My parents were both born in the 1940s. They want to use their Apple products but if they touch something accidentally they are in no-man’s land. They give up on the tech before ever getting started.
Is it possible to create a “simple mode”?
OldIronSights wrote:
My parents were both born in the 1940s. They want to use their Apple products but if they touch something accidentally they are in no-man’s land. They give up on the tech before ever getting started.
Is it possible to create a “simple mode”?
Consider using Assistive Access on iPhone or Assistive Access on iPad. That might help here, but it does have its limits.
(My most recent experience with this was prior to the availability of Assistive Access. I’m unsure how much Assistive Access will help; whether that can be useful here, or whether that feature might merely become another source of frustration.)
Pragmatically, you’re probably headed for a feature phone and not an iPhone, and those do still exist. Nokia makes some models, and there are others. I did see some flip phones on offer, as well.
The feature phones also avoid having to block the ever-increasing piles of scams in the arriving mail and messages. iPhone and iPad filtering capabilities are unfortunately very limited.
More generally…
Get iCloud backups going, if you are using iPhone or iPad. Stuff will get deleted, dropped, lost, or stolen.
Moving iPhone and iPad to iCloud services for photos and backups and such, too.
Get Legacy Contact configured, and Recovery Contact too.
Having tried to keep iPhone and iPad working for some folks with declining facilities, I’d now choose to migrate to the feature phone much more quickly; sooner than I had previously considered. That and maybe a big-button home cordless phone, if they still have a landline.
The other difficulty that can arise here are loaned or borrowed devices. Kids can and do “helpfully” delete or reconfigure all sorts of things. Or drop things. Or throw things. As was referenced elsewhere recently, a senior’s favorite game was simply deleted. Years of game history just gone.
OldIronSights wrote:
My parents were both born in the 1940s. They want to use their Apple products but if they touch something accidentally they are in no-man’s land. They give up on the tech before ever getting started.
Is it possible to create a “simple mode”?
Consider using Assistive Access on iPhone or Assistive Access on iPad. That might help here, but it does have its limits.
(My most recent experience with this was prior to the availability of Assistive Access. I’m unsure how much Assistive Access will help; whether that can be useful here, or whether that feature might merely become another source of frustration.)
Pragmatically, you’re probably headed for a feature phone and not an iPhone, and those do still exist. Nokia makes some models, and there are others. I did see some flip phones on offer, as well.
The feature phones also avoid having to block the ever-increasing piles of scams in the arriving mail and messages. iPhone and iPad filtering capabilities are unfortunately very limited.
More generally…
Get iCloud backups going, if you are using iPhone or iPad. Stuff will get deleted, dropped, lost, or stolen.
Moving iPhone and iPad to iCloud services for photos and backups and such, too.
Get Legacy Contact configured, and Recovery Contact too.
Having tried to keep iPhone and iPad working for some folks with declining facilities, I’d now choose to migrate to the feature phone much more quickly; sooner than I had previously considered. That and maybe a big-button home cordless phone, if they still have a landline.
The other difficulty that can arise here are loaned or borrowed devices. Kids can and do “helpfully” delete or reconfigure all sorts of things. Or drop things. Or throw things. As was referenced elsewhere recently, a senior’s favorite game was simply deleted. Years of game history just gone.
Apple does not review these forums for feedback, but you can send it here:
Everything is getting too complicated. Can we have a simple mode?
