Using iOS with limited vision

Here are some recommendations for using iOS (or iPadOS) with limited vision:

Go Large (device)

Get the largest phone / tablet you can afford.

Go Large (text)

Go to Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Text Size -> Larger Accessibility Sizes

Then drag the slider to make the text bigger.

Go Large (display)

Go to Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Display Zoom

Then set it to Larger Text.

Use Siri

If you don't like the phone always listening for "Hey, Siri" then at least enable the push button.

Go to Settings -> Apple Intelligence & Siri

Talk to Siri (your choice, Off is an option)

Press Side Button for Siri ON - Siri will respond even if you have "Talk to Siri" set to off.  Just push the button and make the request, you don't have to say "Hey, Siri" to start the request when you're using the push button.

Some Useful Requests

• What time is it?
• What's the temperature?
• What's it feel like? - This gives the felt temperature.
• What's the forecast?
• Is it raining?  Is it snowing?
• [When you have unread new messages.]  Read message(s)
• [When you have read messages.]  Read most recent message(s)
• [To activate Speak Screen.]  Speak Screen

You can use Siri to compose very short messages or emails but in general you're better off using dictation due to Siri's short attention span that will rapidly time out on anything but a very short message.

Siri can also play various types of audio with varying degrees of success.

• Play radio station BBC Radio 3 on Apple Music
• Play podcast [podcast name] on Podcasts
• Play podcast [podcast name] on [your podcast app of choice]
• Play audiobook [audiobook name] by [author name] on Books
• Set a sleep timer for x minutes - it will stop playing all audio and video when the sleep timer ends

Note audiobook playing is really hit and miss, sometimes it won't be able to find an audiobook even though it is in your library.

Also note Siri knows nothing about episodes or chapters.  So it will only play the most recent episode of a podcast, or an audiobook from the start or wherever you left off.  You can't play podcast episodes by episode name or number or ask for newer or older episodes, or ask for a specific book chapter or navigate to the next or previous chapter.

Siri tries to learn the apps you prefer but that can be a mess if e.g. you play some podcasts in Apple Podcasts and others in a different podcast app.  It's easiest to always just specify the particular app.

Use Dictation

Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard

Enable Dictation ON

With dictation on there's a microphone icon in the lower right of the keyboard that you can use in almost any text field.

Note: Apple will often turn dictation off after an update, you'll have to go in and manually enable it again.

Use Speak Screen

Siri is pretty terrible at reading emails.

It's much easier to open the email and then use Speak Screen.

Speak Screen is eccentric though, you may have to hit play twice on the Speak Screen floating popup control window to get it to read the entire email.

Use Magnifier

Although it won't help you do anything on the device, use the built-in Magnifier to e.g. read text.
You can run it as an app or access it as a button in the Control Center.

Apple Support - Use Magnifier on your iPhone or iPad