iOS 18’s Vehicle Motion Cues

Apple recently announced several “accessibility” features coming in iOS 18. I put “accessibility” in quotes because, like many things marketed as targeting “accessibility,” some of these features can be enjoyed by people not ordinarily thought of as requiring “accessibility” considerations.

The one that struck me as being either ridiculous or brilliant were the “Vehicle Motion Cues”:

With Vehicle Motion Cues, animated dots on the edges of the screen represent changes in vehicle motion to help reduce sensory conflict without interfering with the main content. The feature can be set to show automatically on iPhone, or can be turned on and off in Control Center.

Here’s a video!

I want to try this! Part of me is just fascinated by what a clever perceptual trick this would be if it works, and another part of me is thinking, If carsickness in the back of an Uber can keep me from looking at my phone for ten god damn minutes, then maybe I should embrace that.

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