Ahead of WWDC, Apple Invites Some Developers to Attend Virtual Accessibility Session - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Ahead of WWDC, Apple Invites Some Developers to Attend Virtual Accessibility Session

Apple is inviting some developers to a special Accessibility session designed to teach them how iOS apps can take advantage of accessibility features built into the operating system, according to an email shared by developer Steve Troughton-Smith.

appleaccessibilitywebinar
The event, set to be held on April 23, will be an online session that takes place live, with developers able to ask questions and sign up for individual consultations. This is the first time Apple has held an online event where developers are able to interact with engineers.

It appears that Apple may be using the session as a test run for WWDC, which is set to be a digital-only event this year. Apple plans to offer an online keynote and online sessions, which will likely be similar to the Accessibility session.

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple to Release These 15 New Products Later This Year

Friday June 12, 2026 7:45 am PDT by
Apple's annual WWDC developers conference is drawing to a close, but there is still a lot to look forward to in the second half of the year. Apple is expected to release at least 15 more products later this year. Now that the more intelligent and personal version of Siri has finally arrived in beta, a full two years after Apple first previewed it at WWDC 2024, we should begin to see some new ...
Apple Lists 250 Changes Across iOS 27 and More Feature

Apple Shares List of 250 Changes Across iOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, and More

Wednesday June 10, 2026 1:34 pm PDT by
During its WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday, Apple briefly showed a slide with hundreds of new features and enhancements coming across iOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27. All of the software updates are currently available as developer betas, and they are expected to be released to all users in September. We already highlighted some of the key new features from the ...
liquid glass app icon

Apple Maps to Get These 10 New Features in iOS 27

Thursday June 11, 2026 5:45 am PDT by
Apple Maps is getting a range of new features in iOS 27, headlined by an upgraded Flyover experience that uses AI to improve the realism and detail of its aerial imagery. Flyover is a longstanding feature of Apple Maps and lets users explore more than 350 cities in 3D with detailed landmarks, roads, parks, and buildings. Apple described the enhanced Flyover in iOS 27 as combining aerial...

Top Rated Comments

80 months ago
If this was a trial for WWDC then I'm glad they did it. Was meant to start at 9am...

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but there is a worldwide Webex outage that’s preventing us from starting today’s event on time. We are delaying the event to 10:00 AM BST while we work on resolving the issue."
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
80 months ago
It appears that Apple is trying to score political points by moving settings from application preferences and burying them in Accessibility on both iOS and MacOS, in order to inflate the number of settings in Accessibility. Apple wants to say "Look at us, we have this Accessibility thing with all these settings" when many of those settings should be located in more appropriate places. Examples:

On a Mac laptop, you go to System Preferences > Mouse and you can change scrolling speed. If you go to System Preferences > Trackpad, there is no scrolling speed. Instead, it is buried somewhere in Accessibility preferences.

In System Preferences > Mouse, there is no option to adjust pointer size. Instead, that setting is buried somewhere in Accessibility preferences.

To turn off spring loaded folders in the Finder, you don't go to Finder Preferences. Instead, that setting is buried somewhere in Accessibility preferences.

On iPhone and iPad if you go to Settings >Display & Brightness, there is no setting to control auto brightness. Instead, you have to go to Accessibility.

On iPhones and iPads that have Touch ID, you can configure whether you can wake and unlock the device without having to first press and release home button and then put your finger on the Touch ID. You can just press the home button to wake the device and activate Touch ID without having to release the button. But instead of having this option in Settings > Touch ID, it is buried in Accessibility.

Moving settings from the application and burying them in Accessibility is not helpful at all. It just causes more irritation because people now have to look in two places to find things: the application preferences and Accessibility. Now the Accessibility preferences have become as convoluted as iTunes and this helps no one.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)