Braille Manuals Now Available for Many Apple Products

Apple popularized the “it just works” slogan many years ago, when it was promoting its Macintosh computer line as the easy-to-use solution compared to Windows PCs. Apple has internalized the “it just works” concept to the point where its products are shipped with skimpy manuals that contain little more than a brief overview and basic user guide. While Apple products can be surprisingly intuitive at times, some users may need more than what Apple’s stock manuals have to offer. That rings especially true for visually impaired users, who’ll get practically no use at all from Apple’s standard manuals.

The Media and Accessible Design Lab (MAD Lab) at the Lighthouse for the Blind has recently released fully authorized braille manuals for many Apple products:

For blind braille readers who use Apple products, this is a huge step towards tech literacy. The iOS manuals provide detailed insight into optimizing these products and leveraging the accessible features for personal and professional use. The embossed manuals offer a complete set of directions on how to use each Apple operating system, intelligently organized into multiple volumes of interpoint Braille.

Braille manuals are currently available for Apple Watch, iPhone iOS 10, AppleTV, and macOS Sierra 10.12. The manuals can be ordered from Adaptations, the Lighthouse’s shop that features products for visually impaired customers. Special BRF documents of the Apple manuals can also be downloaded and printed out using braille-capable printers.