Magnifer, Display Pulse Smoothing, Bookcase, & more
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Mrs. Claus
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Micah Sargent
Zoe. This thing weighs a ton. Drew Ski, lift with your legs, man.
Odoo Narrator
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Micah Sargent
Santa, did you get my letter? He's talking to you, Bridges. I'm not.
Mrs. Claus
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Micah Sargent
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Micah Sargent
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Mrs. Claus
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Odoo Narrator
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Micah Sargent
Ios today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sargent, talk a little bit about some of the accessibility options you have on your devices. Stay tuned.
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This is iOS Today episode 780 with Rosemary Orchard and me, Micah Sargent. Record Tuesday, November 11, 2025 for Thursday, December 4, 2025 Accessibility Tools and Tips hello and welcome to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, iPad, OS, WatchOS, HomePod OS and other operating systems that Apple provides to us. This is the show where we try to help you make the most of your devices by telling you about settings, apps, gadgets, gizmos you can download and use and change to make your devices all the more awesome. I am one of your hosts. My name is Maika Sargent.
Rosemary Orchard
And my name is Rosemary Horseshutt. And yeah, I'm very happy to be here today to help folks access their devices in new and exciting ways or just learn about some ways that they can share with others.
Micah Sargent
Indeed. So I thought it would be a great opportunity for us to talk a little bit about the options that you have within the accessibility settings on your device. It could be your iPad, it could be your iPhone, it could be whatever. Apple is known for its commitment first and foremost to accessibility. And just to kind of give you a brief understanding of that terminology, in this case it just means making a device more usable by more people. And that's because of course, everybody has different experiences, different abilities. And so being able to use a phone and for example, have the text be bigger or another example is if you are colorblind, having the text or rather the screen appear in a way that is easy to differentiate between what's on the screen. Those are all things that kind of fit squarely within the accessibility category. And Apple does, as far as I'm concerned and as far as many people are concerned, put its money where its mouth is when it comes to those accessibility requirements or features and settings. Now one thing that I will note as well is that along with Apple being known for its commitment to accessibility, oftentimes we will see features make their way into the phone by way of accessibility that then become features that are adopted across the entire platform. So one example of that is with the Apple Watch, not the iPhone, but on the Apple Watch there has long been an accessibility feature that lets you use the built in sensors on your Apple Watch to determine when you are tapping two of your fingers together because right through your wrist are of course the connections that are that that reach your fingers at the end. And then also there are certain vibrations that take place whenever you tap your fingers together. And all of that was able to be used via an accessibility feature to interact with the watch on the wrist. Later on, Apple just made that available as actually kind of marketed it as a feature for Apple watches where you could then look at the watch, double tap your finger, as I just have done. And what mine does is it cycles through my screen so I am able to see different parts of my screen that would normally require me to scroll up with the action excuse me, with the Digital Crown. All of that's available just by doing the finger pinch. It also is a way to dismiss alarms and timers and all sorts of stuff. So that's just one example. But these features are again across the platform. And there's one feature that I use all the time in the accessibility section and that is a feature called Reduce White Point. And Reduce White Point is a feature, let me switch over here, that, that helps me when I'm using my phone at night. In fact, it's a feature that I use so often that I actually have my action button set to turn it on. So if you're watching on my phone that's on the screen, you don't notice it because it's a digital version. But I have also brought my phone up and I'm pressing the Action button and I'm turning on and turning off Reduce White Point. Now what that does is it basically tells the phone take the brightness option and make it drop even more. And so at night, if I'm looking at my phone, I don't want it blasting me even at its lowest brightness.
With brightness. And so this lets it be even darker. Now that is under Accessibility Display and Text size. And you'll find within Display and Text size an option that says Reduce White Point. And you'll notice it's currently off. If I turn it on with the Action button, it turns it on and then you have a slider to choose how much it actually reduces the brightness on your device. So this was a feature that Georgia Dow, friend of the network Georgia Dao, introduced me to a long time ago and I have used it ever since then as a way to just again make my phone a little bit darker at night, which I won't go into all of the sleep related effects that has to do with that. Rosemary, I would love to hear. So that's an accessibility feature that I use regularly. I would love to hear, are there any accessibility features that you use regularly before we kind of dig into some of the other options that are available to our listeners?
Rosemary Orchard
Yeah, so one of the things that, I mean, it's actually not something I use all the time, but my parents are using this all of the time. And that is very simply the display and text size. It's. It sounds something. It's something very basic. But if you have never gone in and changed the display and text size or the fact that there are labels, that is something that I have enabled under Display and text size. This is under Settings and then Accessibility. I like having labels. So I can see that labels are on. This is green and there's a little one. It's. It's an I because it's I and O or it's a 1 and 0 for. It's binary. It doesn't really matter. But I like having labels in my switches. Larger text I have off, but I can still adjust the text size to have dynamic text sizing. And you can even toggle on larger accessibility sizes and then go super, super big, if that's what's needed. And I would encourage everybody to have a little play with this and see if you can find something that makes it slightly more comfortable for you to use your device. Because a lot of people don't necessarily have their devices set to a great size. If you wear glasses and you often take your glasses off, especially like you're in your bed but you're still checking your phone, then maybe you should investigate changing the text size and, you know, having a little play with that just to make it a little better for you. And yeah, there's. There's some other things in here as well, some features that I have in the Control center or my parents have in the Control center as well. But I think we'll dive into those as part of going through some of the awesome accessibility features on iOS.
Micah Sargent
Yeah. So for me, I sometimes just find it delightful to go into the Accessibility screen, the Accessibility settings in your Settings app, and just take a look at some of the stuff that you can do, because you'll be surprised at finding, I think finding things that will be helpful to you. You have, for example, the Zoom feature, which will let you.
Kind of see parts of the screen a little bit better. So if you double tap with three fingers, you can zoom in and zoom out. If you drag three fingers, it lets you move around the screen and you can then kind of see what's going on. And then double tap. Whoops. Double tap with three fingers and move up and down to zoom. Oh, is it not showing? Yeah, so it's not showing you. Unfortunately, this is just a feature that's. I didn't realize this. It won't show up on the screen here, but essentially it's your magnifier for your phone on the screen. And that I quite like. Oh, there we go. I can choose to show it while mirroring. Now we should be able to. There we go. Turn that on. And I'm able to kind of move around the screen as I need to, along with the view. So really handy feature. If you just need a quick peek at something with bigger size, that's a way to go about doing that. Hover text is another feature that will just show text view kind of bigger. So think about whenever you are tapping and holding on text and you're kind of moving your cursor and how the screen gets bigger in that spot. This is akin to that, but it's just like a little magnifying glass that you can put on your phone screen to have that pop up. Lots of features in display and text size, as Rosemary was talking about, like having larger text, but also making the text bolder, making sure that the labels show you on and off with color and with little symbols behind them, reducing transparency and increasing the contrast of display. Being able to decide whether text appears in a certain way, being able to invert the colors. And then, as I mentioned before, for example, setting up color filters for color blindness. So a red green filter, if you have. Is it protanopia? Yes. Deuteranopia, which is green. Red, and then tritanopia, which is blue, yellow. Or you can set a specific color. And so those filters will change the way that colors display on screen to help you. To help change the way that they look so that you can differentiate between them. Now, this is super cool. We have. When Leo and I did the hands. No. What was it called? Ask the Tech Guy show. We would occasionally get someone who would write in or call in and say, look, it's really difficult for me to use any modern devices because the light causes issues for me. That causes me to have migraines. And so I am unable to view modern screens. And we actually had one. One listener who called in and talked about how he basically has to spend all of his time. I believe it's. It's. It was either red light or green light. I can't remember which one. But all of his time in a tinted light inside because of the migraines that he would get. There's a feature now in the display and text size options called Display Pulse Smoothing, also known as pwm. And I want to read this to you all because this is a feature that you might not know is now there. This is what it says provides a different way to dim the OLED display at low brightness levels by disabling pulse width modulation, which can create a smoother display output. Display or disabling PWM may affect low brightness display performance under certain conditions, but Display Pulse is responsible for the theory is that it's responsible for the experiences some people have with OLED displays that cause them to suffer migraines. And so that can be very helpful in either having that turned on or having it turned off. So those are some places that you can look as well. But you'll notice that all of these accessibility features are broken into different categories for vision, for physical and motor, for hearing, for speech, and then for different access accessories that you may have that you use with them, as well as just general features and settings. Now, again, there's so much in this section, and what I what Rosemary and I are not doing is talking about hidden features on your iPhone that you should learn about. No, these are not hidden features. They're features that are very much available for people who need them. But I remember Renee Ritchie, formerly of macbrick Weekly, talking about how we kind of have to not think of these features as those that are available to people, only to people who regularly need them, but that there may come a time when you are in need of these features that you may not use at other times. And one example of that was when I had an eye appointment and had my pupils die, I needed two things from my phone. As a person who really struggles with finding my way around, of course I still needed to use the GPS on the phone, but with my pupils dilated, it was hard to look at the phone. So one of my favorite features, Reduce White Point, came in handy there. But because of the way that it changes your vision, I also needed the text to be larger. So I was able to set up both of those things. And where I may not normally need those features, they were helpful in that instance. So learning about these can be helpful the next time it comes up for you and you can go, okay, this was a time where I know that the feature is there and I'm able to use it. Other options that you want to talk about, Rosemary?
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, I did want to mention that there is an option which I'm not going to necessarily show the details of now, but there is an option of connecting a pointer device, as Apple calls it, to your iPhone. And iPad came on the iPad first and then it came along on the iPhone. What is a pointer device, you may be asking? It's a mouse or a trackpad. And this can be really useful, especially if you are for example, trying to demonstrate something to somebody, showing them exactly where to tap your finger or your hand is going to get in the way on the device. If you attach a pointer device, then it has a natural little bubble that shows where you are pointing and what you are tapping and things like that, which are all great options to, to be able to use. This can be especially useful if you are sharing a screen via facetime.
With somebody like a parent or someone to try and help them with things. Speaking of FaceTime, did you know that there is also sign time because sign time is where you can get help from Apple support using sign language, which I think is really cool. Uh, it's. Yeah, that, that that person will then, you know, help you using sign language, which is great if you are deaf or hard of hearing or just need to communicate using sign language. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of things which are really, really useful. Um, I do just want to mention actually if you are somebody who perhaps does need larger text and so on, that every so often you have a piece of paper like I don't know, maybe this thing here and you're trying to read it and you do the pinch to zoom gesture on the piece of paper. Hate to tell you folks, that don't work on paper. I'm sorry, I wish it did. But there is something that you can add to Control Center. So I've just swiped into Control center, just tapping and holding to add a control. It is easier than ever to add a control. And I'm going to add the magnifier here. Now I personally don't need this very often, but it can be super useful. So I have. There we go. This is my Saratoga Inclusions cheat sheet. And now I can zoom in and I can just tap and swipe to zoom. And I would encourage people to experiment with the options that you can add Control center because you never know when you might need the zoom option. What I also really like about this is it gives me the option to capture. This isn't a photo, folks. This is a capture. This is really great for. I'm looking at the back of a TV trying to figure out what's going on. But I can't really see the back of the tv. Use the magnifier, use the capture and be like, ah, that's it. And you don't have a bunch of photos saved in your phone of the back of the TV because you, you don't need that. You, you just have the one. There is also a reader function built into this which then you know, translates it into actual selectable text and then you can play it and listen to it out loud. So yeah, definitely recommend magnifier as a feature. Add it to your control center. Or don't. I don't. I'm not in charge of you. But it's definitely really, really good. Highly recommend it.
Micah Sargent
I love that I'm not in charge of you. There are also features for using your voice to be able to better control your device. So you can even use this whenever you're on calls. There are ways to improve upon it. What I love about the voice control feature is that there's a tutorial, sometimes you do need that. But there are different commands that you can set up. So commands that are built in like Open App Library, Open App Switcher, but then you can also change them. So say Type to Siri. Open Type to Siri. Show Type to Siri will bring those up. But you can also set up confirmation for each of them. So it can say is this what you're actually asking for? And then you can say yes, yes. You can create new commands, play sounds whenever those commands go through Show Hints so you can see when those are needed and then whether you have an overlay, which I think is very helpful for doing voice control. So sometimes people just want to a reason why somebody might want this when they don't necessarily use it regularly. Think about having a group photo, right? Being able to have the phone a little bit farther away from you and setting up a voice control command that says take the photo. And what it does is it turns the camera to that five second timer and then starts the camera going. If you don't have an Apple watch or some other way of making that happen, that can be an easy way to trigger those features. So very handy. Again with some of these accessibility features where I just recommend hopping in and taking a look at what's there because you may come up with some ideas for stuff that you want wouldn't know about otherwise. Now this is also where you can go in and make adjustments to how you regularly use your phone. So for example, if you find that with your side button, when you are double tapping, double clicking, I guess the Side button or triple clicking the side button. Double clicking for me activates Apple Wallet, and I think triple click does the emergency SOS for me.
In any case, what this does is you may find that as you're doing it, you're having trouble getting it to activate whatever it is that you've set up your Apple Wallet. You're double clicking, but you feel like you're not doing it fast enough, and the phone feels like you're not doing it fast enough. You can change the click speed to slow or slowest. That will mean that there's more space allowed between each of your clicks to make it possible for the operating system to register it as a double click. Then there's also the Press and Hold to Speak button. Right now, pressing and holding my side button will activate Siri, but you can also have it activate Voice Control. Or if you don't want it to work that way, you can just turn this off. And then if you're using things like Switch Control or AssistiveTouch, you can have the side button work as a way to confirm those payments as well. So that's adding more control to side button than you would have if you just go into the basic settings for side button. Same thing applies to Camera control, where you can change how hard you need to press on the Camera Control button to make it work by default. It's set to default, but you can also make it so that you don't have to press as hard or that you have to press harder if you find that you know you're accidentally clicking it when you don't intend to. And then of course it also has the speed for those double light, press or double click options as well. So yes, you can. Really Apple has in the past kind of been accused of not giving users ultimate control of their devices. I think you can find that control.
In the accessibility section of your settings.
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Micah Sargent
B R-I K.com Are you ready to grow in 2026? Let me tell you why advertising on Twit is the way to make that happen. I'm Micah Sargent. I'm the host of Tech News Weekly and several other shows on the network. And if you've ever listened to our shows, then you know what makes what we do different. It's trust. When we introduce a new partner on the show, the audience knows we believe in what they offer because we're only taking on partners that will actually benefit our audience. And they know that when I'm waxing ecstatic about your product or service, I'm doing so with authenticity. Some other reasons why you should join the network? It's all about the numbers. 88%. That's the number of listeners who've made a purchase based on a twit ad. 90%. Those are the people who are involved in their content, company's tech and IT decisions. Oh, and by the way, 99% is the number of people who listen to most or all of the episode. Every host Red ad we offer is authentic, it's unique, it's embedded permanently. So that means that your brand is going to get exposure even after your campaign concludes. Because yes, our nerds, our listeners, our viewers, they go back and check out the stuff we've done in the past. Every ad is simulcast across our social platforms. It's always available in both audio and video formats. So if you want your brand woven into conversations with tech experts and the world's most tech savvy audience, I mean, where else are you going to turn? Except right here at TWIT? So let's make 2026 your most substantial reach yet. Get in touch with us. Email partnerwit TV or visit Twit TV Advertisement Anything else that you want to mention, Rosemary, when it comes to accessibility on your iPad, your iPhone, etc.
Rosemary Orchard
Yeah, I do want to say there's a whole bunch of tools out there. Be careful with what you buy folks, because some things may say like oh yeah, we're a really great accessibility tool and they charge 15 times the price for it because they've stuck the accessibility tag on there and therefore they're charging you too much for it. It so you can get all things like remotes to control your devices and things like that. You know, like for example, there's TikTok remotes which use the accessibility features on your phone to swipe up and down and things like that to help you scroll through by pressing buttons on your finger, on a ring on your finger and things like that. But one thing I do want to mention, which I have had for a while, it is not designed for accessibility per se, but if you have somebody who has an iPhone, they want to keep using the iPhone, fair. But maybe they're struggling because they keep accidentally pressing the sides of the screen. Then the bookcase by Astropad is a really great option that you can get. So what happens with this is your phone. I'm just gonna unplug my phone so that I can show folks your phone just mag safes onto this. Now it does have an NFC tag in the middle, so when your phone makes it on, it can then automatically execute an action through shortcuts. But what this gives you is a way to hold your device without touching the sides by accident. Now this will support any size iPhone. I believe it is on sale. It says it's 7.99 on the AstroPad shop in the UK, so I'm guessing it's probably 9.99 in the US or something along those lines. But yeah, this is really great. I like this for all sorts of things. It makes my phone fit into sort of tablet holders that I have around the house because I don't necessarily have phone holders and things like that. That and it's just a really great way to be able to hold your device without worrying about accidentally touching the screen. Or something like that. Or you can use it to read books, which is the intention. You know, that that's an option too. But, yeah, no, I just find this is really great. Uh, and I'm actually buying my grandmother one for Christmas because she has mentioned, uh, that sometimes, uh, she does. Like, she's looking at her phone and she keeps touching bits of the screen by accident where she's trying to hold it. So I'm gonna get her one of these so she can just stick her iPhone to it at home, and then when she goes out, she can take her iPhone off and pop it in her handbag, same as she always does. So, yeah, Bookcase by astropad. Very affordable and highly recommended.
Micah Sargent
And I can't say enough that you really are going to, I think, get the, the best experience by just taking some time to head into the accessibility settings and look at what is there. I think that you will be surprised again at what's possible and you might learn something new about what your iPhone can do that you would not have otherwise been able to kind of dig into. So it's just worth popping in and going, I wonder what this does, because you can always toggle it off afterward. So very easy to do that. All right.
Let us move along to our app caps. Our app caps are up next here on the show. I should remind you all that you can email us iostodaywit tv. That's how you get in touch. We would love to hear from you if you have Shortcuts Corner requests, if you have feedback you'd like to provide, or if your feedback is simply just a question that's not quite within the Shortcuts corner section. I also want to mention a couple of things you may have when you upgraded to your new phone. If you got one of the new phones, if you are rocking the latest version of iOS, you are not alone. If you've experienced CarPlay issues. I updated to the latest version of iOS and I have a wireless CarPlay head unit. And boy howdy, I had so much trouble with connectivity and I heard from a couple of folks who also were having issues, and it could feel kind of like, ah, I'm the only one that's got this going on. What do I do? So I'll talk about my experience. One thing that I did, one thing that I thought I could do was just go into my head unit and, and reset the internal settings. So kind of removing any pairing between my device and that aftermarket head unit, right. So that it doesn't recognize it in Bluetooth. It doesn't recognize it for CarPlay. It doesn't recognize it at all. Right.
I went into the settings and did that. It removed the Bluetooth, but yet somehow, every time I did the CarPlay setup, which on many modern cars, you press and hold the little talk icon on.
Your steering wheel and then it will pop up, whatever, like CarPlay connectivity options you have. And every time I would do that, it was still showing the old phones that I had once connected to the device. And I thought, I reset the settings. Why is this still happening? Okay, I'm going to look up how to do a factory restore on this thing. Look up how to do a factory restore. I did it. It was telling me to go to the settings and do that. Well, it turns out there's another option to reset. They call it reset the microprocessor. They're a little button that you press. You've got to have a paperclip or something. So I do that thinking, okay, well, that's completely reset everything to default. This will be great. Turn it on. Hit that little carplay button to try to get us connected. And somehow it's still showing my old phones, two of them, and there's no option to delete them, no option to remove them. All sorts of stuff that I'm having an issue with, still not getting any connectivity. So finally, what I had to do and the thing that worked for me was of course, in your phone settings, you need to go into the Settings app and you need to, under Bluetooth, remove the CarPlay head unit by forgetting the pairing. But here's the trick.
CarPlay is both a Bluetooth and WI fi connectivity if you're doing it wirelessly. And so there's two parts to it when it comes to that side of things. One is to remove the Bluetooth pairing, but then you also need to go into your settings and you need to go into wifi and you need to forget the network. You may be going, well, it's not showing up as a connection option by default unless I have that network running, right? Well, no, if you tap in the top right on the edit button, it will facetime authenticate or authenticate in some way, and it will show you all of the known networks on your device. You hit the I button next to the network that you're wanting to get rid of. I recognize mine because I've looked at it a bunch of times. It's usually the model of the CarPlay head unit and then choose Forget this network. From there, you want to go into general and then go into CarPlay and also make sure that you remove it from that section by choosing forget this car. Once it's out of all three of those spots so it's sort of purged from that your new phone. Then comes the next part. There are a couple of options on how to get this to work. If you have an older CarPlay head unit back in the day when people were more likely to try to steal your head unit, and so they decided to make it possible for you to remove sort of the face of it that has all of the electronics built in, I had to take that off and bring it into my house. I mean, I could have left it in the car, but bring it into my house and let it be disconnected for long enough that it lost any of its battery. And then I also needed to do. I needed to remove. This is again wild going into my car and within my car, removing the fuse temporarily that connects to the stereo, from the battery to the stereo. Once both of those devices had discharged, you know, the remaining battery juice that was in the capacitor, then finally it forgot the other CarPlay phones. And then when I brought my phone back and connected it again, then it finally worked. Now, again, I had tried without doing the part where I remove the carplay face and the fuse part. I had done the part where I removed the Bluetooth pairing and the WI fi network pairing and tried to connect it, and that was not enough. I basically had to make the car's head unit forget entirely any of the other phones so that it only was looking for the new iPhone. And my theory is that what's really at issue here is the new wireless chip that is in the iPhone that is made by Apple as opposed to being made by a third party. And because of Apple's commitment to battery life and performance when it comes to that, I'm feeling. And again, this is just theory that these chips are a little sleepier than your standard Bluetooth chip. And so where a.
Phone that has not a custom chip from Apple is. Is kind of beaconing a little bit more often saying, hey, I'm here. And the car stereo is going, oh, I recognize you. We Bluetooth pair and then we wifi connect after that. This one is a little bit sleepier. And it's not saying it enough to let the car stereo know, hey, I need to connect to you. And so when there's no other option for the car stereo to connect and the iPhone, that is my most recent iPhone, is the one that's working, then it was able to connect finally. And I was happy to get that working. So your mileage may vary. Ha. Car joke. But that was what fixed it for me and so your kilometers may vary as well. So that's what worked for me in the end. And what fixed my carplay issue.
Rosemary Orchard
Yeah, I feel like there's been a range of carplay issues. Fortunately not necessarily inducing range anxiety. But I had carplay just constantly cutting out on me and it what fixed it was buying a new carplay adapter for me. Like that just fixed all of my problems and it was maybe $20 equivalent. But the best part of that was is it actually fixed a bunch of other issues I was having with CarPlay I didn't know I was having with CarPlay.
Micah Sargent
Oh wow.
Rosemary Orchard
So yeah, like I I just thought that wireless carplay was really lacky when it came to showing the media on the in car display by my dash like on the actual speedo like area. It turns out that that was actually my carplay adapter that was causing the problem. So upgrade that fixed it for me.
Micah Sargent
There you go.
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Rosemary Orchard
Double check.
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Micah Sargent
And if you're shopping for someone who lives and breathes Texas, we've got the perfect gift. It's a Club Twit membership. You can give them ad free podcasts, exclusive content, and VIP access to our Discord community. It's not another gadget that's going to collect dust. It's something they're actually going to use every single week. So gift a membership today at Twit tv Club Twit. All right, I believe it is time for our app caps. These are the apps or gadgets we're using now or have used for some time that we think are great and want to share with all of you. I'm doing a bit of a. A redo a mea culpa situation this week because I still love this app so much and I use it. It's a game, so I play it all the time. But the last time we I talked about it, I said that it was an Apple Arcade game. And it is not an Apple Arcade game. It is simply an app available in the App Store. It is a wonderful puzzle game, a cozy puzzle game called Art. Art of Fauna. And Art of Fauna is again, just a puzzler. So the way. And if you're watching and you're seeing it on the screen, essentially what it does is it takes different animals and it breaks them up into tiles, and you just rearrange the tiles on the screen to get it to be the creature that you are seeing in front of you. Now, there are multiple options to make it easier or harder, and each of those options has kind of its own achievements. So you can do it, you know, the easiest version all the way up to the hardest version. And what's great about it is it's not just a visual, it is also text. So as a person who loves a fact, who loves a little bit of trivia, you can switch it to the other side. So instead of a photo, it tells you about the creature that you are creating. And. And you can rearrange the text to try to get it aligned. And let me tell you, there are times where you're working on a creature that is almost all one color or almost all one pattern. And switching to the text is very helpful in those cases to kind of get things rearranged. The creator comes out with new puzzles all the time, and so you'll get an update occasionally that will have a new puzzle. I have, I've gotten all of the achievements for the game. I have played all of the puzzles on the game in hard mode. And so now the only modes that are left are the easier ones, which means that I don't play those as much. But it makes this beautiful art afterward that I think is really great. And it also is very mindful of people with phobias. So if you are afraid of reptiles or specifically snakes or spiders or whatever it happens to be, you can let the app know and it will keep those creatures from showing up for you.
This is just a delightful game. Oh, and I should mention too, it has a. I usually don't play it with sound, but it is better if you play it with sound because it has built in.
A sort of progressive sound. And by that I mean sound that lets you know, that indicates that you are progressing in the puzzle as you're completing it. So with every kind of new piece that locks in it of changes to let you know, like, you're. You're getting better, you're almost there. So I just. It's like jigsaw puzzles, but without the jigsaw pieces. And.
When I have like a down, a moment where there's something, there's not something else that's happening, and I'm looking for something to do with my hands. Love, love, love. So that is Art of Fauna. It's available for free in the App Store, not an Apple Arcade game. And it does have in app purchases that will give you access to, for example, the Friends of Fauna experience, where people send in photos of creatures that they have found, or, you know, it could be a photo of a dog, and then those are turned into illustrations that are then.
Added to the game. And so in fact, the November version, I'm learning, just went out 17 hours ago. Legato Romagnolo, which is a doggo. And so I'm very much looking forward to playing that because again, I've got all the rest of them done. And the creator regularly comes out with puzzles that are holiday themed as well. So there was a whole section of October stuff. Spooky creatures like a creepy spider and a vampire squid. Lots of fun. I enjoy it so, so, so much. You can check it out. Art of Fauna. All right, I believe that's it.
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, Rosemary, yes, it is indeed, Micah. There is nothing else to say for today other than go and explore the accessibility settings and make sure you've got yourself set up for success.
Micah Sargent
Indeed. If you would like to get in touch with us, IowaD WWIT TV is free. How you do. So I also want to mention Club Twit. Twit tv. Club Twit. That is where you can go to join our club. We have wonderful Benefits for you, $10 a month, $120 a year. Joining the club gets you access to our ad free shows. It's just the content and none of the ads. You also gain access to our special feeds that include behind the scenes moments. It also has our feed for the live news coverage that we do, commentary of live tech events and access to our club shows like My Crafting Corner, Stacy's Book Club and the D and D adventure that I've been DMing through. It's a. It's a walk through a corn maze. A spooky corn maze. We completed the first half of the adventure and we'll be completing the next half of the adventure. Actually, it will be out by the time you're listening to this, now that I think about it. So if you want to see those, the only way you're going to do that is if you join Club Twit. Twit TV Club Twit. We've got promotions running right now, plus you start with a two week free trial. So all of that means there's no reason to not give it a go. Twit TV Club Twit. And we'd love to have you. Rosemary Orchard. If people would like to follow you online and keep up with all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?
Rosemary Orchard
So the best place to go is rosemary.com which has got links to apps, books, podcasts and all the social media sites where you can find me. Plus of course you can also find me in that club Discord where we hang out whilst we're recording the show, but also after the show, which is always lovely to see and hear from people with. And we've had a bit of a discussion on iPhone pockets, socks, ipod, sockets, iPhone pockets. And fine, it's confusing, but we're having fun. Micah Working folks find you hot pockets.com.
Micah Sargent
No, you can find me at Micah Sargent on many a social media network or head to Chihuahua Coffee. That's the H I H U a H U a Coffee where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Thank you so much for being here this week. We're just about ready to round out this year, which is wild this. The time just keeps flying on by. We'll catch you again next week for another episode of iOS today, but until then, goodbye.
Rosemary Orchard
Goodbye folks.
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Hosts: Micah Sargent & Rosemary Orchard
Air Date: December 4, 2025
This episode centers on making the most of Apple’s accessibility tools across iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.). Hosts Micah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard guide listeners through both well-known and hidden gems in accessibility settings, aimed not just at those with disabilities but anyone looking to optimize and adapt their device experience. The conversation is practical, inclusive, and full of actionable tips, with real-life stories and memorable insights.
“Apple does, as far as I’m concerned … put its money where its mouth is when it comes to those accessibility requirements or features and settings.”
—Micah Sargent (04:39)
“I have my Action button set to turn it on… so at night if I’m looking at my phone, I don’t want it blasting me even at its lowest brightness.”
—Micah Sargent (07:33)
“If you wear glasses and you often take your glasses off … maybe you should investigate changing the text size.”
—Rosemary Orchard (09:36)
“I would encourage people to experiment with the options you can add to Control center because you never know when you might need the zoom option.”
—Rosemary Orchard (19:18)
“There may come a time when you are in need of these features that you may not use at other times.”
—Micah Sargent (15:59)
“If you have somebody who has an iPhone … but maybe they’re struggling because they keep accidentally pressing the sides of the screen. Then the Bookcase by Astropad is a really great option.”
—Rosemary Orchard (29:20)
(33:14–39:51)
“Your mileage may vary. Ha. Car joke. But that was what fixed it for me…”
—Micah Sargent (38:12)
“You really are going to, I think, get the best experience by just taking some time to head into the accessibility settings and look at what is there.”
—Micah Sargent (30:51)
Each host ends the show recommending an app or accessory they love:
Rosemary:
“Go and explore the accessibility settings and make sure you’ve got yourself set up for success.” (46:27)
Micah:
“You might learn something new about what your iPhone can do...” (30:51)
Stay tuned for more, and remember — accessibility makes things better for everyone!