Last year I wrote about how the release of voice-activated hands-free hey Siri in the second-generation Airpods improved access to the Apple Watch for people with severe physical disabilities. Where previously users had to be able to physically raise their hand to press an Airpod to trigger Siri into action on the Watch, or raise and twist their wrist significantly, (something many people with severe physical disabilities cannot do), now hands-free Siri means users can summon the voice assistant to make phone calls, send messages, play music, and much more on the Apple Watch by voice commands. However, despite this welcome development, in general, the accessibility options on the Apple Watch for people with severe physical disabilities are very limited. Aside from what Siri can do there is...

Earlier this week I installed a fairly significant update to the iPhone’s operating system iOS 13.4. Whilst it included new features such as iCloud Drive folder sharing, and improvements to the Mail application amongst others, it’s a pity Apple so infrequently improves accessibility features between annual operating system updates. I have been waiting six months for the tech giant to improve access to my iPhone, including support for UK English in Voice Control dictation; to toggle the Auto-Answer feature on and off with Siri; and the ability to hang up phone calls by a voice command as I can with my smart speakers at home, (including the HomePod). For macOS users Apple also released a new update this week, and it was encouraging to see it included new head pointer support. You can s...