by Shelly Brisbin
New York Magazine lauds Vision Pro’s accessibility
Author Andrew Leland, whose memoir, The Country of the Blind gained critical praise last year, is out with a feature for New York magazine on how the Apple Vision Pro is providing accessibility benefits for people with low vision, limb differences, and cognitive disabilities:
Neurodiverse users have also found value in the AVP. “I generally feel a lot better after having worn it for a while,” a user with autism and ADHD told me. “It’s like a reset for the brain.” When I chatted with them, they’d just drained their AVP’s battery by spacing out in the immersive lunar environment. “My brain just is hyperfocused on whatever stimulus comes in, so whatever I can do to manually cut those stimuli off helps me tremendously,” they said. “The Vision Pro is noise-canceling headphones for my eyes.”
Leland describes the joy a low-vision user finds with the headset, viewing windows the size of a garden shed, or not having to crane one’s to see a desk-mounted monitor. But he isn’t starry-eyed about Vision Pro, pointing out ways the people he profiled have struggled – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot – with the device. He was also treated to the Apple Park experience, and came away impressed by what he saw and heard from the accessibility team there.
Leland’s piece is most notable, though, for its thoughtful take on the nature of accessibility, and the way he contextualizes it for a wide audience without dumbing things down.