Each year, on the same week as Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the accessibility team at Apple shares a slew of upcoming assistive features ahead of their public release. This time around, the company has a huge number of updates as it commemorates “40 years of accessibility innovation at Apple,” according to a press release. This year’s group of enhancements covers all its platforms and a variety of types of disabilities, and one of them is a new initiative that should make more apps more inclusive.
Later this year, the App Store will get “Accessibility Nutrition Labels,” which will be a new section in app pages. These will give a quick preview of the accessible features that each listing offers, including things like support for the VoiceOver screen reader, Larger Text, Sufficient Contrast, Captions, Voice Control, Reduced Motion and more. Tapping on each preview will bring up a page with more details on other accessibility features that are available and explanations on each of them.
The labels will be available worldwide, and Apple will make more guidance available to developers on the criteria their apps should meet before they display the relevant accessibility information on their pages.
With these labels, people can find out if apps will meet their needs without having to first download them. If you are colorblind, for example, you can see if a matching game offers “Differentiate without color alone” before installing it and going into its settings to verify.
By bringing these labels to the App Store, Apple is delivering what the gaming industry is seeking to do with the Accessible Games Initiative (AGI) that was announced in March. While the AGI is a broader effort with promised participation from companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Electronic Arts, it has yet to share a firm timeline for the implementation of the system. The Entertainment Software Association said in March that timing would depend on each company.
Now, we’ll have to wait and see exactly how much later in the year Apple will start displaying these labels, but the company will be sharing more guidance with developers at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, so it might take till the second half of 2025 for the changes to appear.
Apple also shared plenty more on new assistive features coming to iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and the Vision Pro, including a new Magnifier for Mac, an Accessibility Reader and updated Braille Access.
