I used the word "teach" pretty loosely. "move the pointer on top of the Mail picture and press the button on the mouse twice." Do you really think that's hard?

I used the word "teach" pretty loosely. "move the pointer on top of the Mail picture and press the button on the mouse twice." Do you really think that's hard? Do you take the majority of humans to be complete and total simpletons? Give my grandma an iPhone that's powered up but with nothing on the screen and tell her "This is a telephone. Go ahead and call your neighbor on it." without any help. She won't get it. I guarantee it. Someone will have to demonstrate it. And as you said, people like her are not a small minority. And the iPhone doesn't solve any problems. It's just a different UI. Then you start getting into gestures. Hey grandma if you have trouble seeing that picture, just do a "spread" or "pinch" on the screen. Do you know what her reply would be? It's go something like "lolwut?" She'd eventually chuck it across the room, because while it's not HARD, people learn by demonstration. People have been learning by demonstration for tens of thousands of years. Why do you think trade skills such as carpentry needed to be handed down?