In Praise of text on tvOS
Across my constellation of Apple devices, I like to keep the user interface as “stock” as possible. I like to retain the out-of-the-box design, then layer accessibility features atop of it as necessary. I believe this approach gives me the best opportunity to experience (and critique) Apple’s software design decisions while sprinkling in the accessibility features I require for usability; I think it’s instructive, analysis-wise, to gauge where Apple is trying to serve the mainstream without a plethora of assistive technologies “subverting” their perspective. So, on macOS for instance, I use the default resolution as-is, then add features like Hover Text and Large Text—I don’t necessarily want the scaled-up resolution on my Pro Display XDR because its 32” screen is itself plenty large to compensate for most places where text is unreadable.
tvOS is a different beast, however. I mentioned it only in passing in my report, but arguably one of my favorite new accessibility features Apple announced ahead of Global Accessibility Awareness Day last week is tvOS is gaining support for larger text sizes. The cynical take would be to shrug your shoulders and glibly say the system should’ve had it years ago, and I’d probably agree, but here we are. Better late than never, amirite? Regardless, even on a screen as massive as my 77” LG C3 OLED, text is small—especially when reading show or episode descriptions; yes, there’s Zoom and Hover Text there as well, but again, I like to keep things clean. When I want to read something—even something like a chyron on a news broadcast—sometimes I’ll get up off the couch and walk up to the TV so I can read what I want, then go sit back down. It’s certainly one way of adapting to my environment, and most certainly another way to bask in the gloriousness of OLED televisions, but it isn’t ideal. Thus, last week’s news that tvOS will soon receive support for larger text sizes filled me with delight. I expect to enable the setting as I get the update come fall when the new iPhones, et al, ship.
A corollary to the larger text sizes is the revamped captions/subtitles appearance in tvOS. As I wrote in March, one of the notable feature additions to tvOS 26.4 was the ability to customize the look of one’s captions and/or subtitles. As someone who’s a CODA and whose first language is ASL, I can’t comfortably watch TV without captions.
At 44, I’m old enough to remember a time, circa the late ’80s-early ‘90s, when my parents had a set-top box dedicated to producing captions, sitting on top of our VCR. The captioning box plugged into the TV and would feed it captions, which would then display on screen so my parents could understand whatever dialogue there was; the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 mandated that TVs be built with captions by default, so by the time we got our big new 27” Magnavox set in 1994, it obviated the need for our aforementioned captioning box. I remember the new TV’s functionality as being revelatory to my parents, although it didn’t preclude them from also using me, their eldest kid, as an in-home interpreter to decipher words or phrases they didn’t understand. Anyway, the salient point here is only that captions are an integral part of my TV-watching experience—but, they too, can be too small for me to comfortably see.
Last night, I went down a rabbit hole of sorts and enabled the Large Text setting for captions. By default, they’re presented in a rectangular transparent black box in Apple’s San Francisco font. I went into Settings, however, and changed the typeface to my beloved SF Mono, which I’m staring at right now in MarkEdit as I write this very story. I generally prefer san-serif fonts—Curb Cuts uses Coda—but I like the nostalgic feel of a monospace font for captions. It takes me back to the days with that old box. Aesthetically, the Large Text option in SF Mono looks terrific; Apple knows how to make nice-looking, proportional interfaces using larger text. This feature is a keeper for me.
I first tried the new captions in the TV app as I watched an episode of For All Mankind. Then I tried other apps, like PBS and Disney+, which also uses the system video player. It even worked in Pluto TV. (I haven’t yet looked at Netflix or Prime Video.) I don’t know if Apple has limited the redesigned captions to the system video player in tvOS, but if it is, it’s one more reason for developers to use it. I’ll play around with it more tonight, but I heartily recommend checking out the Large Text captions. It’s a really great feature.
