Built for the things you do every day. And every way you experience them.

Powerful assistive features are built into iPad to complement your vision, hearing, motor skills, learning and literacy. So you can create, learn, work, play and do pretty much anything you want to do, wherever you want to do it, more easily than ever.

VoiceOver

VoiceOver is a gesture-based screen reader that lets you enjoy iPad even if you don’t see the screen. With VoiceOver enabled, just triple-click the Home button to access it wherever you are in iOS. Hear a description of everything happening on your screen, from battery level to who’s calling to which app your finger is on. You can also adjust the speaking rate and pitch to suit you.

Learn about supported languages for VoiceOver

VoiceOver in Apps

Because VoiceOver is integrated in iOS, it works with all the built-in iPad apps. You can create custom labels for buttons in any app — including third-party apps. And Apple works with the iOS developer community to make even more apps compatible with VoiceOver.

Explore popular apps using VoiceOver

Learn how third-party apps can support VoiceOver

VoiceOver Gestures

You can control VoiceOver using a simple set of gestures. Touch or drag your finger around the screen and VoiceOver tells you what’s there. Tap a button to hear a description, then double-tap to select. Or flick left and right to move from one element to the next. When you interact with an element, a black rectangle appears around it so sighted users can follow along. When you prefer privacy, you can activate a screen curtain to turn off the display completely, but still hear all that VoiceOver has to say.

VoiceOver Text Input

With VoiceOver enabled, each character on the keyboard is read aloud as you touch it, and again when you enter it. A flick up or down moves the cursor so you can edit precisely. To help you type more quickly and accurately, iOS supports multiple character input methods — including handwriting — and corrects misspelled words. Enable Speak Auto-text and you hear a sound effect and the suggested word spoken. Keep typing to ignore it, or tap the space bar to have your iPad type it for you.

VoiceOver and the Rotor

VoiceOver features a virtual control called the rotor. Turning the rotor — by rotating two fingers on the screen as if you were turning an actual dial — lets you efficiently move through a web page or document. When you’re on a web page, turn the rotor to hear settings like “headings,” “links” and “images.” Then flick to choose how you navigate the page. For example, you can skip from one heading to the next.

VoiceOver Braille Keyboard

VoiceOver includes system-wide support for braille chords in 6 and 8 dot braille, enabling direct braille entry without the need for a physical braille keyboard. The braille keyboard is available in the rotor, so you can use it to type text, unlock your iPad, launch apps, and find content in apps like Music.

VoiceOver and Braille Displays

iPad is fully compatible with more than 70 refreshable braille displays. You can connect a Bluetooth wireless braille display to read VoiceOver output, including contracted and uncontracted braille and equations using Nemeth Code. And braille displays with input keys can be used to control your iPad when VoiceOver is turned on.

Learn more about iOS braille displays

VoiceOver and Pronunciation Editor

The Pronunciation Editor allows you to create a list of words or phrases and the phonetic ways you want them to be pronounced by VoiceOver. These words and phrases will then be read aloud with your preferred pronunciation in documents, messages, web pages and other text.

New in iOS 10 Display Accommodations

iOS lets you invert colours, reduce white point, enable greyscale, or choose from a range of colour filters to support different forms of colour blindness or other vision challenges. You can select a common preset or fine-tune the colour tint and hue to customize a display setting that works for you. And once you set your filters, the settings apply to everything that appears on your iPad.

Font Adjustments

When you activate Larger Dynamic Type, the text inside a range of apps, including Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messages, Music, Notes and Settings, and even some third-party apps, is converted to a larger, easier-to-read size. And you can choose bold text to make the text heavier across a range of built-in applications.

Zoom

Zoom is a built-in screen magnifier that works wherever you are in iOS. And it works with all apps from the App Store. Turn Zoom on for full-screen or picture-in-picture view, allowing you to see the zoomed area in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size. You can adjust the magnification between 100 and 1500 percent and access multiple filter options in either view. While you’re zoomed in, you can use all the familiar gestures to navigate your iPad. And Zoom works with VoiceOver, so you can better see — and hear — what’s happening on your screen.

Audio Descriptions

Watch movies with detailed audio descriptions of every scene on your iPad. Movies with audio descriptions are displayed with the AD icon in the iTunes Store.

New in iOS 10 Magnifier

Magnifier works like a digital magnifying glass. It uses the camera on your iPad to increase the size of anything you point it at, so you can see the details more clearly. Use the flash to light the object, adjust filters to help you differentiate colours, or snap a photo to get a static close-up.

Speak Screen

If you have a hard time reading the text on your iPad, use Speak Screen to read your email, iMessages, web pages and books. Turn on Speak Screen and swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers, or just tell Siri to Speak Screen and have all the content on the page read back to you. You can adjust the voice’s dialect and speaking rate, and have words, sentences or words within sentences highlighted as they’re being read.

Siri

Siri, the intelligent assistant from Apple, helps you do the things you do every day.* Siri can send messages, place phone calls, schedule meetings, and even turn on and off VoiceOver, Guided Access and Invert Colors. And because Siri is integrated with VoiceOver, you can ask where the nearest sushi restaurant is and hear the answer read out loud.

Dictation

Dictation lets you talk where you would type. Tap the microphone button on the keyboard, say what you want to write, and your iPad converts your words (and numbers and characters) into text. So it’s easy to type an email, note or web address — without typing at all.

Resources

Support

Apple Accessibility Support

Learn more at Apple Accessibility Support

User Guides

iPad User Guide (Tagged HTML)

Learn more with the iPad User Guide in tagged HTML

iPad User Guide (iBooks)

Open the iPad User Guide in the iBooks Store

External Resources

Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Explore instructional videos with tips on using vision accessibility features in iOS.

Learn more about the Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired

AppleVis.com

Join a community of blind and low-vision users of Apple products.

Learn more about AppleVis.com

VIPhone Discussion List

Connect with a community of people using VoiceOver and other Apple products.

Learn more about VIPhone Discussion List

Mac-cessibility Network

Get information on the use of Apple products by those who are blind or low vision.

Learn more about Mac-cessibility Network

Developer Resources

Apple Accessibility for Developers

Resources to help developers make their apps more accessible.

Learn more about Apple Accessibility for Developers

Explore the vision accessibility features built into our other products.