Apple now offers a digital coloured overlay for your iPhones and iPads  – simply by adjusting the built-in accessibility settings on your device!

Watch the video below to see how to turn on this feature.

Originally developed for people with colour-blindness, the preset colour schemes are devoted to the different types of colour blindness. The inclusion of the Color Tint option, which allows you to customize your own colour filter, is perfect for people with Irlen Syndrome, however. We know everyone’s brains are different, and as such, everyone’s optimal colour is unique. The sliders in Apple’s Color Screen Filter allow you slide through the colour spectrum until you find a colour that feels good, AND it lets you adjust the density of that colour, making it one of the most custom digital overlays available.

Go into your settings, adjust the sliders, and you’re done! No downloads, no incompatibility issues, no clunky applications.

The colour filter is built right into your device’s settings. Once you turn it on and set your colour, it will stay on until you go back into your settings and turn it off again. You can change applications, it’s still on. You can turn off your device and reboot, it’s still on.  Apple’s even given you a shortcut to turn it off. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and select Color Filters (just a note, the Accessibility Shortcut option is all the way at the bottom of the menu, so scroll down!). Once you have Color Filters set up, you can quickly turn them on or off, by triple-clicking the Home button on your device. Alternatively, you can go back into your accessibility settings and turn it on and off from there.

Once you set your colour filter, your device will remember your colour even if you turn off the colour filter and turn it back on later.

Clarity and colour of the text on your screen isn’t affected by the colour filter, no matter what intensity you select. Words on the screen will remain crisp and easy to see, even if you have a dark colour filter.

This colour screen filter won’t let you combine multiple Irlen Overlay colours, but you will find something that makes it easier and more comfortable to use your device.

Be aware: as you increase the intensity of a colour, you may notice that some colours on the screen change. For example, a dark magenta filter makes green turn black. A dark red filter makes red images disappear. A dark turquoise filter makes red turn black.

Choose your filter against the maximum intensity. When the intensity setting was lower, it was more difficult to distinguish between colours. So, move the intensity slider all the way to the right before selecting a hue, then adjust to find the perfect filter for you. Stronger intensity as a starting point made it easier to identify and choose a colour option.

Pick the colour that is most comfortable – one that is soothing, calming, and relaxing. People with Irlen Syndrome need a colour that calms their brain, and your optimal colour screen filter will feel calm and soothing.