Accessibility on Apple Watch: New Gesture Control System

Accessibility on Apple Watch: New Gesture Control System

Accessibility features are beginning to reach the Apple ecosystem in recent years and have already been quite prominent. One of the products that are currently in the company’s point of view is the Apple Watch that could end up including a gesture system to control it much easier. In this article we will tell you all the details that have been known about this new inclusion.

Apple is fully committed to accessibility

The advent of these accessibility features are no mere guesswork that analysts have made. Apple itself in a press release has published an extensive list of new functions that will be designed for those who have some kind of disability that makes it impossible to use any equipment correctly. These include the ‘AssistiveTouch’ technology that will be available for the Apple Watch. In this way, anyone can control the watch without having to touch the screen or the side controls.

apple watch accesibilidad

The operation will be based on the automatic learning of the device taking information from different sensors of the Apple Watch such as the gyroscope, the accelerometer and the frequency sensor . As the Apple Watch does not have any type of camera, it is not possible to control gestures easily, so you must opt for these sensors. With all this information, the watch will be able to detect subtle differences in muscle movement and tendon activity. In this way, users will be able to navigate the device through a cursor with gestures with their own hand. Among these is the pinching or squeezing action that causes the upper muscles to move.

In this way, anyone who cannot use the touch function of the watch as such can have this alternative. Among the main functionalities are the answer to incoming calls, access the movement pointer or also enter the control center.

apple watch accesibilidad

Availability of new accessibility features

Apple has not detailed in its press release the launch date of this functionality, although they have promised that it will be done through a press release. It can be assumed that this would be a star feature with the software generation change. By this we mean the arrival of watchOS 8 which is quite close to being released to all users.

This will mean at first that some models do not end up including this functionality due to the hardware needs that are being required to be able to detect movements in this way, also thinking that the act of squeezing the hand will have a different response depending on the user. This requires some internal power in regards to the processor as well as the precision of the sensors so that any user can enjoy this functionality. In the end, Apple’s goal is that anyone can use technology with total freedom regardless of their physical conditions, this being the most correct path to take.