Instagram TV App Expands to Google TV

Ben Schoon reported last week for 9to5 Google Instagram announced its TV app has launched on Google TV. The software, focused on displaying the ever-popular Reels, arriving on Google TV was announced on Threads by Instagram leader Adam Mosseri.

“The Instagram app is available for Google TV via the Play Store now, freely available for download for anyone who wishes to install it,” Schoon wrote last Wednesday. “The app even supports sign-in without a password by approving sign-in through a phone connected to the same network.”

As I wrote in December when Instagram TV launched on Fire TV, that Reels are available on the big screen is a big deal for accessibility. Even on an ostensibly “large” phone screen, such as the one on my iPhone Air, a television’s screen is orders of magnitude larger than a smartphone’s. If you, like me, lose all sense of time and space by watching umpteenth Reels in the canonical Instagram app on the phone, having it available on a TV at least makes the time-sucking experience more visually accessible.

As a devout Apple TV 4K user, I don’t have access to Instagram TV right now; it’s curious to me, especially since, as Schoon notes, Instagram TV is exclusive to the United States, that Instagram chose Fire TV (!) and then Google TV as its gradual rollout strategy without tvOS in the mix. By contrast, it feels as though upstart streaming services always have a presence on tvOS upon their initial launch. In any case, Reels on my iPhone is not necessarily a worse experience—I’m merely pointing out how the old adage that “bigger is better” absolutely applies here, and aptly so. Whenever in the future Instagram does release the tvOS app, I’ll surely be downloading it posthaste.

Instagram TV is now available on the Google Play Store.

Xcode Update Adds support for Agentic Coding

Marcus Mendes reported for 9to5 Mac this week Apple released a significant update to Xcode. The new version, 26.3, notably adds support for agentic coding agents such as Anthropic’s Claude Agent and OpenAI’s Codex, and more. The newfound functionality is intended to “speed up all aspects of app development,” according to Mendes.

“As promised, Apple is rolling out Xcode 26.3 today, with support for agentic coding,” he wrote on Thursday. “In practice, this means developers can now plug AI tools such as OpenAI’s Codex or Anthropic’s Claude Agent directly into Xcode to help with tasks ranging from writing boilerplate code to updating the entire project based on its own documentation, file structure, and more.”

For Apple’s part, the company says tools like Claude Agent and Codex has the ability to work collaboratively with developers by giving them “the power to streamline workflows, iterate faster, and bring ideas to life like never before” [as well as] “search documentation, explore file structures, update project settings, and verify their work visually by capturing Xcode Previews and iterating through builds and fixes.”

Apple has posted a video to YouTube all about Xcode 26.3.

From an accessibility standpoint, this week’s news is a big deal. If you’re a developer with, say, visual and motor disabilities, the fact Xcode now supports integration with these AI models means software development could become eminently more accessible. You don’t always have to manually search for an API’s documentation. You don’t have to manually write dozens of lines of code at once. These are not trivial considerations, and serve as a prime example of artificial intelligence being used for genuine good. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve leaned heavily onto ChatGPT in recent months to help generate custom CSS and JavaScript code to enhance Curb Cuts. I’m not a professional programmer, so not only did I outsource the knowledge, the accessibility win was I literally used the “Copy code” button in the chat window and literally just copy-and-pasted the code into my Squarespace backend. In practical terms, it saved me from rubbing up against a lot of cognitive/motor/visual friction in trying to Google search everything and cobble together everything I needed all by myself. Ergo, ChatGPT was a bonafide assistive technology for my design project.

Xcode 26.3 comes after OpenAI released its Codex app for macOS early this month.

New iOS, tvOS 26.4 Betas Add Accessibility Options

Apple has added a couple noteworthy accessibility-minded features to the forthcoming iOS and tvOS 26.4 software updates, according to recent reports.

Jeff Benjamin writes for 9to5 Mac this week iOS 26.4 Beta 2 includes a new Reduce Highlighting Effects option (in Accessibility → Display & Text Size) which Benjamin posits “will tweak the spectral highlights of the Liquid Glass display aspects.” I’m not running betas any longer—bless the people on social media who ride or die on the beta train—but his speculation feels right to me; Liquid Glass gives interface elements a glossy, shiny quality in various instances, which can make for tougher determination for people with certain visual disabilities. At a macro level, Reduce Highlighting Effects perfectly aligns with the other customization options Apple has introduced for Liquid Glass since last year. As I quipped in Jason Snell’s Apple Report Card, these aforementioned display tweaks serves as tacit acknowledgment from the company that the “idealized” Liquid Glass shown off at WWDC last June went too far, so the new options are signs of correction. Liquid Glass notwithstanding, that iOS 26.4 does include a new accessibility setting also is a telltale sign that Apple’s work on assistive technologies decidedly isn’t contained to one day a year, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. To quote my pal (and GAAD co-founder) Joe Devon, accessibility should matter the other 364 days of the year—a sentiment Apple surely understands.

As to Apple TV 4K, Ryan Christoffel reports for 9to5 Mac this week tvOS 26.4 adds a new feature which makes editing the visual styles of subtitles—ahem, captions—easier and more accessible. What historically was “buried” under Accessibility, as Christoffel wrote, is now available right from the system’s native video player. Crucially, he rightly motes “any app that uses the default tvOS video player will benefit from the feature.” I don’t mind the stock styling, but this enhancement seems like a good one. A person can edit text styles without necessarily leaving the program they’re currently watching.

My 2025 Apple Report Card

Like I said the other day, writing is cathartic.

Earlier this week, Jason Snell published the annual Apple Report Card at Six Colors. I’ve been privileged to be asked to participate for the last several years, with 2025 being no different. As you’d presume, my primary focus in completing the survey—which, incidentally, I did prior to my seismic life change earlier this month—is accessibility.

“It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the ‘vibe in the room’—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.),” Snell wrote on Monday. “This is the eleventh year that I’ve presented this survey to my hand-selected group. They were prompted with 14 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and optionally provide text commentary per category.”

Snell also posted all 32,000 words worth of the panelists’ verbatim responses.

You can see my commentary in the verbatim story, but I’m sharing them here as well.

iPhone (My score: 5)

“Perfection is seemingly unattainable, but I feel as though the iPhone line is most proximal. I chose an iPhone Air as my new phone for its thinness and lightness, and despite some lingering feelings of missing another camera lens or two, I have no complaints whatsoever.”

iPad (My score: 4)

“I have a dichotomous relationship with the iPad. On one hand, I applaud Apple for finally making iPadOS more “Mac-like” with the new-is-old windowing paradigm and everything else. From a disability standpoint, there’s a cogent argument for a 13“ iPad and iPadOS 26 being a more accessible ‘laptop replacement’ for a certain class of people with disabilities. In my case, though, as much as I appreciate my 13” M4 iPad Pro, my gut keeps saying I’ve left the iPadOS-for-productivity train forever. Give me an OLED iPad mini and I’ll be ecstatic.”

Wearables (My score: 4)

“I love my Apple Watch and AirPods. They do what I want them to do, reliably and with aplomb. I discovered in the past year that I gravitate towards the AirPods 4 with ANC than my ‘old’ AirPods Pro 2. I find the fit and audio fidelity of the AirPods 4 to be just as good, and I get wireless charging and a smaller case to boot. As to Vision Pro, my usage ebbed and flowed in 2025. I continue to enjoy it and admire its capabilities, but the app story remains the biggest pain point as players like Netflix, YouTube TV, Channels (for OTA TV via HDHomeRun) remain absent from visionOS and thus limits the Vision Pro’s appeal as a more accessible entertainment vehicle.”

Home (My score: 3)

“I’m completing my part of the survey while listening to music on my OG HomePod, which still works perfectly. I use it every day in my office for podcasts and music. The HomePod minis strewn about the house are great for timers and controlling lamps. I’m not really longing for more from them, however old they may be. HomeKit makes my house more accessible, with my only want being the mythical smart display that’s purported to come.”

Apple TV (My score: 2)

“I’m always say, with some jest, the Apple TV 4K is laughably over-engineered for its primary purpose: streaming video. I appreciate the horsepower for its performance, but the box’s problem isn’t hardware (twinsies, iPad!)—tvOS could be so much more robust than a static grid of icons. I keep waiting, with unbated breath, the platform will receive its iOS 7-like glow-up. Amazon and Google have implemented good ideas Apple should steal for itself.”

Services (My score: 2)

“iCloud, Apple TV, Apple Pay, and Apple Music all work great for me. Apple TV’s new intro logo is delightful. I love it so much that I’ll occasionally rewind a show just to see it again.”

Hardware Reliability (My score: 5)

“Put it this way: I just decommissioned my 7-year-old Retina 4K iMac because I wanted to go Apple silicon on macOS full-time and Tahoe isn’t supported. But the hardware—especially the panel—remains exquisite for its age. I expect my new Pro Display XDR to age just as well, if not even better. The thing is built almost like a literal tank.”

Software Quality (My score: 4)

“Apple’s platforms and apps have always been perfectly fine for me. I know there was a lot of consternation for Liquid Glass, but I like it and haven’t encountered any egregious usability problems. I think the fact Apple added some customization options for appearance was tacit recognition the Liquid Glass demoed at WWDC went too far in places, so the options are a sign of correction. From an accessibility point of view, Apple’s stated goal of Liquid Glass bringing ‘coherence’ and ‘consistency’ to its panoply of platforms is a worthy, righteous goal. The community has, and does, bemoan certain elements of the design—but just because Apple failed in certain respects doesn’t mean the overarching idea is bad.”

World Impact (My score: 4)

“As a lifelong disabled person who copes with multiple conditions, I will stump up and down for Apple’s staunch commitment to serving my community vis-a-vis accessibility. The company isn’t perfect here either, but it makes the most effort of anyone in the industry to make people like me feel seen and valued. That isn’t trivial, and it’s something Apple shoulder be lauded more far more often. The iPadOS power users would do well to remember the pointer feature has origins in the AssistiveTouch suite. Apple has innovated to empower people, then went on to take those ideas and build on them for the mainstream.”

Another Quick Housekeeping Note

If Curb Cuts has appeared unusually quiet this month, there’s a reason for it.

At the beginning of February, I initiated an immense life change from which I’m still recovering. It isn’t health-related, but definitely is emotionally taxing—a real brunt to bear for someone already coping with severe anxiety and depression, to be sure. The situation has proven a logistical adventure, meaning I’m forced to reassess my desk setup—it’s being assembled later today—and hasn’t left me with sufficient mental bandwidth for much in the way of tech journalism. I’ve been trying to stay abreast of the news as best I can—perhaps mercifully, I wasn’t invited to New York for next week’s Apple “experience”—but reading is far more passive than reporting right now.

I do miss my new Pro Display XDR, though.

Anyway, as of this writing, my personal life is kinda sorta starting to slow down. I have literal infrastructural elements largely in place, and I anticipate getting my work legs under me once again very soon. Writing has always been cathartic to me, at the very least. I appreciate everyone’s patience and support as I navigate a difficult period—yet another crucible atop of many I’ve endured in my lifetime—and I profusely apologize for the site’s dormancy for most of the month. Life is not linear, indeed.

Rest assured, your faithful correspondent will be back soon.

Apple Creator Studio’s Secret Sauce is iPadOS

Apple earlier this week officially released its all-new Apple Creator Studio software bundle after announcing it back on January 13. There are good embargoed first look stories of the suite from Jason Snell at Six Colors and John Voorhees at MacStories. For my part, I wrote about Apple Creator Studio’s accessibility story when it was announced earlier this month, wherein I focused my thoughts mainly on the economics for creatives with disabilities. Voorhees’ piece, however, has resonated with me particularly due to his comments on the software side of Apple Creator Studio.

“The case for Creator Studio is especially strong for iPad-first users,” Voorhees wrote on Wednesday. “They don’t have a choice, but they also never had one since Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad were always subscription apps. Add in the new subscription-only features and access to the Mac apps, and the bundle is a no-brainer for iPad-first users who use more than a couple of the bundle’s apps.”

I had an epiphany of sorts reading this passage because it crystallized an idea swimming around in my head. To wit, not only does Apple Creator Studio have implications for economic accessibility, iPadOS—specifically, iPadOS 26—enriches the story by, on its own merits, being an accessible, dare I say “Mac-like,” primary computer. Consider this: if you’re a disabled person for whom the iPad’s simplified software and modularity appeals in terms of approachability and usability, it’s not at all implausible to think an iPad is your primary productivity machine. Maybe you even have a keyboard or display to more closely mimic a “desktop” experience. Now take that notion and apply that to a disabled person who, say, has dreams of building their own YouTube channel. There’s Final Cut Pro on iPad, available on the big screen, ready for you to make your influencer dreams come true—all powered not by a MacBook, but a flat, rectilinear slab of metal and glass whose software suits your productivity best.

This isn’t trivial in the least. Indeed, what makes iPadOS 26 so refreshing is that it looks and feels more like a traditional desktop operating system than ever before—yes, like a Mac—all the while retaining all of the inherent virtues that makes iPad so unique. You get professional-grade tools like Final Cut, Freeform, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, as well as the iWork trio in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—plus Apple Pencil compatibility and a “lightness” to the software that contrasts the “heaviness" of macOS. Moreover, arguably the best thing about iPadOS 26 is it works on every iPad in Apple’s lineup; circling back to economics, if you’re a disabled person who perhaps can only afford the entry-level iPad and the Magic Keyboard Folio, you’re still able to let your creative juices flow unencumbered because, again, iPadOS 26’s desktop-like windowing system and other features are present. Although the rumor mill runneth over with rumblings of a new, low-cost MacBook coming in 2026, a cogent argument could be made Apple has already made an inexpensive laptop. That “laptop” runs iOS in the form of an iPad, a Magic Keyboard Folio, and iPadOS 26. Now add Apple Creator Studio—its subscription a de-facto accessibility feature in itself—and a creator with disabilities suddenly has access to a damn compelling computer setup for their work.

And if someone prefers the Mac way of working, the tried-and-true M1 MacBook Air remains a remarkable value for those needing a good, modern Mac on a budget.

It’s for all these reasons that I’ve long contended the iPad is the most accessible computer Apple has ever made. From its streamlined user interface to its multitude of input methods to iPadOS, the tablet is eminently capable of being one’s primary computing device. The advent of Apple Creator Studio makes such a notion much more credible by not only showing off iPad’s power, but adding to its vaunted versatility.

Apple Announces Next-Generation AirTag

In a press release published on its Newsroom site on Monday, Apple announced a refreshed, second-generation AirTag. The diminutive tracker, available as a single for $29 and as a 4-pack for $99, is touted by the company as “even easier to locate with more powerful Precision Finding, a longer Bluetooth range, and a louder speaker.”

“Since the launch of AirTag in 2021, users from around the world have shared stories of being reunited with lost luggage, keys, bicycles, bags, and more,” Apple wrote in its announcement. “With the help of AirTag placed inside an instrument case, a musician was able to locate their lost instrument and perform that evening, while another user was able to find lost luggage that contained a lifesaving medication.”

The marquee feature of the New AirTag is the presence of Apple’s next-generation ultra-wideband (UWB) chip—the very same custom silicon found in the iPhone 17 line, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Series 11, and Apple Watch Ultra 3. According to Apple, the Precision Finding function—made possible by the UWB chip, makes use of “haptic, visual, and audio feedback” to (accessibly!) locate lost items with 50% greater range than the OG AirTag. Moreover, Apple notes Precision Finding is now available “for the first time” on Apple Watch Series 9 or later, as well as Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later.

Other internal upgrades to the new AirTag include an all-new chime, which Apple claims is 50% louder than the original and enables people to hear the sound from twice as far away. Coupled with the aforementioned Precision Finding, Apple says the new AirTag “makes it easier for users to find their important items, such as keys hidden deep in between couch cushions or a wallet as they head out the door.”

Today’s news comes to me fortuitously, as I’m in the market for another AirTag to put on my new everyday bag. I have OG AirTags on essential items—my keys, wallet, and luggage—but won’t be upgrading to the new ones beyond putting a new battery in the AirTag in my wallet. (In April 2024, I wrote of my mini-saga with trying to open the AirTag’s battery compartment.) I love the peace of mind I get with knowing AirTags are with me in spades—redundancy indeed is a good thing at times—and especially appreciate how accessible the little things are to me. While it’s fair to point out there are less expensive, ostensibly just-as-good alternatives on the market, none of them are as accessible—nor are they as vertically integrated as AirTag. My battery door adventure notwithstanding, it isn’t hyperbole or fanboy-ish to resolutely say AirTag is clearly the best, most accessible tracker if you have disabilities and use an iPhone.

The new AirTag is available to order beginning today.

AIMAC Founders Joe Devon, Eamon McErlean Talk first round of results in new interview

Last May, I published a piece here which featured interviews with Joe Devon and Eamon McErlean. The men are co-founders of the AI Model Accessibility Checker (AIMAC), an API described as “[evaluating and comparing] how well coding-focused large language models (LLMs) generate accessible code [by providing] benchmarks for companies to test and demonstrate the accessibility of their models’ output.” The tool, built in collaboration with ServiceNow at which McErlean serves as vice president and global head of digital accessibility and globalization, is “an open-source, extensible evaluation framework” that assesses the accessibility attributes of models based on artificial intelligence such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and others.

To kick off 2026, Devon and McErlean have released the results of the first round of AIMAC testing. The impetus was to glean insight to how accessible (or not) AI models were at accessibly generating code for people with disabilities. Notably, the findings reveal a considerably wide performance delta between the most popular models.

"We prompted the top AI models to build web pages across 28 categories and audited them for accessibility,” the GAAD Foundation wrote in prefacing its findings. “We published every generated page, side by side, so you can see how different models tackled the same design challenge. We even measured em-dash usage.”

The GAAD Foundation, established in 2021, is chaired by Devon. He, alongside Jennison Asuncion, co-founded Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) 15 years ago, back in 2011. Global Accessibility Awareness Day for 2026 will be on Thursday, May 21.

In a brief interview conducted over email this week, McErlean told me the AIMAC’s findings show “it’s obvious that some companies are considering accessibility as they build out their LLMs while others are continuing to not prioritize it.” Moreover, he emphasized proper context is crucial; he said the AIMAC is specifically benchmarking AI systems “designed to generate code.” McErlean also acknowledged chatbots’ potential as bonafide assistive technologies in “advancing accessibility,” noting ServiceNow recently released an accessibility-minded chatbot internally in an effort to help employees get up to speed on answering accessibility-oriented questions.

“Historically, technology advanced without fully considering people with disabilities, leaving the accessibility community to retrofit solutions after the fact,” McErlean said. “As new technologies, especially AI, accelerate innovation, accessibility must be treated as a first-class requirement, not an afterthought. To address this, we launched an initiative that meets AI researchers where they are, challenging them against defined accessibility benchmarks that objectively measure the conformance of AI-generated code.”

OpenAI topped the proverbial charts in the AIMAC’s rankings, with the company’s GPT 5.2 Pro, GPT 5.2, and GPT 5.1 Codex models assuming the top three positions. In fact, OpenAI placed in five of the top ten. In terms of accessibility, OpenAI is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to staunch support—a notion which tracks with what I’ve reported about the company in the not-so-distant past. Indeed, OpenAI’s prevalence in the AIMAC’s rankings came to no surprise from Devon.

“When [OpenAI] did the huge ChatGPT 4.0 release, they were launch partners with Be My Eyes,” he said of OpenAI’s strong showing. “It was clear they understood that paying attention to the needs of people with disabilities will result in the best models.”

What did surprise Devon, however, was Google’s lackluster showing, calling it a “real head-scratcher.” Gemini 3.0 Pro ranked dead last, at 36 of 36, though their lighter models fared better. Elsewhere, Devon expressed disappointment and dismay at Claude-maker Anthropic’s performance. He said it was “disappointing” to discover Anthropic fare so mediocrely considering the company “openly says that they are leaders in ethical AI.” More broadly, Devon explained to me he’s opened the lines of communication with people at AI companies who have bespoke accessibility teams, saying the staff at these places are “open and interested in getting feedback.”

That said, patience is a virtue. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

“We won’t know until [AI companies] release their next models if the message [regarding improvements] trickled up to the right people,” Devon said. “We have to give it a little time, but I suspect we will see in the end that they all pay attention to the benchmark and will get better results.”

When asked about what the AIMAC’s initial round of results portend for the future of digital accessibility, McErlean said software developers are utilizing AI to generate code at “unprecedented speed” and, as such, it’s of critical importance that “accessibility is embedded from the start—otherwise, the negative impact will scale just as quickly.” Equally important, he added, is that people—designers, engineers, product managers—spend ample time conversing with the disability community in an effort to “truly understand the real-world impact of inaccessible software.” Doing so will result in helping workers “recognize the barriers created by poor accessibility, but also see when UI and UX are designed to be accessible, everyone benefits.”

For Devon’s part, the AIMAC isn’t sitting still. It’s going to evolve. “We’re prepping for future benchmarks since AI moves so quickly,” he said. “Clearly, we need a benchmark around agentic AI coding as well as how accessible the AI platforms are.”

A Quick Housekeeping Note

As the headline says, I want to share a brief note regarding Curb Cuts.

It’s been about a year since Forbes let me go from its contributor network and I turned to publishing this blog full-time. I created social media accounts for Curb Cuts with the intention of automatically posting links to stories as soon as I run them. It occurred to to me only recently that one of those said accounts is actually doing so, on Bluesky. Thanks to life happenings and other busyness, I never got around to connecting my bots so I don’t have to manually share my hard work all over the internet. But this morning, I hunkered down and resolved to do the work. The site’s bots are powered by web-based automation service IFTTT (If This Then That), which I hadn’t used in forever.

Now, you can follow Curb Cuts not only on the aforementioned Bluesky, but also on X/Twitter and Mastodon and the account should automatically post links to stories as they’re published on the site. It’s all done via RSS, of course—the URL for which you also can plug into your favorite feed reader if RSS makes your nerdy world go ‘round.

I’m ecstatic over finally getting around to addressing this because this move theoretically should lead to my reporting getting in front of many more eyeballs.

If you have comments, questions, or notice a bug, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Gemini On Google tV to gain ability to Change TV Settings, More by voice command

Manisha Priyadarshini reported for Digital Trends last week Google will be giving Gemini on Google TV a so-called “Deep Dives” feature which will “explain complex topics in a more accessible way” without interrupting what users are watching in the moment. Additionally, Gemini will be able to search through users’ Google Photos libraries, as well as generate content using Google’s popular Nano Banana tool.

“Google has announced a set of new Gemini features for Google TV at CES 2026, focused on making on-screen responses more useful and easier to understand from the couch. Google first introduced Gemini on Google TV last year as it moves toward replacing Google Assistant with Gemini on its devices,” Priyadarshini wrote as this year’s CES began on January 5. “Instead of short, text-heavy answers, Gemini on Google TV will lean into richer, more visual responses, including high-resolution images, relevant video context, and live sports information when it makes sense, helping users get clearer answers at a glance without pulling out their phone.”

Most notably for accessibility is Gemini also is gaining the ability to alter a television’s settings, hands-free. A person need only give the AI a comment like “the screen is too dim” or “the volume is too low” and Gemini will spring into action by adjusting those settings accordingly. This conversational approach, Priyadarshini said, is intended to “make everyday fixes quicker and less frustrating.” It strikes me as a huge win for accessibility as well, insofar as people with cognitive and/or visual conditions (or some combination thereof) plausibly may have a difficult time sifting through Google TV’s Settings tree to, for example, increase the brightness of their TV. What’s more, they may find it overwhelming to choose the “correct” picture mode to suit their visual needs and tolerances. To wit, a Professional or Filmmaker Mode make technically provide a more accurate viewing experience, but brightness is dramatically lower as compensation. By contrast, asking Gemini to tweak brightness or whatnot not only reduces cognitive/motor/visual friction, it showcases AI’s profound potential to be a bonafide assistive technology in a similar vein to how Siri makes HomeKit accessible.

More broadly, Priyadarshini’s story leads me to believe Google is pushing Google TV to function at a similar level as Alexa on Amazon’s Fire TV Cube. The comparisons are strong: Alexa on the Cube can do similar tasks, including changing channels on services like YouTube TV and even changing HDMI inputs on one’s television—all of it hands-free. Again, this is the kinda stuff that makes AI assistants like Gemini shine because they can make life more accessible for people with disabilities. If you’re someone who’s a quadriplegic and thus has no use of their hands, voice control is the way you control your devices, TVs included. Relying on Gemini (or Alexa, for that matter) to change settings and the like not only practical, it also instills heightened feelings of agency and autonomy in the disabled person because they needn’t rely on someone else to handle these ostensibly menial jobs for them. Because of this, the Fire TV Cube’s ability to control one’s entire home theater setup is especially impressive and, pointedly, a feature Google (and Apple!) ought to adopt on Google TV and tvOS.

As I always say, convenience and accessibility might be the closest cousins—most able-bodied people oftentimes conflate the two—but they are not one and the same.

the Accessibility story of Apple Creator Studio

This week, Apple announced a software bundle called Apple Creator Studio. The subscription-based service, priced at $12.99 per month or $129 per year, is touted by Apple as “an inspiring collection of the most powerful creative apps.” Apple Creator Studio includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, alongside the iWork trio of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. The latter of which is slated to receive “new AI features and premium content,” according to Apple.

Apple Creator Studio launches Wednesday, January 28 on the App Store.

“The apps included with Apple Creator Studio for video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity give modern creators the features and capabilities they need to experience the joy of editing and tailoring their content while realizing their artistic vision,” Apple wrote in its press release published on Tuesday. “Exciting new intelligent features and premium content build on familiar experiences of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy.”

I’m neither a video editor nor a music/podcast producer, and I’m years removed from using Keynote for giving presentations. I’m decidedly not amongst the target demographic for Apple Creator Studio. For a more generalized take on this week’s news, I recommend reading Jason Snell’s story on what makes sense—and what doesn’t. For my purview, however, it’s notable from an accessibility perspective that Apple has embraced the subscription bundle once more. To wit, it strikes me that paying $13/month for professional apps like Final Cut and Logic Pro—the former costs $300 while the latter is $200 individually—is eminently more accessible than paying wholesale upfront. If you’re a content creator with disabilities, living on a shoestring budget, Apple Creator Studio could be a revelation because suddenly Final Cut Pro, for example, is attainable to you as a budding YouTuber. Even if you only use one or two apps in the present, Apple Creator Studio’s value proposition remains high because you essentially get the others “for free” should you wish to explore them at some point in the future. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, the vast majority of those in the disability community must pinch their pennies; that people now are able to pay month-to-month for what well may be mission-critical software like Final Cut makes the subscription model a de-facto accessibility feature. Apple hardware is premium and undoubtedly expensive, but Apple Creator Studio has the potential to be a sweet chaser after swallowing such a bitter pill, particularly in the long run. I’m focusing on economics, but it’s also true a tool like Final Cut may be preferred by a disabled person because of its tight integration with, to name just one example, VoiceOver on macOS.

Apple services boss Eddy Cue alluded to Apple Creator Studio’s accessibleness in a statement included in the company’s announcement (emphasis mine).

“Apple Creator Studio is a great value that enables creators of all types to pursue their craft and grow their skills by providing easy access to the most powerful and intuitive tools for video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity—all leveled up with advanced intelligent tools to augment and accelerate workflows,” he said. “There’s never been a more flexible and accessible way to get started with such a powerful collection of creative apps for professionals, emerging artists, entrepreneurs, students, and educators to do their best work and explore their creative interests from start to finish.”

There are legions of disabled people who are creating every single day, so accessibility’s strong link to Apple Creator Studio should thus be unsurprising.

Early Impressions of the Pro display XDR

Late last week, my partner surprised me with a belated and incredibly generous Christmas present: she brought home my white whale in Apple’s Pro Display XDR. It was quite the adventure getting the display (and the Pro Stand) up the three flights of (admittedly short) stairs—one outside, two inside—to our living space and into my “office” area. But we did it, and after leaving the unboxing until the next day out of utter tiredness, I excitedly got to work setting up the Pro Display and accompanying Mac.

I’m writing this piece with the intent of sharing my early impressions of the monitor, but I believe it’s important to address some personal context in so badly wanting the Pro Display XDR in the first place. However exorbitantly expensive and ostensibly overkill for my modest computational needs, the reality is the Pro Display XDR possesses the traits I need for a greater experience, accessibility-wise. Its most obvious attribute is, of course, the size; the Pro Display XDR is a 32” 6K screen with mini-LED backlighting. As someone with extremely low vision, that means not only is the screen literally big, colors are brighter and text is sharper too. What’s more, I can fit more windows on screen at once despite preferring to use Stage Manager on macOS. It’s early days yet, but already I can ecstatically report the Pro Display XDR is paying huge dividends in my daily accessibility and productivity—all thanks to its brawn.

It’s fair to ask what of the Studio Display. It’s no slouch, to be sure, but the truth is (a) it’s smaller than the Pro Display; and (b) is considerably less bright (600 nits peak brightness versus 1600). It’s commensurately considerably less expensive as well, but the salient point is, as a practical matter, the Pro Display XDR is markedly more accessible. In the times I’ve noodled around with both monitors in Apple Stores, my eyes have greatly preferred the Pro Display XDR for all the reasons I just mentioned.

There have been rumblings Apple has refreshed versions of the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR in the proverbial pipeline, as the Studio Display was introduced in 2022 and the Pro Display XDR coming out in 2019. However “old” the Pro Display XDR is in technical terms, I honestly cannot think of ways to improve it beyond maybe upgrading the screen technology to OLED. For my purposes as a journalist working in Safari and my text editor of choice, it does what I need it to do in spades. I even love putting my hand around the back once in a while to feel the “cheese grater” ventilation holes; I couldn’t stop smiling looking at how cool it looks back there as I was plugging everything in. It reminds of when Steve Jobs boasted the back of the original iMac “looked better than the other guys” when introducing the computer in 1998. The computer itself will inevitably change once or twice (more on that in a minute), but I imagine the Pro Display XDR easily taking me into the 2030s given my usage habits.

Now, about my “new” Mac. I use quotation marks there because the machine technically isn’t new at all; it’s a 2023 14” MacBook Pro powered by the M2 Pro chip along with 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD which heretofore sat mostly unused in my office. As you can probably surmise, I leave the laptop permanently attached to my monitor and run it in clamshell mode (lid closed). Like the Pro Display itself, the MacBook is computationally excessive for my spartan needs, but I love the experience of using an Apple silicon Mac full-time. As I suspected, features like iPhone Mirroring have been delightful—and accessible—to use, and I love having access to ChatGPT on the desktop, which is Apple Silicon-only. More broadly, another thing I appreciate about this setup is its modularity. To wit, whenever the time comes to upgrade my machine—or check out a review unit, for that matter—it will be far more accessible (and expedient) for me to simply swap one component for another. This stands in contrast to my old Intel iMac, an all-in-one with accessibility merit in its own right, for which I had to physically remove the entire system from my desk in order to set up these new pieces of kit. It’s technically doable for me, but not exactly easy. The Pro Display and its Pro Stand are damn heavy and relatively unwieldy if you’re someone who, like me, has limited strength and range of motion. What I’m saying is, it’s comforting to know next time I can leave the monitor and just switch out the laptop for whatever replaces it.

Finally, a cursory note on my aforementioned, beloved Retina 4K iMac. This July will mark 7 years since I got it, and it served me incredibly well over those years. While it may seem weird to wax romantic about an inanimate object, that iMac—which currently sits on the floor next to my desk, waiting to see its as yet undetermined new journey—saw me through so many highs and lows of my journalistic career. I wrote my 2018 interview with Tim Cook on that machine, arguably my interviewer’s zenith. I’d love to know how many tens of millions of words I cranked out on that thing from 2019 until 2025. It seems apropos that I migrated the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad to my new setup, because both accessories work as perfectly today as they did when I first got them years ago alongside the iMac. (I’m planning to eventually upgrade to the Touch ID-equipped Magic Keyboard, but this is serviceable for now.) What bugs me about my decommissioned iMac is the fact its perfectly good 4K display is going to waste. Although the computer itself is usable if frozen in technological amber given its Intel chipset and macOS Sequoia software, the screen alone remains exquisite. It’s unfortunate Apple no longer supports Target Display Mode in macOS; if the company did so, it would mean my old iMac could have a new lease on life, effectively functioning far into the future as a really nice external monitor to a MacBook or Mac mini like my Pro Display XDR does now. As it stands today, though, that’s not possible… so my iMac sits dormant, relegated (for now) to the annals of my personal tech history.

Anyway, I don’t mean to be a braggadocio in saying I now own a $6000 computer monitor. I’m genuinely humbled by my partner’s generosity and am grateful for the privilege of using the Pro Display XDR. The reason I’m so enthusiastic is precisely because it absolutely makes doing my job (and other things) on my computer a richer, more accessible experience—and that, you can’t put a price tag on when in my shoes.

Apple is making Accessory pairing more Accessible with ‘AirPods-Like’ Interface In iOS 26.3

Juli Clover reports for MacRumors this week one of the hallmark features for European Union (EU) users of the still-in-beta iOS 26.3 update is what she describes as an “AirPods-like” pairing user interface for third-party earbuds and headphones.

“The European Commission today praised the interoperability changes that Apple is introducing in iOS 26.3, once again crediting the Digital Markets Act (DMA) with bringing ‘new opportunities’ to European users and developers,” Clover wrote. “The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to provide third-party accessories with the same capabilities and access to device features that Apple’s own products get. In iOS 26.3, EU wearable device makers can now test proximity pairing and improved notifications.”

I could be wrong, but it sounds like Apple’s using its AccessorySetupKit API for this.

The politics of the DMA notwithstanding, it strikes me as a very good thing, accessibility-wise, that people in the EU soon will have access to the one-tap pairing process of AirPods (and Beats). As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that one-tap, almost magical pairing paradigm is more than sheerly convenient; it’s a de-facto accessibility feature. In a vacuum, the “long way” of pairing third-party devices with your iPhone—finding the Bluetooth section of Settings, then finding and tapping on the device—is neither hard nor particularly nerdy. From a disability perspective, however, it can be quite the rigamarole: there’s a lot of tapping and scanning, not to mention cognitive load, involved with launching the Settings app, finding the Bluetooth area, and so on. For people with certain cognitive/motor/visual conditions—or some combination thereof—what’s ostensibly an easy process can be downright daunting… and inaccessible. By contrast, the AirPods method consolidates those steps into a single task; what’s more, what’s great about AirPods in particular is Apple leverages iCloud to propagate pairing with a user’s constellation of Apple products. It’s an implementation detail which also manifests itself as a de-facto accessibility feature considering the manual pairing process that iOS 26.3 is reportedly addressing. In the end, this week’s news should make disabled people living in the European Union really happy because product pairing is about to become a way more accessible experience.

These benefits aren’t exclusive to Apple. Google’s “Fast Pair” does it on Android too.

Curb Cuts Has a dark mode now

The headline says it all. Curb Cuts now has a dark mode.

After solving my “IPHONE” and “IOS” problems last week, I resolved to get even more ambitious in improving the website by adding a dark mode for nighttime viewing. As someone whose devices automatically flip to dark mode at sundown, it’s always bugged me how eye-searingly white my default “light” theme is when I check the site at, say, 9:00 at night. Other blogs run by friends, like Stephen Hackett’s 512 Pixels and Federico Viticci’s MacStories have discrete dark modes and they look very nice, so why shouldn’t Curb Cuts have one too? So yesterday, I decided to spend part of my evening building my own dark mode—all done, of course, with lots of heavy lifting from ChatGPT.

The cool part about Curb Cuts’ new dark mode is it’s automatic; it triggers based on a user’s UI setting. If your iPhone or iPad or MacBook is in light mode during the day, you’ll get the light theme. At night, the proverbial light switch gets flipped off and you’ll get the dark theme. There remain a few minor tweaks to be made, but I think the new look is awesome (and accessible!) and I’m damn proud at being 95% of the way there.

As a practical matter, what I wrote last week is apt here too. I’m decidedly not a web developer, so the lines of CSS code I copy-and-pasted into the Squarespace CMS are instructions I don’t have the skill to write on my own. That’s where I again leaned heavily onto ChatGPT, telling the chatbot what I envisioned for dark mode and having it automatically spit out the code I needed to make my dreams a reality. It took some trial-and-error, but as I said, I’m super happy with the end result despite the need for a bit more polish. I’ll say once more with feeling that code generation is a prime use case for generative AI tools like ChatGPT (or Gemini or whatnot) and, more pertinently, showcase how chatbots can be assistive technologies by making a fit of relatively advanced web development eminently more accessible as a person with disabilities.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy dark mode. Get in touch with any comments or questions.

Southwest Joins Delta, United Airlines in supporting iOS 26 Boarding Pass Feature

Ryan Christoffel reports today for 9to5 Mac Southwest Airlines has added support for iOS 26’s boarding pass feature in Apple Wallet. Southwest joins fellow industry stalwarts in Delta and United in supporting the new functionality for jet-setters.

“Saving boarding passes to Apple Wallet makes it quick and convenient to access those passes right when you need them,” Christoffel wrote on Monday. “And in iOS 26, Apple upgraded the experience with three new features… Live Activities for boarding passes can be shared with a single tap, making it easy for friends or family members to track your flight. And by integrating airport maps and luggage tracking right into the boarding passes, Apple has put more important travel info in one place.”

Besides Live Activities, the other two of the three new features in Apple Wallet he mentions are access to airport maps and luggage tracking through the Find My app.

I decided to cover this news partly because, upon reflecting on 2025, it occurred to me I flew absolutely nowhere this year after flying 17 times last year. (I was expecting to fly to places like Detroit and New York City for work-related events, but circumstances at home caused me to cancel those trips.) What’s more, Christoffel’s story is yet one more reminder of not only the utility, but the accessibility, of Apple Wallet. I’ve extolled the virtues of Apple Pay in this regard plenty in the past, but these air travel-centric features can play significant roles in making flying more accessible too. To wit, having one’s digital boarding pass accessible from the Lock Screen is far more accessible than digging for a printed version. (Not to mention passports and other identification.) Likewise, airport maps could be useful in, say, helping people who are Blind and low vision quickly and reliably find their gate after passing through the security checkpoint.

As Christoffel notes, the onus falls on airlines to implement support for iOS 26’s boarding pass feature. Beyond Southwest and the others, American Airlines, JetBlue, and Air Canada all have pledged their support for the future, however undisclosed.

A pro tip from me: While Wallet’s flying features are appreciated, I personally adore using Flighty when I’m flying somewhere. It’s truly one of the best apps I’ve ever used.

NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Pledges support for disabled people in inclusive hiring push

Earlier this month, Christopher Alvarez reported for Able News New York City (NYC) Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has pledged to make disabled New Yorkers part of his administration’s broader inclusive hiring push. Mamdani, an avowed democratic socialist, won the mayoral election in November in a landmark win for progressives.

Alvarez’s interview with Mamdani is the first of an exclusive, multi-part series.

“For disabled New Yorkers, employment barriers start at the first point of entry—the application process,” Alvarez wrote. “Of the almost 986,000 New Yorkers with disabilities, nearly 70% are people of color. Persistent barriers in hiring and wage equity remain key concerns—issues that Mamdani has said he intends to address.”

Mamdani has launched an employment portal that he “encourages” disabled job-seekers take advantage of. The website has taken more than 70,000 applications so far.

Notably, Alvarez mentions in his story a 2024 report published by the NYC Comptroller’s office found the disability employment rate in the city is “half that” of New Yorkers without disabilities. I interviewed the city’s Comptroller Brad Lander in July 2024 about that very report, as well as about disability justice writ large. Lander threw his hat into the proverbial ring that was the NYC mayoral race. Lander finished third in the election behind Mamdani of course and former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Calls on Veterans Affairs to provide More accessible Technologies

In a press release published on Friday, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) announced what’s described as a “bipartisan push” for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to make technology more accessible to veterans with disabilities. Gillibrand, a ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is working with U.S. Representative David Valadao (R-CA) in pushing the VA towards “swift action” in greater accessibility for veterans.

“Accessible technology is critical to make sure that veterans with disabilities can get the information and services they need and to make sure that VA employees with disabilities can do their jobs. Roughly one-quarter of veterans have a service-connected disability, and post–9/11 veterans, who [the] VA will serve for decades to come, have a higher rate of service-connected disabilities. Additionally, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires federal technology to be accessible for and usable by people with disabilities,” Senator Gillibrand’s office wrote in its announcement. “Despite this, congressional and independent oversight efforts have consistently found that VA technology does not meet this requirement. A recent VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that, of the 30 critical information and communication technology systems analyzed, 26 were not accessible for people with disabilities. In its report, VA OIG issued four recommendations to improve VA accessibility and encourage the procurement of accessible technology.”

Senator Gillibrand has written a letter to VA leaders wherein she encourages the agency implement the aforementioned recommendations “as fast as possible” while also asking for details on exactly how the VA plans to approach said implementation.

“Ensuring our veterans have the support, information, and services they need is of the utmost importance—and [the] VA cannot do this unless its technology is accessible to veterans and VA employees with disabilities,” Sen. Gillibrand said in a statement. “VA must train its employees to procure accessible technology and take steps to ensure that its technology remains accessible. I will continue to provide rigorous oversight on this issue to make sure that our veterans get the support that they deserve.”

I’ve covered the VA on a couple occasions in the recent past, most recently in April 2024 when I interviewed VA executive Chet Frith about assistive technology and his role leading the agency’s 508 Compliance Office. Prior to my conversation with Frith, I sat down with Dewaine Beard in August 2023, the VA’s principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Information and Technology, about his job and what’s in his purview. In addition, I sat down virtually with Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth, herself a disabled vet, to talk, amongst other topics, the importance of accessibility and assistive tech.

Roomba Manufacturer iRobot Declares Bankruptcy

Earlier this month, John Keilman reported for The Wall Street Journal Roomba maker iRobot filed for bankruptcy. Despite the bad news, however, the company emphasizes “its devices will continue to function normally while the company restructures.”

“Massachusetts-based iRobot has struggled financially for years, beset by foreign competition that made cheaper and, in the opinion of some buyers, technologically superior autonomous vacuums,” Keilman wrote. “When a proposed sale to Amazon.com fell through in 2024 because of regulatory concerns, the company’s share price plummeted.”

iRobot was founded in 1990.

Although I’ve never used a Roomba—nor any other robot vacuum—it’s nonetheless easy for me to see how the things could be useful in an accessibility context. To wit, household chores like cleaning isn’t easy for many people with disabilities, myself included, and vacuuming could be untenable for a variety of reasons. Maybe you can’t hold and push the vacuum. Maybe you can’t see dirty spots. Maybe you can’t empty the bag/bin. Whatever the case, to invest in something like a Roomba is neither indulgent nor living luxuriously; on the contrary, it’s downright practical. The ability to use one’s phone to control it, not to mention have it return to its dock to relieve itself and recharge, can make vacuuming one’s floors an eminently more accessible task. The tech media at large has a penchant for ascribing frivolity and luxury to robotics, and while there is a kernel of truth to that argument, what the able-bodied masses (predictably) gloss over are the people who might truly benefit from, say, a robot vacuum for accessibility’s sake. Again, a Roomba isn’t exactly an inexpensive device, depending on the model, but the investment can be worth it to someone who is unable to manually vacuum yet wishes to retain some agency and autonomy in the process. That in itself is absolutely a goal worth striving for in this case, clean floors be damned.

Gemini Makes Web development More accessible

A bit of a meta, inside baseball post here, so bear with my nerdiness.

One part of Curb Cuts’ design that has stuck in my craw from the beginning is how I could never get headlines to properly stylize brand names like “iPhone,” iPad,” “iOS,” and so on. This website doesn’t have a codified style guide, but I know, as one prime example, I prefer using letter case in headlines whereby every word begins with a capital letter. The problem with that approach, however, rears its ugly head when using Apple product names. My blog’s template likes to capitalize every word—as it should 95% of the time—even the lowercase “i” in iPhone and its brethren. It’s been driving me nuts, but I’ve let it be because, well, at least I can control stylization in my body copy, right? That is, until today when I got fed up and decided to be more intrepid in fixing the issue and to assuage my slightly obsessive-compulsive, design-centric sensibilities.

Enter Google Gemini. It came to rescue and proved my salvation.

I explained the problem to Gemini and what I wanted to accomplish. After a good bit of back-and-forth and trial-and-error, Gemini helped me identify the core issue: I needed a handful of CSS and JavaScript code to properly stylize the aforementioned product names. The technical part is cool, but the big win—notably from an accessibility perspective—is Gemini itself. I’ve written about this in the past, but it bears repeating here: having the chatbot do all the grunt work such that all I do is hit ⌘-C and ⌘-V (copy/paste on the Mac) into the “Code Injection” section of this site’s backend, press Save, and watch the magic happen is so much more accessible than manually using umpteenth Google searches to find the technological Tylenol I needed to remedy my website’s headache . What’s more, I know only basic CSS/JS; the code Gemini generated for me in 30 seconds’ time is far beyond my aptitude level. But that’s the whole point—my experience this afternoon making these tweaks to Curb Cuts’ layout is a perfect illustration of the power of generative AI to be an assistive technology. To do the grunt work myself is possible for me, but nonetheless comes with the costs of suffering eye strain and fatigue, hand fatigue from typing, and headaches from stress and tiredness. Those after effects aren’t trivial—things which are exacerbated for others who must account for coping with different and/or more severe disabilities than I do.

Chatbots can be far more benefits than mere convenient conduits for trivial pursuit.

Gemini made web development more accessible—and made my site look better too.

Finally.

Instagram for TV Makes Reels More Accessible

Meta-owned Instagram this week announced Instagram for TV. The app is launching first on Amazon’s Fire TV platform (!) and is intended to enable users to watch Reels, alone or together with friends, on a much larger display than on one’s phone or tablet.

“Today we’re excited to start testing Instagram for TV, bringing reels from your favorite creators to the big screen so you can enjoy them with friends,” Instagram said in its post. “We’ve heard from our community that watching reels together is more fun, and this test is designed to learn which features make that experience work best on TV.”

Instagram says the TV launch is a “test,” adding expansion is planned for the future.

I don’t have a Fire TV device handy to try Instagram TV, but it nonetheless strikes as a good move. From an accessibility perspective, even the relatively big screen on, say, an iPhone Air or iPhone Pro Max is decidedly dwarfed by a 55- or 65- or 77-inch TV screen. This is precisely why FaceTime on tvOS is so smart; I haven’t used it yet because I don’t do a ton of videoconferencing, but just knowing I can do it from my massive LG C3 OLED is pretty cool. It’s more accessible to look at a person on a TV than on my comparatively tiny phone screen. Ergo, the same argument applies to Instagram for TV. I quite enjoy watching Reels—especially for food-oriented content—and can attest to the fact Reels is a super conduit towards bed rot and thus utterly losing all track of time and space. Bed-rotting whilst watching umpteenth Reels is admittedly unhelpful to someone who copes with severe anxiety and depression, but I speak the truth from experience.

Instagram for Fire TV is available to download now.