulted her to her modicum of celebrity, passed away. She’s since made content with her new cat, but admitted the vibes “aren’t the same” as they were with her old one. The popularity of her material led Branco to other opportunities as well, which helped cement her standing in the wide world of creators. “It was a crazy experience in my life,” she said. “I’ve always been so close with my cat, and I never thought a million years would we have started a TikTok trend together. Even now, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe that actually happened!”
Her advice to aspiring creators? “Start posting the content,” Branco said.
The reason Branco’s story resonated with me, from a disability standpoint anyway, lies in her goal of getting people to “not be afraid to put themselves out there [and] post things they love.” She explained how she felt she was “hiding behind my phone’s screen” for the longest time, scared to be vulnerable by showing others the things which light her life. She was afraid of what people from her hometown may say, let alone strangers on the internet. Social media can be a cesspool—but it’s a lifeline too.
Branco appreciates how social media has immense power to highlight authenticity.
“The minute I did start posting and started doing things I love was when I started to see all the success and stuff,” she said. “If I could give advice to anybody, it would be ‘Don’t be afraid to shine your light. Don’t be afraid of judgment. And if you want to post your videos, if you want to do that, absolutely do it because it can literally change your life.’ If I didn’t post that first video, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. It’s crazy how everything [in life] has a domino effect… yeah, if I could give any advice to anybody, it’d be: ‘Don’t hesitate to post if that’s what you want to do. Don’t be afraid of judgment.’”
I’ve written before about how, for all social media’s unsightly warts, people take for granted how it affords people the ability to connect and be social with other people from around the world in real time. For people in the disability community who are homebound or otherwise limited in their mobility for health and/or logistical reasons, things like Facebook or Instagram or TikTok are bonafide godsends. It’s certainly reasonable to surmise some percentage of Branco’s followers are disabled—counting yours truly on Instagram—and, silly though it is, a disabled person may find joy in her cat videos or her outfit-of-the-day Reels on Instagram as a way to be entertained and live vicariously through Branco. What’s more, disabled people such as Shane Burcaw and my friend Haben Girma provide visibility of our community doing things that buck the entrenched societal stereotypes of disabled people and our capabilities. The advent of social media has given the disability community more reach (and more awareness) than anything else in human history—and it’s not hyperbolic to say it like that. While not assistive technology in the classical sense—like, say, Apple’s suite of software—the moral of Branco’s story is simple: social media, no matter how lighthearted or seemingly insipid, has real potential to have profound impact on genuine human connectedness. There’s a reason Apple’s iPhone 17 launch event earlier this month was filled to the brim with not only traditional journalists like yours truly, but tech YouTubers and influencers galore as well. The hands-on area in the Steve Jobs Theater was all hustle and bustle with media folks using their camera rigs to shoot video or otherwise create content for their audience. At some point in recent times, someone on Apple’s vaunted PR team rightfully realized folks like Branco, if not exactly her, have sway. These people have pull. They, as the job description not-so-subtly implies, have influence. Of course all the attention is what Apple wants; the salient point is, again, social media is more than mindless doom-scrolling. For many, it’s an indispensable tool with which people not only consume (and disseminate) news and opinion, but also form lasting relationships which can transcend the digital spaces from which they’re forged.
Indeed, some of the best, closest relationships I have now originated on social media.
There’s a reason “Disability Twitter” and “Tech Twitter” and “NBA Twitter” are so popular online; the adage rings ever true: birds of a feather tend to flock together.
“I love how the internet is a safe space for that stuff where you’re accepted as a person,” Branco said. “Obviously, there’s gonna be a lot of hate too, but for the most part—what I’ve experienced personally—it’s a great community to shine your light and find like-minded people who enjoy the same things. I’ve met so many people who are cat lovers through making cat videos… I’ve met so many cool people in the process.”
Looking towards the future, Branco’s goal is simple: keep sharing! She told me she’s always ruminating over ideas on how to better engage her audience and let them get to know her. Besides cats, she loves thrifting and vlogging. Going to the beach, too. When I asked Branco what she sees in the proverbial crystal ball, she was succinct in her reply.
“My goal is to show up authentically as I have and make more content,” she said.
Google Selling New ‘rope wristlet’ for Pixel Phones
Andrew Romero reported for 9to5 Google earlier this week Google has begun selling a familiar-looking accessory for the Pixel 10 line. The company, he said, is now “getting a little more adventurous in the accessory game” by offering so-called “wrist straps” in different colors on its online store. Google announced the Pixel 10 lineup last month.
“A new entry appeared on the Google Store today as part of the company’s accessory lineup for Pixel. The new ‘Google Rope Wristlet’ is a wrist strap for ‘devices with a case,’” Romero wrote of the new wrist straps. “The strap connects with a spring ring clasp to a shim with a D-ring placed between the case and the back of the phone.”
Romero adds the $7 (!) wristlet works with any Pixel phone except the Fold. Additionally, he notes the strap “appears to work with any phone and case with a USB-C port” while also saying the strap “isn’t the first accessory to use this connection method.”
In the lede, I purposely include the phrase “familiar-looking” because Google’s wristlet is conceptually identical to that of Apple’s new iPhone crossbody strap. Moreover, it’d be journalistic malpractice not to point out Apple’s is, at $59, more than eight times more expensive the Google’s—but that’s because Apple loves its margins and, I suspect, its strap is nicer than Google’s in terms of fit and finish. Nonetheless, I think it’s fine Google “copied” Apple with its wristlet. As I wrote about Pixelsnap last month, Google’s MagSafe analogue, the wristlets have accessibility merit for Android users. To wit, Google’s model could make holding one’s Pixel phone more accessible when, for instance, trying to use it whilst holding their cane. Better still, that Google’s wristlet attaches via carabiner would seem to be a more accessible method of attachment than Apple’s. I have yet to fully test Apple’s crossbody strap, but my recollection in the hands-on area at last week’s event is the product could be inaccessible to initially attach. Granted, you only do it once in theory—but nevertheless once is one time too many when you cope with lackluster hand-eye coordination and fine-motor skills.
Whether Apple or Google, these straps show how much hardware accessibility matters.
The Great Starling home Hub Has Been Discontinued
The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy bore bad news: the Starling Home Hub is dead.
“In a message on its website, Starling said it can no longer manufacture the hub due to ‘rapidly rising costs of doing business for small US-based product companies like us (most significantly, tariffs the US government charges us to obtain the components we need to build our product),’” Tuohy somberly reported on Wednesday.
Indeed, the brief message on the homepage of Starling’s website says the company will continue to provide technical support to its customers (yours truly amongst the lot) “as long as we can.” They further note their goal is to maintain enough inventory of its diminutive $99 box “to be able to honor product warranties for existing customers.”
I’m writing this story in mourning; the Starling Home Hub has played an integral role in my HomeKit-based smart home setup for years. As Tuohy writes, Nest devices have never featured native support for Apple Home for people who prefer both HomeKit and the Apple-like design sensibilities of, say, Nest’s thermostats. I’ve written before about how we have a number of Nest products in our home, albeit older ones like the Nest E and Nest Hello, and they continue to work with aplomb—especially since they’re also “integrated” into Apple Home. I suppose whenever the time comes that Starling’s device ceases functionality, I’ll begrudgingly shift to the Google Home app on iOS, but I’ll sure miss the Starling Home Hub. It was, and continues to be for now, a simple, truly plug-and-play solution that really does make my smart home devices more accessible.
HBO Max Announces ‘Superman’ will stream in ASL
In a press release published earlier this week, HBO Max announced the summer’s superhero blockbuster, Superman, is slated to “make its global streaming debut” on the service this Friday, September 19. Notably for inclusion and accessibility, the film has an exclusive special stream presenting dialogue in American Sign Language (ASL).
Superman is done by Deaf interpreter Giovanni Maucere and directed by Leila Hanaumi.
“In his signature style, [director] James Gunn takes on the original superhero in the newly imagined DC universe with a singular blend of epic action, humor and heart, delivering a Superman who’s driven by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind,” HBO Max wrote of Superman in its announcement.
Clark Kent/Superman is played by David Corenswet, while Rachel Brosnahan portrays Lois Lane. (Brosnahan resonates with me personally, as she was the central character, Miriam Maisel, in Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—one of my favorite shows ever.)
That HBO Max is showing Superman in ASL continues on the trail it has blazed with other content I’ve covered before, such as Sinners and The Last Of Us. In addition, the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned TNT—Warner is the parent company of HBO Max—has offered its acclaimed “NHL × ASL” broadcasts, the production of which has won Sports Emmys. Last November, I interviewed Brice Christianson, a fellow CODA whose deaf inclusion company PXP partners with the National Hockey League on the telecasts,
Apple Sports Gains Widgets, more in Latest Update
Ben Lovejoy reports for 9to5 Mac today on Apple Sports’ latest v3.3 update.
“The Apple Sports app has seen a number of great updates over the year, and the latest of these is support for widgets on your Home Screen,” Lovejoy wrote on Tuesday of the new update. “These can be customized to show live scores and schedules for your favorite teams and leagues, including Live Activities on your Lock Screen. Apple has also rolled out the app to eight new countries.”
As Lovejoy notes, the marquee feature of this release is the addition of widgets. They give users “quick access to live scores and schedules right on your Home Screen” while also being customizable. Users can configure widgets such that they are able to “see a snapshot of what’s happening with your favorite teams and leagues anytime.” Besides widgets, Apple has brought Apple Sports to Austria, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Lastly, soccer (or football or fútbol) coverage features more leagues in Bundesliga 2, Ligue 2, Primeira Liga, Segunda División, and Serie B.
I get excited by every update to Apple Sports, and Lovejoy’s story was no exception. The app—especially its Live Activities in the Dynamic Island—have made following the teams/leagues I love most much more accessible. Like with the Google Gemini app, Apple Sports has entrenched itself as a mainstay of my iPhone’s Home Screen because I use it literally every single day—especially now when NCAA and NFL football dominate the weekends. Although many in the Apple community point to Apple’s penchant for letting its App Store apps wither on the vine—remember Clips?—Apple Sports in fact is amongst my most favorite pieces of software on iOS. That said, my white whale is, of course, getting to use Apple Sports on iPadOS. After an eternal wait, Apple finally brought the Calculator app to the platform last year… Apple Sports should be next!
Google Gemini App Tops The App Store’s Free Chart
Abner Li reported for 9to5 Google late last week Google’s Gemini app for iOS currently is #1 free app in the App Store. Li posits the company’s “nano banana” image-generation feature is “presumably” the driver behind Gemini’s ascent to the digital mountaintop.
"From the launch on August 26 to September 9, the Gemini app saw 23 million new users. Nano Banana has been used to edit over 500 million images in that period,” he wrote of Gemini’s burgeoning popularity. “This image editing model is a viral hit due to how it maintains character likeness and consistency. You can also upload multiple photos to make new ones, transfer styles, and of course conversational editing.”
Gemini is #2 in Canada and the United Kingdom, according to Li.
I just checked the Top Free chart in the App Store on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. It shows:
Gemini
ChatGPT
Threads
Google
Netflix
DraftKings
X (née Twitter)
Bible Chat
Temu
Google Maps
Although I haven’t used “nano banana” yet, I’m happy to see Gemini top the charts. It’s been firmly entrenched on my first Home Screen for some time now, as I use it nearly every single day. In fact, I used it just last night yo ask about the best way to reheat leftover McDonald’s chicken nuggets. (The answer? Air-fry at 400°F for 3–5 minutes.) As I’ve said repeatedly, what I most love about a chatbot like Gemini—or ChatGPT, for that matter—is how its very nature is a shortcut to conventional web searches. Instead of asking my question and then combing through scores of results, an ostensibly mundane task which can actually have detrimental effects on eye strain and the like, Gemini did the grunt work for me before presenting me with the best answer. What’s more, the AI did so in a messages-like interface that’s less visually cluttered and more easily grokked cognitively. As I often say, to downplay, or otherwise sneer at, chatbots as conduits for sheer laziness—or, in an educational context, cheating—is downright lazy and, frankly, myopic. Of course people must be vigilant about mistakes and hallucinations from AI—hell, Google itself provides a little warning on Gemini’s main screen—but the reality is chatbots have made what once were taxing web searches into something far more accessible. That isn’t at all a trivial use case; on the contrary, it’s a prime example of AI’s profound power—which will inevitably become stronger as time marches on—as an assistive technology for legions of disabled people such as myself.
Amazon Announces September 30 Media Event
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy reports for The Verge Amazon on Monday announced an event.
“Amazon has sent out invitations to its annual fall hardware event, where it traditionally launches a slew of new products, including Echo smart speakers, Fire TV devices, Kindles, and sometimes dozens of other gadgets,” Tuohy wrote of the news. “The event is scheduled for Tuesday, September 30th, 2025, in New York City.”
The event will be held in NYC’s Tribeca neighborhood. I woke up this morning to Amazon’s invitation sitting in my work inbox, which was a nice way to begin the week. I’ve covered the company’s events in person before, as I’ve done with Apple, Google, and Lenovo. It’s work, but it’s also personally resonant to be invited because it means the disability community vis-a-vis accessibility will be represented amongst the mob of tech reporters. Put another way, it’s one thing for Tuohy and her compatriots to cover Amazon’s announcements for mainstream audiences—but it’s quite another for me to be able to etch an inclusive angle on all the new products Amazon will soon show off.
As of this writing, I’m unsure if I can make it—but I’m damn sure going to try!
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.