New Video Puts Music Haptics in the Spotlight

Ryan Christoffel reports for 9to5 Mac Apple today has released a new video which shows off its Music Haptics accessibility feature. The 75-second video, embedded below, was posted to the Apple Music YouTube channel, according to Christoffel.

Music Haptics was introduced last year as an accessibility feature new to iOS 18.

“The new video highlights how Music Haptics can help users who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing still experience music in a unique way,” Christoffel writes of its raison d'être.

I wrote about Music Haptics last year, saying in part it has become one of my favorite accessibility features on my iPhone. Take a listen to From Zero, the latest album from my favorite band in Linkin Park—and the first featuring new singer Emily Armstrong—with Music Haptics enabled and you literally feel the hard drums, and Armstrong’s arguably even harder vocals, on a track like “Heavy is the Crown.” While I do have some congenital hearing loss, Music Haptics is ostensibly pointless because I don’t need it. On the contrary, however, I find the feature is lovely for all the ways it enriches my listening experience. To wit, it adds a tactile element to what’s an auditory medium. I don’t use Music Haptics all the time, but when I do, it’s a true pleasure to experience.

As Christoffel rightly notes, Music Haptics makes what’s normally an exclusionary piece of art—music—to those with little-to-no hearing and makes it inclusive by way of haptic feedback. Likewise, the same applies to Apple Podcasts getting transcripts; again, a sound-oriented medium is augmented such that it can be accessible. Moreover, it’s worth mentioning Music Haptics in particular is a quintessential example of the famed interplay of hardware and software that comprises Apple’s bread and butter. They built the so-called Taptic Engine in the iPhone, and they built the Apple Music service (with help from Beats, of course), so it makes sense they’d smush both together to create Music Haptics using its beloved vertical integration. What’s more, there’s a special playlist on Apple Music filled with songs that pair well with the feature.

Apple’s Music Haptics video comes just a couple days after the company celebrated this year’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day by sharing a preview of the new accessibility features coming to its platforms “later this year.” It’s classic Apple to not cop to it just yet, but if history is a guide, these enhancements are obviously going to appear in iOS 19, et al, when the updates are unveiled by the company next month.