Global Accessibility Awareness Day was Thursday, so it's fitting that both Apple and Google have announced a raft of new accessibility features for their devices this week, all slated to land in the coming year.

First up, let's talk Apple. The headline is Magnifier support for Mac. This is integrated with Accessibility Reader, so you can use your iPhone camera to zoom in on a distant whiteboard or sign and magnify it on your MacBook screen, tweak contrast and colors to make it more legible, or extract the text into your preferred format.

For deaf and hard-of-hearing people, Apple has beefed up Live Listen by adding Live Captions support and extending it to the Apple Watch. You can use your iPhone’s microphone to boost audio for AirPods or hearing aids with Live Listen, but with Live Captions, you can get instant transcription on your wrist. The Apple Watch can also serve as a remote control for capture, so you can leave your iPhone close to the speaker (ideal for a meeting, classroom, or lecture hall). You can also rewind if you missed something and review the transcript later.

Other noteworthy additions include Braille Access, which turns your Apple device (iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Vision Pro) into a braille note taker, enhanced eye and head tracking for iPhone and iPad, plus new Accessibility Nutrition Labels in the App Store, which will allow people to see at a glance what accessibility features an app or game supports. You can find the