Apple products have historically been thoughtfully designed so that people with disabilities can enjoy using them without any hindrance. User accessibility is so important to Apple that they even have a page on their website devoted to assistive technology, which it describes thusly:

Apple includes assistive technology in its products as standard features — at no additional cost. For example, iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac OS X include screen magnification and VoiceOver, a screen-access technology, for the blind and visually impaired. To assist those with cognitive and learning disabilities, every Mac includes an alternative, simplified user interface that rewards exploration and learning... Apple continues to set a high standard for accessibility. Inventions such as braille mirroring, which enables deaf and blind kids to work together on the same computer at the same time; the world’s first screen reader that can be controlled using gestures; and captioning of downloadable digital movies are perfect examples of Apple innovation.

Recently, there have been a number of stories discussing the iPad's impact on the visually impaired. In one case, a woman suffering from an eye disorder called Macular degeneration was aboe to see the faces of her kids for the first time in more than 30 years.

With Apple's attention to assistive technology as a backdrop, Stevie Wonder recently thanked Steve Jobs for all he's done with the iPhone and iPad. The pertinent portion of the video starts at 4:37.

"And I want you all to give a hand to someone that you know whose health is very bad at this time... his company took the challenge in making his technology accessible to everyone. In the spirit of caring and moving the world forward - Steve Jobs. Because there's nothing on the iPhone or iPad that you can do that I can't do. As a matter of fact, i can be talking to you, you can be looking at me, and I can be doing whatever I need to do and you don't even know what I'm doing. Yeah!"

via The Next Web

This story, "Stevie Wonder Thanks Steve Jobs for Making the iPhone and iPad So Accessible" was originally published by Network World .