The shoe is on the other foot, WWDC Edition
As I write this, it’s been exactly one week since I was on the ground at Apple Park in Cupertino to cover this year’s WWDC keynote. In the days since, the majority of the chatter online has surrounded Apple’s all-new design language called Liquid Glass. It’s been interesting to observe the discourse, mostly because a common refrain has been people complaining about things like contrast and readability. The first iOS 26 developer beta, the peanut gallery alleges, goes way too far in prioritizing the glass-like effects so as to be very detrimental towards legibility and other visual considerations.
In other words, iOS 26 Beta 1 has people talking about accessibility.
On one hand, I’m appreciative people are paying attention to the accessibility of Liquid Glass. More able-bodied people should pay attention to accessibility. I offer the caveat, however, the aforementioned beta is intended for software developers—WWDC is a developer-oriented event after all, with the public beta not slated to ship until next month—so it’s very early days in the testing cycle. There’s a whole summer yet for Apple to tweak and refine Liquid Glass before it’s officially released come September. The early returns on public opinion, at least what I’ve noticed on social media, fail to take into account that (a) Beta 1 is for developers; and (b) there’s time for improvements.
The umbrage from some people over the current state of Liquid Glass is eye-rolling enough, but what really gets my eyes rolling is how so many people who are running the beta are co-opting accessibility. These commenters are convinced Apple has turned its back on its ethos on accessibility by shipping Liquid Glass in iOS 26 in such a lackluster state by accessibility standards. I find the criticisms egregiously disingenuous; not because I devalue constructive criticism or believe Liquid Glass is bereft of problems, but because I believe people are tokenizing accessibility insofar as it suits their gripes.
Put another way, accessibility is ancillary… until it isn’t.
It’s rich. As I wrote on Mastodon last week, to see people invoke the accessibility argument is hilarious, if not somewhat infuriating, because people like me have been banging the proverbial drum on the topic over a decade now. Obviously, I’ve built my career in tech journalism by effectively creating my own beat in accessibility and assistive technologies. My lived experiences as a lifelong disabled person who copes with multiple conditions allows me to write authoritatively and expertly on the subject. I know this stuff, which is why I’m able to detect bullshit when I smell it. The majority of the time, accessibility coverage is confined to Global Accessibility Awareness Day or so-called “Accessibility Weeks.” There is no regular, daily coverage of disability at most newsrooms, especially at the old guard outlets like The New York Times, despite the fact disability deserves every ounce the limelight that gender, race, and sexuality get in contemporary social justice reporting. Similarly, the WWDC coverage I’ve seen makes no mention of the new accessibility features Apple announced last month—all of which are traditionally included in the platforms’ public releases. Of course Liquid Glass and iPadOS 26 are amongst the biggest pieces of news, but I say it’s downright journalistic malpractice to not at least add a sentence or two to one’s copy that macOS 26 Tahoe, for instance, gets the Magnifier for Mac feature, amongst others, later this year. You needn’t be an accessibility aesthete like myself to do the bare minimum in acknowledging Apple is giving users empowering new accessibility features too.
I’ve written about this phenomenon before. I don’t mean to be gatekeeper-y about accessibility, but the disability community deserves better than one-day-a-year shoutouts on blogs and podcasts, rife with “gee whiz, that’s great” platitudes. We deserve more recognition than what GAAD co-founder Joe Devon recently told me is our “364 days of global accessibility oblivion.” There’s zero reason, for example, an accessibility-focused iPhone review couldn’t run alongside the mainstream takes of journalists like my close friend and peer in Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal. Disabled people read the Journal and use iPhones too, so it makes perfect sense in my mind. It seemingly isn’t so to the people tasked with overseeing the WSJ’s tech desk.
(It’s me. I’m a disabled person who uses an iPhone and reads The Wall Street Journal.)
If nothing else, the handwringing over Liquid Glass and its current inaccessibility should prove enlightening to people if only because it shows that everyone can, and inevitably will, benefit from greater accessibility. As for Apple’s role vis-a-vis Liquid Glass, I will reiterate what I wrote last week by again saying Sarah Herrlinger, the company’s senior director of global accessibility policy and initiatives, indicated Liquid Glass was created to be accessible as possible and is simpatico with features such as Reduce Transparency. To suggest Apple has cratered its reputation on accessibility in the first developer beta of iOS 26 is categorically untrue and lacking common sense. My understanding has long been accessibility is on par with readying the new iPhones to ship as far as internal importance. The company’s efforts in accessibility is neither extraneous nor a lark; it’s a highly serious endeavor. Apple isn’t perfect in accessibility, of course, but to presume they purposely ignored accessibility in making Liquid Glass is to show a gross misunderstanding of a huge part of how the company thinks and works.
Let this be a lesson to journalists and users alike: accessibility fucking matters.
