I tried this and it did nothing for me. For a start, the white dots disappear on a white background, so not a good start. The main thing, though, is while it picked up on the vehicle turning it didn't pick up on acceleration much, which is what actually gives me motion sickness.
It works great on Macbook. I don't know why they don't suggest it to folks when car or train movement is detected! I have a feeling a lot of people don't know it exists.
I wish my Pixel 9 had it but I guess it hasn't trickled down yet. I think it's in the latest Android on latest Pixel devices though.
This should've been possible with the Thinkpad HDAPS accelerometer back in the day. (If it detected the laptop was falling, it would park the HDD heads in anticipation of impact.) Shame nobody thought of it then!
Were a lot of people rawdogging their Thinkpads while driving back in the day? Plugged into an inverter into the cigarette lighter to trickle charge? :-)
This has been reposted here several times in the last few weeks, but it is a very neat feature. I find myself getting quite motion sick on the bus if I look at my phone, but these dots help me at least check messages here and there without immediately feeling like I'm going to throw up.
Under "Display & Text Size": "on/off labels" and "increase contrast". "Reduce transparency" is a bit of a mixed bag but is worth trying out.
Under "Audio & Visual", "background sounds" is a built-in 'white noise' generator and can be useful for relaxing / sleeping. You wouldn't want to leave it on all the time, of course.
Under "Touch": "Back Touch" lets you map a double/triple tap on the back of the phone to various actions.
There's a lot of other neat features in iOS Accessibility (eye-tracking control! automatic captions! sound recognition!) and I'd encourage you to poke around to see what's available.
I love the background sounds feature. You can add a shortcut in the control center to turn it on and off. I used it a ton when I lived in an apartment with particularly noisy neighbors
As for Reduce Transparency, next iOS version has a proper slider to adjust the transparency of Liquid Glass - worth playing with for anyone on the beta
Not technically "Accessibility" but Android has a "developer" setting called "Show Touches" which puts little dots on screen when you touch it.
I find it acts a little like being able to see the cursor on a desktop or laptop; it provides a little bit of immediate feedback that the system recognized your intent, and helps make it clear whether it's the OS or just the app when things are getting laggy.
My Android phone has this too (Vivo). Maybe they all do?
It wasn't well explained what it was for though, I discovered it while messing with the settings and thought it was just a cool random feature to visualize motion. I'm just now learning it's for motion sickness.
One of the best and most clever "hidden" features. Very Apple.
I never get nauseous looking at my phone in an Uber anymore. My wife can barely handle looking at a screen in a car and this feature allows her to work with no issue.
I have no idea how something like this is ideated, then prototyped, then validated, but it does work wonders for me, and I am so grateful it exists.
A related post from last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557530
Sharing this here in case anyone wants to check out the discussion there and see how it looks in the Verge's short review.
There is a nice little app that does this on Android available on F-droid:
https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.davidv.motionsickness
I tried this and it did nothing for me. For a start, the white dots disappear on a white background, so not a good start. The main thing, though, is while it picked up on the vehicle turning it didn't pick up on acceleration much, which is what actually gives me motion sickness.
I just found out this capability is also available on Macbooks!
This would have saved me a lot of grief during a recent road trip through some mountains.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-motion-setti...
Very cool that apple made it
I wonder if any other laptops have IMUs that can be used to implement this on Linux/Windows
It works great on Macbook. I don't know why they don't suggest it to folks when car or train movement is detected! I have a feeling a lot of people don't know it exists.
I wish my Pixel 9 had it but I guess it hasn't trickled down yet. I think it's in the latest Android on latest Pixel devices though.
> I wish my Pixel 9 had it but I guess it hasn't trickled down yet.
You don't need to wait. You can get apps that do the same thing on Android.
This should've been possible with the Thinkpad HDAPS accelerometer back in the day. (If it detected the laptop was falling, it would park the HDD heads in anticipation of impact.) Shame nobody thought of it then!
Were a lot of people rawdogging their Thinkpads while driving back in the day? Plugged into an inverter into the cigarette lighter to trickle charge? :-)
This has been reposted here several times in the last few weeks, but it is a very neat feature. I find myself getting quite motion sick on the bus if I look at my phone, but these dots help me at least check messages here and there without immediately feeling like I'm going to throw up.
This is an easy enable with "Automatic Detection". Are there any other phone "Accessibility" options that are useful to everyone?
I use the magnifier on iOS to examine small electronics on a PCB, or other small detailed things.
Similarly, on MacOS I use the Zoom feature (Command Key + mouse scroll) to pixel peep when doing graphical work.
Under "Display & Text Size": "on/off labels" and "increase contrast". "Reduce transparency" is a bit of a mixed bag but is worth trying out.
Under "Audio & Visual", "background sounds" is a built-in 'white noise' generator and can be useful for relaxing / sleeping. You wouldn't want to leave it on all the time, of course.
Under "Touch": "Back Touch" lets you map a double/triple tap on the back of the phone to various actions.
There's a lot of other neat features in iOS Accessibility (eye-tracking control! automatic captions! sound recognition!) and I'd encourage you to poke around to see what's available.
I love the background sounds feature. You can add a shortcut in the control center to turn it on and off. I used it a ton when I lived in an apartment with particularly noisy neighbors
As for Reduce Transparency, next iOS version has a proper slider to adjust the transparency of Liquid Glass - worth playing with for anyone on the beta
On Android I use super dim, as someone who enjoys low light situations, even the darkest brightness setting can be too bright sometimes
Not technically "Accessibility" but Android has a "developer" setting called "Show Touches" which puts little dots on screen when you touch it.
I find it acts a little like being able to see the cursor on a desktop or laptop; it provides a little bit of immediate feedback that the system recognized your intent, and helps make it clear whether it's the OS or just the app when things are getting laggy.
I think that this setting should be promoted out of developer settings as i find it so useful
What do you mean useful to everyone?
Do you think everyone gets motion sickness?
My Android phone has this too (Vivo). Maybe they all do?
It wasn't well explained what it was for though, I discovered it while messing with the settings and thought it was just a cool random feature to visualize motion. I'm just now learning it's for motion sickness.
One of the best and most clever "hidden" features. Very Apple.
I never get nauseous looking at my phone in an Uber anymore. My wife can barely handle looking at a screen in a car and this feature allows her to work with no issue.
Works surprisingly well, had a super sensitive passenger in the car the other day and zero signs of nausea.
n=1, but it works great for me!
The question I have is whether a phone with motion cues causes less nausea than no phone at all in a window-less boat.
It did for me, but n=1.