My 83 year old mother has endless frustrations with her iphone and iPad. She lives several hours flight away and I do not see her much. On Monday she is going to FedEx me her iPhone 11, iPhone 7, and iPad (I don’t know the model yet) in the hopes that I can set them up for her in a way that she better understands them. First off, I should say that I have already tried virtually taking over her phone using my own and that was a disaster as much of what I need to fix involves passwords and password entry in not permitted with the virtual thing, which is why she’s sending them to me.
Some issues:
- She constantly complains about not being able to access her gmail. As far as I can make out over the phone, whoever set up her devices has somehow used Apple Mail to access her gmail rather than the Gmail app.
- She can never remember passwords for anything ever. I have passwords for some of her stuff (like Gmail) but when she can’t get in touch with me she sometimes changes passwords and forgets to tell me and then we both end up being locked out.
- She complains about text being too small, though I’ve repeatedly sent her instructions to enlarge it.
- She does not want to enter any credit card info into these devices.
Questions
I’m very familiar with setting up devices so will blank these and start fresh. However, I’m used to setting them up for myself, and am relatively tech-savvy.
What suggestions do you have for setting up any of these devices for someone who is a) useless with tech and b) elderly and c) with poor vision?
Also, since my Apple devices already have my credit card, I am unaware of whether someone MUST enter a credit card to use the App Store and such even if they only want to download free stuff. For instance, she insists that the App Store asks for her credit card number when she tries to download the Gmail app.
I only came to iPhone at model 14. Does the iPhone 11 have the Passwords app? Does it have FaceTime or Touch ID and what should I do about these if she’s not present when I’m setting these devices up? (I assume that if they have that tech, she has not enabled it. Would enabling it be better or worse for someone like her?) My assumption is that if the Passwords app is present, then I’ll only have to have her memorize one password rather than multiple.
iOS 18 has the ability to enlarge icons, but when you do that, the title of the app disappears. Anyway to have enlarged icons and keep the text?
Any other general advice you have for this situation?
Thank you.
Some issues:
- She constantly complains about not being able to access her gmail. As far as I can make out over the phone, whoever set up her devices has somehow used Apple Mail to access her gmail rather than the Gmail app.
- She can never remember passwords for anything ever. I have passwords for some of her stuff (like Gmail) but when she can’t get in touch with me she sometimes changes passwords and forgets to tell me and then we both end up being locked out.
- She complains about text being too small, though I’ve repeatedly sent her instructions to enlarge it.
- She does not want to enter any credit card info into these devices.
Questions
I’m very familiar with setting up devices so will blank these and start fresh. However, I’m used to setting them up for myself, and am relatively tech-savvy.
What suggestions do you have for setting up any of these devices for someone who is a) useless with tech and b) elderly and c) with poor vision?
Also, since my Apple devices already have my credit card, I am unaware of whether someone MUST enter a credit card to use the App Store and such even if they only want to download free stuff. For instance, she insists that the App Store asks for her credit card number when she tries to download the Gmail app.
I only came to iPhone at model 14. Does the iPhone 11 have the Passwords app? Does it have FaceTime or Touch ID and what should I do about these if she’s not present when I’m setting these devices up? (I assume that if they have that tech, she has not enabled it. Would enabling it be better or worse for someone like her?) My assumption is that if the Passwords app is present, then I’ll only have to have her memorize one password rather than multiple.
iOS 18 has the ability to enlarge icons, but when you do that, the title of the app disappears. Anyway to have enlarged icons and keep the text?
Any other general advice you have for this situation?
Thank you.
