Apple is among the companies on the 2025 Forbes Accessibility 100 list. And Forbes spotlights Sarah Herrlinger, the company’s Apple’s senior manager for Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives.
The Forbes Accessibility 100 list highlights innovators and impact-makers in accessibility for people with disabilities. Accessibility encompasses digital (technology, websites), physical (public transport, buildings), and experiential (sports, careers) access. Examples include smart canes for the visually impaired, accessible playgrounds, and software ensuring accessibility features in computer code.
Here’s what Forbes says about Herrlinger: Perhaps no company in the world is more relied upon for accessibility features than Apple—mostly, of course, through its iPhone—to communicate, learn, exercise, game and basically experience modern life. Apple devices come straight out of the box with a head-slappingly long menu of features designed for blind/low-vision people (screen reader, zoom, haptic feedback); the hard-of-hearing (live captions, sound recognition); mobility-limited (eye control, voice archiving); neurodiverse (automatic dimming of flashing video content) and more. AirPods are evolving into de facto hearing aids, while the App Store just launched “Accessibility Nutrition Labels” that list accessibility features prior to downloading. Beyond its software and hardware, Apple has also been praised for including disabled people in ads and Apple TV+ content. “When I get asked by people externally how big is your accessibility team, my standard response is Apple has more than 160,000 employees, so our accessibility team is more than 160,000 people,” says Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s Senior Director of Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives. “Retail, engineering, facilities—it’s part of your job whether it’s in your job description or not.”
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