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Jessica

Hi, I am Jessica; my friends call me Yessie. I am from North Carolina, and I am the creator of the Blinkie Chicks. I love technology, and I believe it has the power to drastically improve quality of life for all people, especially those with disabilities. I am passionate about advocacy, especially self-advocacy, and changing society’s perceptions of blind and visually impaired people. I love my family, friends, and my dog. I enjoy writing and making videos about technology, traveling, and spending time with loved ones. I believe laughter is the best medicine.

The iOS 10 Feature No One is Talking About

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Image showing iOS contacts app icon

Have you ever longed for better control over your Do Not Disturb settings on your iOS device? Have you ever missed an important phone call or text message because your phone was on Do Not Disturb and/or Silent? If you answered “yes” to either of the questions above, then iOS 10 has a feature you will love!

It’s called Emergency Bypass, and you will not find it in your Do Not Disturb settings. Instead, it is done on a contact by contact basis. You can choose to set Emergency Bypass for when a contact calls, messages, or both. If this option is set, your phone will alert you even if it is on silent or Do Not Disturb. Yes, it will play sound and vibrate, while all other calls and messages are silenced.

To set up emergency bypass:

  1. Navigate to the contacts app, or the contacts tab in the Phone app, and locate a contact for whom this feature is needed.
  2. Tap on the contacts name and tap edit at the top right of the screen.
  3. Locate the Ringtone and/or Text Tone field, and tap on it as if to change the tone.
  4. The first option on this screen will be “Emergency Bypass.” Tap the switch to enable this option.
  5. Tap Done at the top right of the screen.
  6. Now on this screen, you should notice, the option you chose to enable Emergency Bypass for should now say “Emergency Bypass on.” For example: Ringtone: Emergency Bypass On or Text Tone: Emergency Bypass On.
  7. Tap done at the top right of this screen.
  8. Repeat the steps above for any additional contacts you wish to add.

It’s surprising that this feature has not been covered by the media, but we sincerely hope this feature means you never miss another urgent phone call or message due to Do Not Disturb. Enjoy, and please share this post to let others know about this important feature!

A Brief Introduction to the New Lock Screen in iOS 10

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Image showing default iOS 10 Lock Screen

When your phone restarts after updating to iOS 10, you’ll notice the lock screen has some major changes. This post will hopefully give you an understanding of the iOS 10 lock screen, and how to navigate it.

Note: This entry refers to “swiping.” For VoiceOver users, this is a three-finger flick; for those who do not use VoiceOver, it is a one finger swipe in the directions stated.

Firstly, slide to unlock is officially dead. All directions which you could use to get from your lock screen to your home screen are now taken by other features.

If you swipe from left to right, you will find iOS 10’s Widgets. This can contain anything from Weather, Calendar, and Traffic information, to third-party widgets.

Swiping right to left will launch the camera.

Swiping down with one or three fingers respectively, will get you the Notification Center, just like anywhere else in iOS.

Lastly, swiping up from the bottom of the screen will launch Control Center, just like everywhere in iOS.

Although you can disable as many or as few of these sections as you please, you cannot get your Slide to Unlock functionality back.

So, how do you unlock your phone?

By default, you press the home button. Yes, this is even the default behavior for devices with Touch ID.

This method of unlocking an iOS device was implemented because touch ID was too fast for some users, preventing them from reading their notifications on the lock screen.

If you would prefer to unlock your device with Touch ID, instead of having to press the home button, follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Tap General, Accessibility, Home Button.
  3. Enable “Rest Finger to Open.”

The new lock screen in iOS 10 will be something for most people to get used to, but we hope this post helps a little with the transition process.

Improvements to HomeKit in iOS and tvOS

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Image showing home kit icon on presentation stage.

If the topic of home automation interests you at all, you’re going to love what iOS 10 and tvOS have to offer. Until now, Apple’s HomeKit platform has been a bit underwhelming, and not exactly user friendly. Finally, Apple has better integrated HomeKit, and made it easier for users to manage all of their HomeKit devices.

Some changes include:

The arrival of the much needed, and anticipated Home app in iOS 10. Now you can easily manage all HomeKit-enabled products in your home, set up groups of products into Rooms, create and manage Scenes, and set-up HomeKit Triggers for a fully automated experience. This is a much improved experience over iOS 8 and iOS 9, where one would need to manage each product with its own app, and integrate them all with another third-party app.

You can now also control HomeKit devices and set scenes right from the third page of Control Center. This is much more user-friendly than launching the app, and is a great alternative for when you’re unable to use Siri.

Speaking of Siri, Siri’s HomeKit support is much improved in iOS 10. In previous versions of iOS, the connection between Siri and HomeKit devices didn’t work about as often as it did work. Now this is no longer the case. Rarely does Siri tell me my devices are not responding, and you even get a bit of humor at times.

In addition, HomeKit is supported on the Apple TV. This means, you can set the movie scene to dim the lights before you watch a movie, all with the 4the Generation Apple TV’s Siri remote. The Apple TV can also function as a HomeKit hub for better performance when you’re away from home.

Note: If you have an iPad which remains at home, on wifi, and plugged in all the time, it too can function as a HomeKit hub.

After testing HomeKit throughout the beta cycle of iOS 10 and tvOS, I am happy to report that all features are 100% accessible. I hope you all enjoy using HomeKit as much as I do!

New VoiceOver Features in iOS 10

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Image showing VoiceOver icon. icon is a grey gradient to white with a universal access symbol and a speaker with sound waves going to the right.

iOS 10 has a lot of goodies for everyone, including those of us who are blind or visually impaired. We are excited to introduce you to a few of the major VoiceOver changes in iOS 10, which are sure to improve your experience!

Pronunciation Editor

VoiceOver now has a pronunciation editor! The truth is no screen reader is going to pronounce every single word the way we’d like – this is especially true for names. Finally, iOS gains a pronunciation editor just like the Mac has had for years. You can check out this feature in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech > Pronunciations.

Verbosity Panel

Similarly, VoiceOver now has a Verbosity panel. Although it is limited, this section in VoiceOver Settings allows you to adjust the amount of information that is given by VoiceOver. Currently there are options for Speak Hints and Speak Emoji Suffix.

New Audio Settings

Additionally, in iOS 10, VoiceOver Settings now includes an Audio section. In this section, you can find a toggle to Auto Select Speaker in Call. If this feature is enabled, you’ll notice the same behavior you always have when making or receiving a phone call with VoiceOver running. However, if you turn this option off, calls will no longer be affected by the proximity sensor, regardless of whether or not VoiceOver is running. The second option in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Audio will only appear if a stereo audio device is connected. This could include headphones or a bluetooth speaker. With headings called Speech Channel and Sound Channel, this option allows you to control whether VoiceOver speech and sounds come through the left channel (or speaker) or right channel (or speaker).

Voices

Another great addition to the VoiceOver section in Accessibility Settings is the inclusion of more voices. If you don’t like the current options for VoiceOver voices on iOS 10, if you get bored of voices easily, or if you just like using different voices for different tasks, you will be happy with iOS 10. New voices have been added for use with VoiceOver. Feel free to check them all out in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech > Voice.

Custom Rotor Actions

Lastly, there is a new feature in iOS 10 that may affect how you use the OS as a whole, and apps that are updated to support it. It is an option for developers called Custom Rotor Actions. This allows users to quickly accomplish tasks using the rotor, instead of searching for buttons or using a pass-through gesture. There are many examples of this, but here are two great examples:

When on the home screen in iOS 10, you will notice VoiceOver tells you the actions are available for each app, and if you swipe down, there is an option for Arrange Apps. If you would like more information about how to arrange apps this way, we have a great post about that here on iAccessibility.

Secondly, you will notice custom rotor actions in the Mail app. When you come across mail threads in your inbox, there will be a new “Expand Thread” option. This allows you to quickly interact with mail threads without having to leave your list of other messages. In addition, if you tap on a message to view it, there will be a Messages rotor action. It will allow you to quickly navigate the thread as a whole, and read all of its messages.

Custom Rotor actions is a wonderful feature, which is sure to improve your iOS 10 experience and productivity.

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