Steve's Way – Never Lose Touch

Steve’s Way is an awareness campaign founded by Tom Meadows to educate people about hidden and undocumented functionality in the Apple OS that can specifically benefit people with ALS.

Tom’s childhood friend, Steve, was diagnosed with ALS in 2021. Tom became his accessibility partner: helping him find ways to continue to communicate and access his technology during the different stages of ALS progression. Together they found multiple solutions that would allow Steve to continue to use his iPhone. After his passing, Tom got curious about what else might be possible for people like his friend. He discovered additional iPhone accessibility solutions that could be adopted as symptoms dictated.

Tom uncovered functionality that most people don’t know about, including:

• Voice Control - navigating your iPhone using solely your voice
• Mouse Control - navigating your iPhone using a standard bluetooth mouse
• Head Tracking - using head movement to move the cursor, and facial gestures, sounds or switches to ‘tap.’

Using these tools may delay or avoid the need for eye gaze. Tom developed the Steve’s Way kit that contains tools that someone with ALS would need for iPhone access regardless of how their ALS symptoms unfold.