New Apple Ads Show How Accessible Tech Helps People Living With Disabilities

According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people in the world are living with some sort of disability. That’s one in seven of us. To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 18th, Apple has launched its “Designed for Everyone” campaign with short video profiles of seven people who are using its accessible tech in their everyday lives.

We meet Carlos Vasquez, the lead singer, drummer, and PR manager for the metal band Distartica, who lost his eyesight to glaucoma as a child. Ian MacKay is a cyclist who also happens to be paralyzed form the neck down, and who is set to travel 3,000 miles on the Olympic Discovery Trail by the end of this year. Meera Phillips is a 15-year old soccer player unable to fully use her natural voice as a result of Schizencephaly, which impacts motor control and speech. Todd Stabelfeldt is quadriplegic, but also a software engineer and successful entrepreneur. Andrea Dalzell is a nursing student and former Ms Wheelchair New York, who lives with spina bifida. Patrick Lafayette is a producer and radio DJ in New York, who has a vision disability. And Shane Rakowski is a middle school band director, who lives with hearing loss.

The campaign also includes an update of Apple’s Accessibility apps collection in areas of vision, hearing, speech, learning and literacy, physical motor skills, and Accessible Home With Siri, as well as hosting accessibility sessions in its retail stores to introduce people to these built-in accessibility features.

See the rest of the series below.