After an extensive beta period, Apple on Monday released iOS 17.2 to the general public. The update includes a slew of new features like the Journal app, a “catch-up” button in Messages, a translation option for the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button, the ability to shoot spatial video on iPhone 15 Pro for the forthcoming Vision Pro, and much more.
MacStories’ Federico Viticci posted an insightful story on the news.
From an accessibility standpoint, iOS 17.2 brings with it some noteworthy enhancements. For one thing, the rumored NameDrop-esque feature that I wrote about last week—which allows you to share boarding passes, movie tickets, and more from the system Wallet app by holding two iPhones together—has officially shipped. Like NameDrop with contact information, the advent of this new “PassDrop” functionality (my name for it) should provide the same accessibility advantages for sharing Wallet passes. In short, both features eliminate the friction of manually searching for and sharing information with others; it’s essentially a shortcut. Rather than use a painstaking multi-step process-which require visual/motor/cognitive energies many people may have in short supply, if at all—PassDrop (and NameDrop) consolidates the action into a single step. This is not an insignificant development, and serves as yet another illustration of how true accessibility transcends sheer convenience in so many ways.
For another thing, iOS 17.2 also includes the ability to ask Siri to log one’s health data in the system Health app. According to a short piece on its Newsroom site, with today’s software update, iPhone (and iPadOS) users are now able to direct Siri to record pertinent data into their on-device health records. The feature, which requires watchOS 10.2 and either an Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, works because of the smartwatch’s S9 custom silicon that Apple says “now [processes] Siri requests on device” and happens on the watch itself instead of making the roundtrip to and from some server in the sky. With Siri, users can now say things like “I started my period” or “I took my 8:00am medication” without having to log it manually. Likewise, people can ask questions of Siri such as “How much did I sleep last night?”
At a high level, this new Siri functionality is spiritually similar to the PassDrop feature insofar as they remove barriers to access. Like with sharing Wallet passes or contact details, that someone can rely upon Siri to record health data and/or ask for it means less searching and less expended energy. Apple is absolutely right to market these abilities as convenient, but to reiterate an earlier point, what’s also true is they have the potential to make a big difference in terms of accessibility.
Lastly, the ability in iPadOS 17.2 to autofill PDFs is an accessibility boon in that it saves a disabled person from, once again, the relative rigors of finding the correct field(s) and manually have to enter information.
All told, the new features listed herein reinforces the notion that accessibility is for everyone. In this case, the concept works in reverse: today’s updates are ostensibly for mainstream audiences, yet also have strong pertinence in a disability context. This isn’t insignificant.
In addition to iOS 17.2, Apple today also released corresponding updates in iPadOS 17.2, macOS Sonoma 14.2, tvOS 17.2, and watchOS 10.2.