I usually scroll between three faces, all with different colors, text sizes, and highlighted features-and I can change these with minimal effort at any time. The enormous selection of watch faces available, the option to have several faces at one time, and the ability to customize each face with different app shortcuts have all been especially valuable in my efforts to create a personal disability aid. To most people, this is a little feature that would seem largely inconsequential, but to me it’s the very real difference between an accessible product and an inaccessible one. I’ve had all of the sound and vibration on my phone disabled for several years, and so it was with some excitement and gratitude that I discovered the soft (and silent!) tapping gestures of the Apple Watch. As an autistic individual with extreme sensitivity to sound, I’ve found that the constant pinging of notifications on my phone has never helped me-it has served only as a source of startle, distraction, and irritation. It’s a device that evolves with me and the ever-shifting nature and complexities of my disability.Įven without my downloading a single app, two features of the Apple Watch stood out to me: the option of a tap notification and the almost endlessly customizable watch faces. And this is where an Apple Watch unexpectedly changed my life in a profound way. I find it difficult to remember to do normal things, human things, things that most people seem to have built into their autopilot. Now, at 24, I frequently have trouble remembering the ingredients in a meal and the steps in my routines. I was forever incredulous at the teachers who insisted upon rules that they continually refused to explain but still expected me to follow. As a child I struggled to keep track of my homework and my timetable, and as a university student the challenge lay in the locations of my classrooms and my responsibility to eat at least somewhat regularly. I received a late diagnosis at 19 and spent the years that led up to it confused, lonely, and acutely aware that I was somehow different from my peers. Long before I knew that I was autistic, I knew that I was foggy. At no point did I pause to consider how such a gadget could be useful outside of a sporting context, or how it could potentially be tailored to assist and accommodate the unique needs of a neurodivergent individual. I had filed the device (apathetically but neatly) under “sports gadgets that I don’t need to care about” and called it a day. I hadn’t looked into the Apple Watch much at all before receiving one as a gift a couple of years ago.
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