Apple has been building accessibility features into the iPhone for years. Most of them are switched off by default, tucked away in a corner of Settings that most people never visit. That’s a shame, because several of them are genuinely useful for everyone, not just people with specific needs.

Here are five worth knowing about.

1. Larger Text

What it does: Makes text bigger across your entire phone, not just in one app, but system-wide.

A lot of people we work with have their text set far too small because they’ve never changed it from the default. The default isn’t the right size for everyone. It’s just the default.

How to set it: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size and drag the slider to the right. If you want to go even bigger than the standard range allows, go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Accessibility Sizes and switch that on first.

You can also adjust this quickly by going to Settings > Control Centre and adding Text Size to your controls. Then you can change it from the Control Centre with one swipe, without going into Settings every time.

2. Magnifier

What it does: Turns your iPhone into a proper magnifying glass, with a light, zoom control, and the ability to freeze the image.

This is the feature that surprises people most when we show them. Your phone already has one of the best cameras available. Magnifier uses it to let you zoom in on anything, a menu, a label, small print on a form, with a proper adjustable zoom and a torch built in.

How to use it: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Magnifier and switch it on. Then either find the Magnifier app (it looks like a magnifying glass) or add it to your Control Centre.

The freeze button is particularly useful, tap it to hold the image still while you read, without having to keep your hand steady.

3. Display & Text Size Extras

What it does: Several smaller adjustments that together make the screen much easier to read.

This section of Settings contains a handful of options that most people walk past. Three worth switching on:

Bold Text, makes all text heavier and easier to distinguish
Increase Contrast, makes colours more distinct, especially helpful in bright sunlight or for anyone with reduced contrast sensitivity
Reduce Transparency, removes the frosted-glass effect on menus and backgrounds, replacing it with solid colours that are easier to read against

Where to find them: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size

None of these change how your phone works, they just make it easier to see.

4. Siri

What it does: Lets you use your phone by talking to it rather than tapping.

We know Siri has a reputation for being unreliable, and it’s not perfect. But for a specific set of tasks it is genuinely faster and easier than navigating menus, especially if small screens or precise tapping are difficult.

Things Siri handles well:

“Call [name]”, faster than finding the contact yourself
“Set an alarm for 7am”, instant, no navigating the Clock app
“Send a message to [name]”, dictates the message without typing
“What’s the weather tomorrow?”, a quick spoken answer
“Turn on my torch”, especially useful at night

How to activate it: Either press and hold the side button, or just say “Hey Siri” if that’s switched on (check in Settings > Siri & Search).

It doesn’t have to replace how you use your phone. But for a handful of regular tasks, it can make things noticeably easier.

5. Live Captions

What it does: Puts real-time subtitles on your screen for any audio playing on your phone, or any sound picked up by your microphone.

This arrived with iOS 16 and it’s quietly remarkable. It works on phone calls, video calls, YouTube videos, voice messages, podcasts, anything producing audio on your device. It also has a microphone mode that captions live conversation in the room.

It’s not perfect. Background noise affects accuracy, and it occasionally mishears words. But for making phone calls more manageable, following fast speech, or simply having subtitles on a video without hunting for a CC button, it works very well.

How to turn it on: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions and switch it on. A small caption window will appear whenever audio is playing. You can drag it to a comfortable position on screen.

Finding More

All of these features live under Settings > Accessibility, it’s worth having a look through if you haven’t. Apple updates it with every iOS version, and there’s usually something new that turns out to be exactly what you needed.

If you’d like a walk-through of any of these in person, we cover accessibility features regularly in our one-to-one sessions across Hebden Bridge and the Calder Valley. Sometimes seeing it on your own phone, with your own contacts and apps, makes all the difference.

5 iPhone Accessibility Features Worth Knowing