On Apple's accessibility push with iOS


Icon Factor's Craig Hickenberry:

But now there's another incentive for thinking about accessibility: helping others also helps your downloads:

[Graph showing a spike in downloads after being features for accessibility]

If you're a developer, you'll want to learn more about how to implement accessibility in your own app. Apple has also put together a fantastic list of resources that covers all aspects of accessibility.

I've been spending a lot of time lately working on accessibility projects. This year is the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (often referred to as ADA) and it's sad that the Internet basically grew up with ADA, but is still in a sorry state.

Like the web, mobile also obviously emerged well pass the basic guidance for accessibility and it too is lacking. Even worse, there's significant demand for accessibility as in the U.S. approximately 20% - 30% of the population has some kind of impairment that may limit their ability to use modern products.

So, it's encouraging seeing Apple not only support accessibility functionality, but go further by pushing developers to make their products better.