Apple celebrates Global Accessibility Awareness Day with special sessions, curated collections, more

This week, Apple is celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day with special sessions, curated collections, and more.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is an awareness day focusing on digital access and inclusion for the more than one billion people with disabilities and impairments. It is marked annually on the third Thursday of May.

SignTime will launch in Canada on May 19 to connect Apple Store and Apple Support customers with on-demand American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. SignTime is already available for customers in the US using ASL, the UK using British Sign Language (BSL), and France using French Sign Language (LSF).

Apple Store locations around the world are offering live sessions throughout the week to help customers discover accessibility features on iPhone, and Apple Support social channels are showcasing how-to content.

The Accessibility Assistant shortcut is coming to the Shortcuts app on Mac and Apple Watch this week to help recommend accessibility features based on user preferences.

This week in Apple Fitness+, trainer Bakari Williams uses ASL to highlight the features available to users that are part of an ongoing effort to make fitness more accessible to all, including Audio Hints, which are short descriptive verbal cues to support users who are blind or low vision, and Time to Walk and Time to Run episodes becoming “Time to Walk or Push” and “Time to Run or Push” for wheelchair users. Additionally, Fitness+ trainers incorporate ASL into every workout and meditation, all videos include closed captioning in six languages, and trainers demonstrate modifications in each workout so users at different levels can join in.

Apple Maps features a new guide from the National Park Foundation, Park Access for All, to help users discover accessible features, programs, and services to explore in parks across the US. Guides from Gallaudet University — the world’s premier university for Deaf, hard of hearing, and Deafblind students — feature businesses and organizations that value, embrace, and prioritize the Deaf community and signed languages.

Users can explore accessibility-focused apps and powerful stories from app creators in the App Store; check out the Transforming Our World collection in Apple Books, featuring stories by and about people with disabilities; and learn about creative ways technology is advancing accessibility in Apple Podcasts.  

Apple Music will highlight the Saylists playlists, a collection of playlists that each focus on a different sound. Choosing one and singing along is a fun and engaging way to practice vocal sounds or speech therapy.

The Apple TV app will highlight the latest hit movies and shows featuring authentic representation of people with disabilities. Plus, viewers can explore guest-curated collections from the accessibility community’s standout actors, including Marlee Matlin (“CODA”), Lauren Ridloff (“Eternals”), Selma Blair (“Introducing, Selma Blair”), Ali Stroker (“Christmas Ever After”), and more.