Personalize Apple Accessibility, Health, and Safety features to empower older adults

Discover how iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more support independence, connection, and well-being at every stage of life.

• Vision: View what's on screen more comfortably

• Hearing: Connect with conversations, alerts, and your environment

• Mobility: Adapt how you navigate and control your device

• Speech: Your voice, your way

• Cognitive: Find your focus and feel in control

• Personalization: Make it yours

• Organization: Remember what matters

• Health: Your health, through helpful insights

• Safety: For peace of mind

• Communication: Stay connected

• Support and resources

At Apple, we believe the best technology works for everyone, including older adults. That's why our products and services are inclusive by design, with built-in accessibility features to help you connect, create, and do what you love—in the ways that work best for you.

As life changes, so do the ways we want to interact with the world around us. From making text larger onscreen to adding clarity to a conversation in a busy restaurant, Apple's ecosystem of devices, features, and services is built to adapt to meet your needs.¹

Learn more about Apple accessibility features

Vision: View what's on screen more comfortably

For some people, vision changes quickly and for others gradually. We sometimes adapt without noticing—holding things further away, avoiding small print, turning up screen brightness. Apple devices offer a full range of tools to bring the world back into focus, without drawing attention.

Learn more about Apple vision features

Display settings and text size

If you have vision challenges or difficulty differentiating colors, you can enlarge your text, make it bold, increase contrast, apply color filters, use Smart Invert, control auto-brightness, and more to help make text more legible and visible. Every setting applies instantly—across your whole device or just the apps where you need it most.

Use display and text size preferences

Magnifier

Magnifier works like a digital magnifying glass. It uses the camera on your iPhone or iPad to increase the size of any physical object you point it at, like a sign or label, so you can see all the details clearly on your screen. Use the flashlight or LED flash to light the object, adjust brightness, contrast, and filters to differentiate colors, or freeze a specific frame for a static close-up. At a restaurant with small print and low lighting, simply point your iPhone at the menu and Magnifier brings it into clear, bright focus on your screen. Once captured, you can view text with Accessibility Reader as well.

Magnify or describe things around you with Magnifier

Accessibility Reader

Accessibility Reader is a systemwide reading experience designed to make text easier to read on the screen. With Accessibility Reader on iPhone and iPad, you can read or have text read to you and customize fonts, layouts, and background colors. Once personalized, your preferred style will be available in every app when you launch Accessibility Reader and built into the Magnifier app, transforming text into a format that works for you.

Read or listen to text in apps with Accessibility Reader

Read & Speak settings

This collection of features enhances your reading or writing with audio. Hear your entire screen read aloud with Speak Screen or use Speak Selection to have a specific range of text read to you. Speech Controller lets you keep those controls onscreen so you can easily pause the speaking, adjust the rate, or navigate forward or back to the content you want to hear. Customize the voice speaking by choosing the voice and dialect that works best for your audio needs.

Hear your device speak the screen, selected text, and typing feedback

Zoom

Zoom is a screen magnifier that enlarges the content you see on your device. Choose Full Screen Zoom to magnify the entire screen or Window Zoom to magnify only part of the screen with a resizable lens. With Zoom Filters, you can apply Inverted, Grayscale, Grayscale Inverted, or Low Light filters to the magnified area.

Zoom in on the screen

Motion settings

If you prefer less motion on your screen, Reduce Motion simplifies animations and visual transitions. Automatically pause images with moving elements in apps like Messages and Safari, or videos in apps like the App Store and YouTube. When you want to use iPhone or iPad while a passenger in a moving vehicle, Vehicle Motion Cues can help reduce motion sickness.²

Customize onscreen motion

Hearing: Connect with conversations, alerts, and your environment

A conversation across a noisy dinner table. A phone call that's hard to follow. A television program where the dialogue keeps getting lost. Hearing changes are among the most common experiences of getting older—and among the most isolating. Get to know some of the powerful features that Apple builds into iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch to support people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Learn more about Apple hearing features

Hearing Health

AirPods Pro offer an end-to-end hearing health experience, giving you access to a Hearing Test, a clinical-grade Hearing Aid⁴ feature, and active Hearing Protection.⁵ Take a scientifically validated Hearing Test in the comfort of your home in about five minutes by pairing AirPods Pro with an iPhone or iPad. The clinical-grade Hearing Aid feature can help those with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. AirPods Pro also provide active Hearing Protection across listening modes to help prevent exposure to loud environmental noise.

Use hearing health features with AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods Pro 3

Live Listen

With Live Listen, your iPhone or iPad can act like a microphone that sends sound to your AirPods, Beats headphones, or Made for iPhone hearing devices so you can hear what's being said more clearly. Just turn on the feature and place your device near the people who are speaking.⁸

Use Live Listen with AirPods, Beats, or Made for iPhone hearing devices

Background Sounds

Background Sounds for iPhone and iPad are ambient sounds that can help minimize distractions and increase your sense of focus and calm, which can help users with tinnitus. Choose from balanced, bright, and dark noise and ocean, rain, and other soundscapes to continuously play in the background and avoid interruptions from environmental noise.

Play background sounds on iPhone or iPad

Sensory Alerts

Your device can alert you in a way you'll notice. Choose visual or vibrating alerts for incoming Phone and FaceTime calls, new text messages, new and sent mail, and calendar events. With iPhone and iPad, you can set your screen, the LED light, or both to flash for incoming calls. This can be useful if you can't hear the sounds that announce incoming calls or other alerts, or if you might miss audible alerts in a noisy environment.

Use Sensory Alerts

Live Captions

Live Captions offer real-time transcriptions of conversations so you can follow along securely on your device.⁶ You can turn on Live Captions in your Phone calls, FaceTime calls, or any web content you're browsing. They can even capture and caption live, in-person speech through the microphone in your device with customizable placement, fonts, and colors to suit your needs.⁷

Get live captions of spoken audio

Sound and Name Recognition

Sound Recognition listens for certain sounds and uses on‑device intelligence to notify you when they are detected.⁹ This iPhone and iPad feature recognizes 15 different sounds—or you can train your device to listen for your name, as well as electronic sounds that are unique to your environment, like the beeping of appliances in your kitchen, specific types of alarms, or doorbells.¹⁰

Recognize sounds or your name using your device

Mobility: Adapt how you navigate and control your device

Your device should work the way you do. Whether you have trouble with dexterity, reduced mobility, or you simply prefer a different way to interact, these features adapt to the way you move.

Learn more about Apple mobility features

AssistiveTouch

With AssistiveTouch on iPhone and iPad, you can adapt the touchscreen to fit your needs. If certain gestures don't work for you, replace them with a tap or other gesture, use a simple sound, or connect an accessory—like a wired or Bluetooth mouse or trackpad. With AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch, you can use hand gestures to control apps and experiences across Apple Watch.

Use AssistiveTouch

Touch Accommodations

If the screen responds to unintended actions, or repeated or misplaced taps, you can change how your screen responds to touches, taps, and swipes with Touch Accommodations. Avoid accidental taps by requiring a longer touch before the screen responds with Hold Duration. If tremors or limited dexterity causes multiple taps when you only meant one, Ignore Repeat registers only one touch within a timeframe and ignore the rest. Tap Assistance lets you adjust your finger placement before recognizing a tap. Put your finger down anywhere, slide to where you want to tap, and lift.

Learn more about Touch Accommodations

Voice Control

Navigate your device using just your voice. Commands like click, swipe, and tap help you easily interact with your favorite apps. You can precisely select, drag, and zoom by showing numbers alongside clickable items or by superimposing a grid on the screen.¹¹

Use Voice Control on your iPhone or iPad

Dictation

With Dictation, you can dictate text anywhere you can type it. On iPhone and iPad, you can fluidly switch between voice and touch so you can continue to interact with your onscreen keyboard to move the cursor or insert QuickType predictive suggestions.¹²

Dictate text on your device

Speech: Your voice, your way

Communication is deeply personal. The way we express ourselves—our tone, our words, our voice—is part of who we are. For anyone whose voice has changed, or who finds speaking difficult in certain situations, or who don't speak at all, these features make sure you always have a way for your thoughts to be voiced so you can stay connected with others.

Find out more about Apple speech features

Live Speech

You can use Live Speech to type what you want to say and have your device speak it out loud. Live Speech can help you generate real-time responses to stay connected during Phone and FaceTime calls as well as in-person conversations. You can also save commonly used phrases to help you quickly respond during daily interactions and conversations. For example, you can create a Coffee Shop category to group phrases you frequently use when ordering your morning coffee.

Use Live Speech on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch

Personal Voice

With Personal Voice, you can create a synthesized voice that sounds like you in minutes. Read through a series of 10 randomized phrases to record audio that can be used to generate a voice that sounds similar to your own. If you have difficulty pronouncing or reading full sentences, you can create your Personal Voice using short, three-word phrases.¹³ Personal Voice is created on your device to keep your information private and secure.

Create a Personal Voice on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac

Cognitive: Find your focus and feel in control

Not everything on your device needs your attention at once. These features help you cut through the noise, with simpler screens, filtered notifications, and routines that handle repetitive tasks on their own, so you can focus on what matters.

Learn more about Apple cognitive features

Assistive Access

Assistive Access offers a distinctive experience for iPhone and iPad. Onscreen items are bigger, features are more focused, and it's easier to navigate and understand what actions are possible. Apps for common activities have been specially designed to make it easier to call and send messages to loved ones, magnify what matters, capture and review photos, and listen to music.

Navigate your device with Assistive Access

Guided Access

Guided Access limits your device to a single app and lets you control which features within that app are available. Useful when you want to stay focused on one task, hand a device to someone without them navigating out of an experience, or just keep things simple.

Use Guided Access

Focus

Focus helps you concentrate on a task by minimizing distractions. You can turn on Do Not Disturb to temporarily silence all notifications, or allow specific notifications—like medication reminders—and let other people and apps know you're busy. If Apple Intelligence is turned on, you can also use the Reduce Interruptions Focus, which shows you only the most important notifications.¹⁴

Set up a Focus and reduce interruptions

Siri

Forgot to take your medication? Ask Siri. Want to call a family member without searching for their number? Ask Siri. Need to know what's on your calendar today without opening the app? Ask Siri. For everyday tasks that require several steps, Siri handles the navigation so you don't have to. You can adjust how quickly Siri responds, use text instead of voice, have Siri listen for atypical speech patterns, or have it announce notifications and end calls automatically. And ask Siri questions that draw on the context of your own life—your messages, your calendar, your notes—for help that feels genuinely personal.¹⁵

Change Siri accessibility settings

Shortcuts

A shortcut is a quick way to get one or more tasks done with your apps. The Shortcuts app lets you create your own shortcuts with multiple steps. The Accessibility Gallery in Shortcuts includes ready-made tools designed for a wide range of needs. The Remember This shortcut logs what you've done throughout the day in a running note. Help Message sends your location to chosen contacts with a single tap. There's even an Accessibility Assistant shortcut, which can provide personalized guidance on which built-in accessibility features could help your needs.

Use the Shortcuts app

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence simplifies your everyday communication and helps you stay focused. In Mail, use Priority Messages to quickly view your most urgent emails, like a same-day dinner invitation or boarding pass. Record a phone call and receive an automatically generated summary in Notes, so important details are never lost. Search your entire photo library in natural language, like "photos from last December" or "pictures with Mei." All while keeping your information private and secure on your device.¹⁶

Learn more about Apple Intelligence

Personalization: Make it yours

Your Apple devices are designed to work the way you do—not the other way around. iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch include features that help you tailor your experience across every app, every call, and every day.

Customize Control Center

Control Center on iPhone and iPad lets you customize which controls appear, how large the buttons are, and how they're arranged—including dedicated categories for accessibility, hearing, mobility, and vision. Add Text Size to adjust Dynamic Type font size across your whole device instantly. You can access Control Center fluidly with a single, continuous swipe down on the Home Screen.

• Use and customize Control Center on iPhone

• Use and customize Control Center on iPad

• Use Control Center on Apple Watch

Per App Settings

Use Per App Settings to choose different color, text size, and motion settings for certain apps or for the Home Screen and App Library. You can adjust display settings like contrast and transparency, or make text in your apps appear larger or bolder. You'll see the changes applied next time you open the app.

• Customize visual accessibility settings for specific apps on iPhone

• Customize visual accessibility settings for specific apps on iPad

Share Accessibility Settings

You can temporarily share your Accessibility settings with another iPhone or iPad. For example, if you're borrowing a friend's iPhone or using a public iPad, you can share your Accessibility settings with the other device and remove them when you're finished.

Share your Accessibility settings with another device

Widgets

With widgets, you get timely information from your favorite apps at a glance on your Home Screen, Lock Screen, or Today View on iPhone and iPad. Widgets display live information including reminders, calendar, medications, and weather. Interactive Widgets let you take action right from the Home Screen, letting you check off a reminder, control your music, or manage your home without opening a single app.

• How to add and edit widgets on your iPhone

• Add, edit, and remove widgets on iPad

• See timely widgets in the Smart Stack on Apple Watch

Organization: Remember what matters

Staying on top of medications, appointments, and daily tasks takes energy. So does remembering where you put things, what you were about to do, or what someone just told you. Apple devices offer a quiet, capable set of tools to keep life organized to manage the full, busy reality of every day.

Reminders

Reminders makes it easier than ever to remember the things you need to do. Make grocery lists, create checklists, organize to-do lists, and set alerts based on time and location. Capture a reminder from your Lock Screen, Control Center, or Action Button—without opening the app. Swipe on a recent call in the Phone app to set a callback reminder. Apple Intelligence¹⁶ can suggest action items automatically and organizes your tasks so nothing piles up. Mark a reminder as urgent and Reminders will schedule an alarm when that reminder is due. Grocery Lists automatically sort items into sections for ease when shopping. Assign reminders to family members, pin your most-used lists, and find everything scheduled in Calendar too, so nothing gets missed.

• Use Reminders on your iPhone, iPad

• Make and view lists in Reminders on Apple Watch

• Make a grocery list in Reminders on iPhone

• Make a grocery list in Reminders on iPad

Calendar

Calendar brings all your appointments, events, and reminders together in one view. Set up multiple calendars—one for health appointments, one for family events—and share them with people you trust. Add birthdays and anniversaries so the dates you care about never sneak up on you—set a reminder a week ahead to send a card, and another on the day to make a call.

• Create and edit events in Calendar on iPhone

• Create and edit events in Calendar on iPad

• Check and update your calendar on Apple Watch

• Share iCloud calendars on iPhone

• Share iCloud calendars on iPad

Notes

Use the Notes app to jot down quick thoughts or organize detailed information with checklists, images, web links, scanned documents, handwritten notes, and sketches. Easily search by words, tags or folders to access your content. Lock private notes and share notes with family members to collaborate on plans. With Apple Intelligence, you can record in audio—in a meeting, a conversation with a doctor, a family story—and automatically generate a transcript in Notes.¹⁶

• Create and format notes on iPhone

• Create and format notes on iPad

• Create and view notes on Apple Watch

• Use Apple Intelligence in Notes on iPhone

• Use Apple Intelligence in Notes on iPad

• How to lock or unlock notes on iPhone or iPad

Find My & AirTag

The Find My app makes it easy to keep track of your Apple devices — even if they’re offline. You can attach an AirTag to the things you reach for every day—keys, a wallet, a bag, a walking cane—or pinpoint friends and family or share your location with them. The Find My app shows you exactly where a person or device is on a map and can guide you to a lost device with turn-by-turn directions or by playing a sound.

• Use Find My to locate your lost Apple device or AirTag

• How to add an AirTag to Find My

• Share locations with family members and locate their lost devices on iPhone

• Share locations with family members and locate their lost devices on iPad

Photos and Memories

The Photos app recognizes the faces of people and pets in your photos and groups them together. You can name the people or pets in your photos, mark your favorites, and more. Memories creates personalized collections of your photos set to music, like a short film of a holiday or birthday. With Apple Intelligence, search your photos with natural language, such as "photos of Mom in the garden." Share the moments that matter, with the people who matter. iCloud Shared Albums let you create private, secure collections to share with exactly who you choose—keeping your memories personal, not public.

• Use the People & Pets album in Photos on iPhone or iPad

• Use Apple Intelligence in Photos on iPhone

• Use Apple Intelligence in Photos on iPad

Voice Memos

Voice Memos turns your iPhone into a pocket recording device—capture a note to yourself, a conversation you want to remember, or an idea before it slips away. Recordings are stored, searchable, and easy to share.

• Make a recording in Voice Memos on iPhone

• Get started with Voice Memos on iPad

• Record and play voice memos on Apple Watch

Screen Recording

Screen Recording captures exactly what's happening on your screen as a video—with audio if you choose. It's a practical tool for creating step-by-step guides for family members, recording a process you want to remember, or sharing your screen with someone helping you remotely. Add Screen Recording to Control Center for one-tap access.

Take a screen recording on iPhone or iPad

Clock and Alarms

The Clock app lets you set multiple labeled alarms—such as "Morning medication" or "Daily check in"—so each alert tells you exactly what it's for. Run several timers simultaneously, each with its own label. Ask Siri to set an alarm or timer hands-free. Alarms sound even when your iPhone is on silent.

• How to set and change alarms on your iPhone

• Set an alarm in Clock on iPad

Health: Your health, through helpful insights

Everything that matters to your health, in one place. The Health app on iPhone brings together medications, activity, sleep, mood, and more—private, organized, and always with you. And if you have an Apple Watch, it adds an extra layer of insight, tracking your heart rate, activity, and more throughout the day (and night).

Learn more about Apple health features

Health app

The Health app stores health data from your Apple devices, compatible apps, and third-party devices. You can set up a sleep schedule, check your headphone levels, schedule when to take your medications, and even store health records from your medical providers. Designed with privacy in mind, you can choose to share data—such as activity trends, and high heart rate and irregular rhythm notifications—with friends, family, and caregivers.

• Get started with Health on iPhone

• Get started with Health on iPad

• Get started with health features on Apple Watch

• Share your data in Health on iPhone

• Share your data in Health on iPad

Medications

You can add your medications in the Health app to help track and manage the medications, vitamins, and supplements you take. If you set a medication schedule, you receive notifications from the Health app reminding you to log the medication. Review how consistently you've been taking each medication and export a PDF summary to share with your doctor.

Add and log medications with iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch

Heart Rate and Irregular Rhythm Notifications

You can enable notifications from the Heart Rate app on your Apple Watch to alert you to high or low heart rates and irregular heart rhythms. The irregular rhythm notification feature on your Apple Watch will occasionally look at your heartbeat to check for an irregular rhythm that might be suggestive of atrial fibrillation (AFib). With Health app, you can share these notifications with family or carers.

Heart rate notifications on Apple Watch

Fall Detection

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, Fall Detection can help connect you to emergency services¹⁷ if needed. It taps you on the wrist, sounds an alarm, and displays an alert. You can choose to contact emergency services or dismiss the alert. If your watch detects that you've been immobile for about a minute after a fall, it will make the call automatically and share details of your location to emergency services. If emergency contacts are set up in the Health App, it will also notify them of the fall.

Use Fall Detection with Apple Watch

Activity

The Activity app on your Apple Watch helps you keep track of your movement throughout the day and encourages you to meet your fitness goals. The app tracks how often you stand, how much you move, and how many minutes of exercise you do. Three rings in different colors summarize your progress. The goal is to sit less, move more, and get some exercise by completing each ring every day.¹⁸

Track daily activity with Apple Watch

Walking Steadiness

When you carry your iPhone in a pocket or holster near your waist, the Health app uses custom algorithms that assess your balance, strength, and gait. You can receive a notification if your steadiness becomes low or stays low, and you can automatically share the notification with someone close to you. Health can also show you exercises to help improve your walking steadiness.

Monitor your walking steadiness in Health on iPhone

Mental Health Assessment

You can take standardized mental health assessments to answer questions about how you're feeling and see your current risk for depression or anxiety.¹⁹ These questionnaires will help you understand if you should talk to your doctor, and you'll have a PDF of the results that you can share.

• Take a mental health assessment in Health on iPhone

• Take a mental health assessment in Health on iPad

• Understand and use Mental Health Assessments in the Health app

State of Mind

You can reflect on how you're feeling and log your momentary emotions and daily moods to keep track of your mental well-being. You can also learn how your state of mind may correlate with lifestyle factors like exercise, sleep, time in daylight, and mindful minutes.

• Log your state of mind in Health on iPhone

• Log your state of mind in Health on iPad

Safety: For peace of mind

For older adults living independently, and for the family members and carers who love them, safety is never far from mind. Apple devices offer a range of features that provide genuine reassurance—not through surveillance, but through quiet, capable tools that are there when they're needed and invisible when they're not.

Learn more about personal safety

Emergency SOS

In case of emergency, you can use iPhone or Apple Watch to quickly call or text for help. Press and hold the side button on iPhone to call emergency services—no need to unlock your device or navigate to a phone app. iPhone shares your location with emergency services automatically and sends a message to your emergency contacts.

Make an emergency call or text on iPhone or Apple Watch

Medical ID

Medical ID on iPhone helps first responders access your critical medical information such as allergies, medical conditions, medications, blood type, and emergency contacts from the Lock Screen, without needing your passcode. Set it up once, and it's there whenever it's needed.

Set up your Medical ID in the Health app on iPhone

Safety Check

Review what you're sharing, and with whom. Safety Check is a feature in iPhone Settings that gives you a clear view of every app and person that has access to your information—location, photos, contacts, and more. Make individual changes, or use Emergency Reset to stop all sharing immediately. This can be helpful if your personal safety may be at risk. A straightforward way to stay in control of your privacy.

Safety Check for iPhone with iOS 16 or later

Recovery contact

An account recovery contact—such as a family member or close friend—can help make sure that you always have access to your account, even if you forgot your Apple Account password or device passcode. They never have access to your account—they simply hold the key they can pass on to you when you need it.

• Set up an account recovery contact

• Help a friend or family member as their account recovery contact

Digital Legacy and Legacy Contact

A Legacy Contact is someone you choose to have access to the data in your Apple Account after your death. Digital Legacy lets you designate one or more Legacy Contacts—people who will be able to access your photos, messages, notes, and memories in your Apple Account after your death. Setting up a Legacy Contact is a simple, private act of care that takes just a few minutes.

How to add a Legacy Contact for your Apple ID

Communication: Stay connected

A call with family. A message from a friend. The features in this section are about the small moments of connection that make every day feel full.

FaceTime

With FaceTime, you can make and answer calls, share your screen, watch movies together, and more—all in real time. Share your screen during a call to look at photos, browse something side by side, or walk someone through a task. Turn on Live Captions to display spoken words as text in real time during calls. And if the people you want to call don't have an Apple device, they can join a FaceTime call through a web link.

• Use FaceTime to make video or audio calls with your iPhone or iPad

• Share your screen in FaceTime on your iPhone or iPad

• Make phone and FaceTime audio calls on Apple Watch

Messages

Send a text, a photo, or a voice message to anyone—whether they use Apple devices or not. Messages makes staying in touch as simple as it should be. Dictate messages with your voice, increase text size for easier reading, and use Siri to send a message hands-free. Share your location with family members directly from a conversation, so staying in touch goes beyond words.

• Get started with Messages on iPhone

• Get started with Messages on iPad

• Read messages on Apple Watch

Support and resources

Whatever you need next—a how-to video, a conversation with an expert, or a way to share feedback—Apple has support options designed to meet you where you are.

Accessibility support videos

Learn tips and how-tos from Apple on YouTube

Accessibility Assistant shortcut

Get accessibility feature recommendations based on your needs and preferences

Accessibility Support page

Get help with accessibility features or connect with an expert

Contact Accessibility support

Call or chat for accessibility support

Contact Apple Support using a sign language interpreter

Use SignTime to connect with a sign language interpreter

Email accessibility@apple.com

Email feedback, ask questions, and report issues

Personal Safety User Guide

Learn about the privacy and safety features built into their Apple devices

Today at Apple Group Sessions

Explore accessibility-related Today at Apple Group Sessions