How to Customize Per-App Color Contrast in iOS 15

iOS 15 introduced a dedicated accessibility feature called Per-App Settings, allowing users to tailor display and text options for individual applications rather than applying blanket changes across the entire operating system. This article covers how this feature enables app-specific color contrast adjustments, highlights the specific settings available, and outlines the steps to configure them on your device.

The Per-App Settings Feature

Prior to iOS 15, accessibility modifications like high contrast or inverted colors were strictly system-wide, affecting every app and interface element uniformly. With the introduction of Per-App Settings, Apple separated these controls, giving users granular control over their visual preferences on an app-by-app basis.

Key Contrast and Visual Customizations

Within Per-App Settings, users can modify several contrast-related preferences:

  • Increase Contrast: Enhances the color contrast between app foreground and background colors. This makes borders more defined, darkens text, and reduces background transparency to make elements distinctly visible in apps that otherwise have low contrast.
  • Differentiate Without Color: Replaces interface elements that rely exclusively on color to convey information with alternative visual cues, such as shapes or icons.
  • Smart Invert: Inverts the colors of the display for a specific app while preserving the original colors of images, media, and apps that already use dark color styles.
  • Classic Invert: Reverses all colors on the screen for the chosen application without exception.

How to Configure Per-App Contrast on iOS 15

To customize contrast settings for an individual app:

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 15 or later.
  2. Select Accessibility.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the menu and tap Per-App Settings.
  4. Tap Add App, then choose the specific application you want to adjust (you can also select "Home Screen").
  5. Tap the name of the newly added app from the list.
  6. Scroll down to Display & Text Size options, select Increase Contrast, and set it to On.
  7. Adjust additional options like Differentiate Without Color or Smart Invert as needed.

Any setting configured here overrides the global system preferences exclusively for the selected app, ensuring optimal readability without compromising the visual presentation of other applications.