App Store Connect on iOS Gets Accessibility Updates for VoiceOver, Voice control Users
Zac Hall reports for 9to5 Mac this week Apple has updated App Store Connect on iOS with various enhancements, including some pertaining to accessibility. The new version number, now at 3.2, applies to both the iPhone and iPad versions of the app.
“Today’s iOS app update matches the web version while adding VoiceOver and Voice Control improvements and a change to TestFlight feedback sorting,” Hall wrote.
According to Apple’s release notes, quoted by Hal in his story, the accessibility additions in particular (emphasis mine) “accessibility improvements for developers who are VoiceOver and Voice Control users.” As to everything else that’s new, Apple added support for 11 languages, as well as more streamlined filtering of TestFlight feedback and the requisite, boilerplate “stability improvements and bug fixes.”
My aforementioned italicizing is intentional, as I believe it’s an under-the-radar callout of something. Apropos of my piece on Apple’s 50th birthday, the “for developers who [require accessibility features]” line isn’t mere innocuous language. It actually means a lot; to wit, it’s tacit acknowledgment from the company that there exist programmers with disabilities in the world. Apple is subtly saying software development can, and should be, inclusive. As such, Apple is providing said people more accessible tools with which to scratch their creative itches. Release notes are, by and large, byzantine reads which are neither insightful nor informative. “Stability improvements and bug fixes” is used so often it’s become less about standardization and more about laziness.
As a lifelong disabled person—who isn’t a developer—it meant a great deal to see this ostensibly throwaway blurb. It was nice to see people like me humanized yet again.
Hall also reports this week’s app update comes on the heels of Apple also announcing localization changes to App Store Connect. Moreover, both pieces of news comes six months after Apple wrought support for iOS 26 and Liquid Glass to App Store Connect.
