The iOS interface that has powered the iPhone for more than 15 years is an iconic part of the popular product. But an underreported fact is that earlier this year, Apple built an entirely new interface within iOS to allow less confident and capable users to operate their iPhones. .
Assistive Access, part of iOS 17, is one of the many features hidden in the accessibility options of your iPhone’s Settings app. It arrived with little fanfare this summer, but it feels worth exploring and discussing because it’s effectively a completely new type of iOS hidden inside a familiar version. That’s why we’re embarking on a whistleblowing tour of assisted access. Here’s a look at who might benefit from his Assistive Access as it stands, and how they might benefit from future changes.
Before we get into the detailed discussion, let me first explain a little bit about assisted access and its related options.
Setting up auxiliary access
To set up Assistive Access (coming soon!),[è¨å®š]on the menu[アクセシビリティ]You need to open the dedicated section at the bottom of the section. Before you begin, you need to set up an Apple ID. To set up your PIN and Face ID or Touch ID, you may need to be in the same room as the person you’re setting up your phone with. . However, if you want to set up the phone yourself, you can use your existing Apple ID and security method.
In either case, you will need a new PIN code to turn Assistive Access on or off. Of course, it can be the same as the unlock PIN, but if you’re managing the phone on someone else’s behalf, you might want to use something different.
One important decision is whether to display your apps as a list or in two columns. The list option lets you see more information on screen, but it’s much easier to read app names and icons in grid format.
Apps that can be used with Assistive Access must be pre-selected by flagging optimized and non-optimized apps during the setup flow. You can add (almost) any app already installed on your iPhone to the Assistive Access home screen, but there’s no option to set up multiple home screens, so the list gets longer the more apps you add.
Some apps may limit the features you can access during setup. For example, Apple Music requires you to flag specific playlists for use with Assistive Access, while the Calling app (which combines FaceTime and the Phone app in one) allows you to flag all your contacts or You can set up access to only selected contacts.
To launch Assistive Access, press the button at the top of the menu. This will restart your phone and activate the new layout. If you need to exit, press the power button three times,[終了]Simply select your option and enter the PIN you used during setup. This doesn’t have to be the same as the phone’s unlock PIN, so the main user can maintain control of assisted access while keeping the phone secure as usual.
Using auxiliary access on iPhone
When your iPhone powers back on, you’ll see a new, very simple lock screen. You can also set a wallpaper (but not the home screen). However, the large unlock button still takes up the screen.
If there are messages waiting, a new blue notification badge will appear on the unlock button. And yes, it’s a singular badge – you can only get one. Inside the badge, which appears in each associated app, there is no number representing how many notifications are waiting inside. There is also no pop-up banner upon arrival, just a simple buzz and message tone combination.
When you open the app and try it out, you’ll see that we have a specially redesigned app for a simplified interface. For example, the camera app lets you choose whether to shoot video or still images with the front or back camera, and the actual camera provides a simple viewfinder and shutter button.
However, many apps, including all non-Apple apps as of this writing, do not have an improved interface. Instead, it appears in windowed mode, with a back button prominently displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Usually this is not a problem, but it can be. For example, we found that the Wallet app didn’t respond well to narrow windows. That is, you cannot see the entire path. See image below. You won’t see the destination or the full QR code for this train ticket, and there’s no option to scroll sideways to view it.
At least on the gesture-controlled iPhone 15 Pro Max where I tried this, there’s no multitasking ability to switch between apps, so you’ll end up using the Back button a lot. However, if you swipe from the left side, you can return from certain menus as usual.
I can’t access the Assistive Access App Store or Settings app. Setup cannot add them. However, while you can’t install new apps or change most of your phone’s options, some settings are available in the power button triple-press menu.
This allows users to change brightness, text size, volume, and enable airplane mode and dark mode. There are also emergency call options and options to exit assistance access and restart your phone to regular iOS.
The ups and downs of Assistive Access
It’s admirable that Apple is trying something new with accessibility options. Especially something as big as a whole new subversion of iOS. But the question is, is this actually useful?
For my own needs, I’ll probably continue to use Assistive Access as a kind of enhanced focus mode when I need to concentrate. Not being able to access apps with just a few taps and having to wait for the phone to restart if necessary seems like a much bigger hurdle than the “downtime” focus mode. Go back to wasting time on YouTube.
Users looking for a “dumb phone” experience on their iPhone will also find this advantageous. You can breathe new life into your old model as long as your iPhone is still running iOS 17 by simply configuring everything you actually want to display on your phone.
But the purpose of Apple’s Assistive Access is to: Support pageis “”[make] I don’t have any first-hand experience with this, but as someone who tries to be considerate of how different types of phone users handle certain features of their devices, here’s what I think: Look at some major drawbacks.
The biggest hurdle for me is that Assistive Access is clearly intended to be used by, or at least under the supervision of, someone who is at least somewhat accustomed to using an iPhone in a normal way. is. Apple recommends hiring a “trusted supporter” to help with setup. This can be a time-consuming process where you decide which apps and contacts you want to have access to, only to turn on assisted access and realize you’ve forgotten something basic. For example, you can allow her access to the Clock app for timers and alarms, or allow her web browsing in Safari.
Once you put your phone in Assistive Access mode, it’s not a set-it-and-forget thing. To perform basic iPhone tasks like updating and downloading apps, joining new Wi-Fi networks, setting up Bluetooth accessories, and sending via AirDrop, you need to take your iPhone out of assisted access.
While this may be a necessary restriction for some users, it may compromise the independence of others. So supporters who were hoping to make each other’s lives easier by giving someone an Assive Access iPhone may end up providing far more technical support than expected.
We’d really like to see more customization improvements implemented in future updates, such as the ability to give users with Assistive Access turned on more access to internal settings. Ideally, it would involve at least basic support for all standard iPhone apps, if not fully custom versions like we saw with the camera app.
What’s really unhelpful is that until this article was published, the mainstream tech press, including ourselves, hadn’t talked much about this feature since it was announced at WWDC 2023 in the summer. This feature certainly doesn’t get any better. If people didn’t know about its existence and ended up trying it and discovering for themselves a list of pros and cons about using it.
Give Assistive Access a try. Or, feel free to show it to someone you think could benefit from using Assistive Access. Also, I hope someone finds it useful as is. But I believe that for Assistive Access to reach its full potential, Apple will follow its past example and allow users with specific needs to benefit from a simplified interface with minimal outside help. We believe we need to add more options.