Apple has pre-announced several innovative features coming to iOS 18, visionOS 2, and other OS via an accessibility news drop.
Later this year, we’ll see Vision Pro-style eye tracking on iPad and iPhone, powerful Vocal Shortcuts for custom device voice commands, Live Captions for augmented reality on visionOS, and a hands-free CarPlay mode.
One standout iOS 18 feature, beneficial to many users, is called Vehicle Motion Cues. This feature aims to reduce or eliminate motion sickness for iPhone users in cars.
Vehicle Motion Cues is designed to help reduce motion sickness for passengers using iPhones and iPads in moving vehicles, including planes, boats, and trains. Research indicates that motion sickness is often caused by a sensory conflict between what a person sees and what they feel, which can make using iPhones or iPads uncomfortable in motion.
Vehicle Motion Cues uses animated dots on the screen’s edges to represent changes in vehicle motion, reducing sensory conflict without interfering with the main content.
Utilizing built-in sensors, the feature detects when a user is in a moving vehicle and responds accordingly. Users can set this feature to activate automatically or toggle it on and off in Control Center.
Apple has provided a sneak peek of the interface on an iPhone running iOS 18.
The addition of animated dots to bridge the gap between external motion and screen motion seems simple, yet effective. Presumably, Apple’s testing has proven its effectiveness, leading to its planned rollout with iOS and iPadOS 18 this fall.
