Accessibility
Accessibility in BufferedTV.
BufferedTV works with the accessibility features built into Apple TV, iPhone and iPad. This is what it supports, and how to turn each one on.
Last updated 30 September 2026
At a glance
| Feature | iPhone and iPad | Apple TV |
|---|---|---|
| VoiceOver | Yes | Yes |
| Voice Control | Yes | Not on Apple TV |
| Larger Text | Yes | Not yet |
| Dark interface | Yes | Yes |
| Not relying on colour alone | Yes | Yes |
| Sufficient contrast | Yes | Yes |
| Reduced Motion | Yes | Yes |
| Captions | Yes | Yes |
| Audio descriptions | Not yet | Not yet |
VoiceOver
Every button, switch and field has a name, and switches say whether they are on or off. A video is read as one item: its title, who made it, how long it is, its views and age, how much of it you have watched, and whether its thumbnail is hidden because it is marked sensitive.
Messages are read out as they appear, so you hear “Saved to Watch later”, a wrong PIN or a connection problem without having to find it on screen. On iPhone and iPad, replying to, reporting and blocking a comment are in the Actions rotor, so they don’t need a swipe. On Apple TV, the tabs a swipe down brings up while a video plays are labelled: Info, Save, Channel, Comments and Report.
Turn it on in Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ VoiceOver, on any of them.
Voice Control
On iPhone and iPad, say what you see: “Tap Play”, “Tap Like”, “Tap Watch later”, “Tap Quality”. Buttons that show only an icon or a number have names you can say too. Turn it on in Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Voice Control.
Larger Text
On iPhone and iPad, text follows the size you choose, up to the largest accessibility sizes. At those sizes the buttons under a video stack instead of scrolling sideways, text moves out from over pictures, and rows widen so titles aren’t cut short. Choose a size in Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Display & Text Size ▸ Larger Text.
On Apple TV, text is set in fixed sizes chosen for reading across a room, so it doesn’t change with the text-size setting yet.
Captions and subtitles
A video’s page shows a CC badge when it has subtitles. They come from the video’s own instance, in whatever languages its creator or instance has added; ones made by speech recognition are marked “(auto)”. Choose them from the player’s subtitle menu.
If you turn on Closed Captions + SDH in Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Subtitles & Captioning, subtitles come on by themselves, in your language where there is a choice. They are drawn by the system player, so the caption style you set there applies too.
If a video has no subtitles in your language, BufferedTV can translate the ones it has, using a LibreTranslate server you choose. That is off until you set it up, in Settings ▸ Subtitles in the app.
Seeing the screen
- Dark interface. The app is always dark.
- Contrast. Text is at least 5 to 1 against its background, above the 4.5 to 1 the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ask for. With Increase Contrast on, the faintest text is brighter still, and on Apple TV the outline around whatever is selected turns solid.
- Not relying on colour. Nothing is shown by colour alone. Choices have ticks, sensitive and captioned videos have “Sensitive” and “CC” badges, live videos say LIVE, warnings have an icon, and on iPhone and iPad links in descriptions are underlined.
- Reduce Transparency. On Apple TV the glass panels turn solid; on iPhone and iPad the system’s glass adapts itself.
Motion
With Reduce Motion on, the launch animation becomes a fade, cards on Apple TV no longer grow when selected, and messages fade in instead of sliding. The app never plays previews or rotates banners by itself, whatever the setting. Reduce Motion is in Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Motion.
Not yet
- Audio descriptions. PeerTube doesn’t yet give instances a way to publish them, so there are none to play.
- Larger Text on Apple TV. See above.
Tell us what’s hard to use
If something in BufferedTV doesn’t work with the way you use your device, we want to know. Email ric@squarecows.com or open an issue.