A lot of folks have already covered the ecosystem and performance perks of iPhones, so I’ll switch it up and talk from the perspective of someone with a disability. I’m visually impaired, and from the viewpoint of people with disabilities, iOS blows Windows, Android, and Linux out of the water in terms of experience. Let’s just focus on two features Apple added in iOS 14 this year.
First, there’s VoiceOver Recognition, a fully local image recognition engine powered by the NPU. How powerful is it? I turn it on, point my phone’s camera at a book, and it reads the text aloud automatically. Reading a physical book as a blind person? That was unthinkable before, but Apple quietly made it happen this year. It can also describe images—like if I point the camera at a dog eating, the phone tells me, “A dog is eating.” In that moment, it’s like that song lyric, “You are my eyes,” hits me right in the feels.
Second, there’s Sound Recognition for the deaf community. Picture a simple scenario: someone knocks on the door. If you can hear, no big deal—you open it. But for someone with hearing loss, it’s not that easy. Now, with Sound Recognition, your phone picks up the sound, identifies it, and turns it into text on the screen. Knock detected? You’re notified.
I don’t care if my phone can take perfect moon pics. The real chaos I face is the barriers in front of me every day. Apple’s stuff might not always be the flashiest, but it’s what users like me actually need. That’s why I stick with iPhone. |