[commonjcb]

It's probably by design, iPhones support magnetic-induction hearing aids, see here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202186

The are 2 standards, the old "telecoil" (direct) and the new FM loop, both operating at low frequencies...

Both work at very short ranges (inverse cube of the distance)

[exikyut]

That is admittedly really cool. It's nice to hear that these sorts of things are just quietly included, maintained, and work well, without widespread fanfare/marketing/publicity.

Hmm. I wonder how they could be practically compromised...

[KMnO4]

This reminds me of the "car recall" evaluation from Fight Club:

> Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

However, in this case, it would be:

Take the number of people who would benefit from accessibility features, A, multiply by the probability that they would buy an iPhone with these features over any other phone, B, multiply by the profit of each iPhone sale, C. A * B * C = X. If X is greater than the engineering cost to implement accessibility features, we do it.

And realistically I'm sure there's some coefficient not included that equates to how likely Apple is to spend money on something just because it's good for the world (and not because they'll bring in a profit).

[gok]

FWIW, the CEO somewhat infamously snapped at an activist investor:

> When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.

[FirstLvR]

after all this years, accessibility on iOS still blows my mind

[angrygoat]

Excellent that there is accessibility support, but at what range can people pick my calls up – especially with a directional antenna?

[commonjcb]

Approximately the same distance as a good microphone can pick up the audio anyway. Read about near-field vs far-field:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_and_far_field

[Johnythree]

Good luck building a directional antenna for the AM broadcast band (especially a portable one).