Switch Access in iOS 7

iOS 7 is due to be released later this year and as well as all of the fantastic new features that have everyone excited, there are also a whole lot of new accessibility options, especially for people with physical and motor impairments. The most exciting of these is in built switch access.

Previously, switch access on the iPhone or iPad was only available with certain apps that had the feature built in. If you wanted to use a switch to access the home screen, you could do so using some switch boxes that worked via voice over, but this was often slow and difficult to use for all but the most experience switch users.


Apple has obviously put a lot of thought into switch control, and the switch settings page boasts a long list of features, including:

• - The ability to connect numerous switches, these can be controlled by any switch interface that can be plugged into the iPad/iPhone
• - Each switch can be programmed to complete a different function. These include: step to next item, step to previous item, select item, home button, notification centre, siri, volume, etc.
• - The ability to choose between auto-scan or 2 switch step scanning
• - Scanning of the home screen is set to row-column scanning to improve speed of access
• - Auto hide of the highlight box when not in use
• - Switch stabilisation options such as a required time for the switch to be held down, and the ability to ignore repeated switch presses
• - The ability to turn on/off scanning sounds

And this is just the start of the list. iOS 7 is currently in beta testing stages and only available to developers, however hopefully we will get to see it in action by the end of the year.