Posted on May 17, 2018
When Apple announced live photos along with their iPhone 6s in 2015 almost everyone I know or read thought they were nothing more than a stupid gimmick, and promptly turned them off. It took 2 plus years before advantages of Live Photos started to show up as mentioned by Allison Sheridan recently on her blog, as well as a post last year on How to Geek; but if you’re blind, you’ve had something cool since day one.
When everyone else thought Live Photos were stupid and just a silly way to waste space, I immediately realized that they brought accessibility to photos in an interesting way. With 3 seconds of audio, someone could easily provide an audio label for those pictures. If a blind person went on vacation and wanted a few pictures for their sighted family and friends, they and/or someone with them could add audio like “Uncle John and Grandma on the beach” or “Julie standing near the Eiffel Tower at night”. The possibilities are endless. Then, when a blind person scrolls through their library and opens one of their Live photos they hear the audio and can rename them for faster browsing in the future.
A sighted person could even take live photos on their phone adding audio tags, and then send them to a blind friend or family member.
I could even see a future version of iOS offer to transcribe the audio in Live photos and use that text to rename the file, that would just be cool and make my love of efficiency side all warm and happy.
Just another reminder that when a feature seems silly or useless, maybe it helps someone else in huge unimagined ways.
Accessibility Insights 