Apple Releases iOS 7.1 with Numerous Accessibility Tweaks

Today, Apple released iOS 7.1 with numerous accessibility improvements. While these features are not as exciting as the accessibility features added in major releases of iOS they still offer advantages for many users. Most of the improvements focus on making the new iOS interface easier to see for people with visual impairments. Turning on bold text now makes the keyboard, calculator, and in app icons bold in addition to text. A new option found under the accessibility menu allows users to turn on button shapes which makes it easier to distinguish text from buttons. In addition to limiting the parallax effect, reduce motion now limits multitasking animations and animations in the weather and messages apps. iOS 7.1 also allows users to darken colors used in apps to make them easier to view and increase the white point of the display to cut down on glare.

Button Shapes

iOS 7.1 also includes a number of VoiceOver bug fixes, but some are still present in iOS 7.1. In addition to accessibility improvements iOS 7.1 includes an important stability improvement that limits a crashing issue that was present in iOS 7. Among other improvements, Touch ID finger print scanning accuracy is also improved for iPhone 5s users.

Users can download iOS 7.1 by going to settings > general > software update.