5 ms·

I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people ca

by reify 3y ago

I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people can't afford a new phone every two years. When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them with just 3 apps. Text, phone and contacts. No data or wifi either. A dumb smart phone. Much better than the ageist demeaning Doro big button phones. They are all amazed how beautifully simple the phones are and with just one or two taps they can text or call anyone. Have you ever watched an elderly person trying to navigate the complexity of a modern smart phone. Not so smart!

drewcoo 3y ago
> They are all amazed how beautifully simple the phones are and with just one or two taps Wouldn't they prefer one or even no taps? > Have you ever watched an elderly person trying to navigate the complexity of a modern smart phone Assuming that's a question, then "yes!" It is not at any level designed for what they want to do. The "mother of all demos" talked about children but not seniors. Ever since Engelbart, no one has cared either. Despite the boomers (with boomer cash) ageing out . . .
- broodbucket 3y ago
  >The "mother of all demos" talked about children but not seniors Children will press things until they figure it out. Adults (moreso as we age) are scared to press things they don't understand.
  - iforgotpassword 3y ago
    > Adults (moreso as we age) are scared to press things they don't understand. I have one outlier in my family. He's old, understands less and less about tech. like while ten years ago he was still able to understand how there are multiple Windows open on his laptop belonging to multiple apps, nowadays he starts confusing minimizing and closing apps, can't tell apart wether a program is running or it's just the pinned launch-icon, uses edge, Firefox and chrome interchangably and gets confused.... But at the same time, he still wants to figure everything out himself on both laptop and smartphone which resulted in hilarious mess-ups sometimes. I don't know if it isn't worse than a child. At a certain age a child might still get scared by some of the prompts, I've seen firsthand an 8yo going "oh no this costs money, abort" in panic. I'm not so sure my relative would do that when they think they know what they're doing...
palmfacehn 3y ago
>When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I'm nowhere near 80 or retirement and I have the same sentiment. Add datamining concerns to the list. The modern smart phone can stay off my lawn. I get enough Internet here at my desk.
- humpydumpy 3y ago
  This. I really like the idea of a pocket supercomputer like modern smartphone hardware. But I despise the software ecosystems that apple and google have built for them, with constant surveillance, lock-in, ads, tracking, horrible UIs and centralization.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    A computer lets you build and run programs directly on device, with no internet. Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
    - humpydumpy 3y ago
      True. I like the analogy. The sad thing is that this is purely a software limitation. The hardware would be capable of so much more, it is more powerful than desktop computers of just a couple of years ago.
      - EasyMark 3y ago
        for the way I use computers these days, it could very easily replace my laptop with a proper monitor and docking solution (but not my tower server/gaming machine)
    - Goronmon 3y ago
      Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers. I think you have the relationship reversed. Supercomputers are closer to Super Nintendos than smartphones.
broodbucket 3y ago
I wish there were more incentives for people to develop accessible software experiences. Navigating the digital world is really hard for the elderly but it doesn't have to be that way. I guess this problem will eventually go away as digital native generations are all that exist, but it does feel like we've left a lot of the populace behind (and then bemoan that they don't understand us).
- bsimpson 3y ago
  Apple has claimed to be at the forefront of design for decades,but their UIs look just as garbage as many others at elderly font sizes. It would actually be nice if they shipped a small phone to get regular developers to care about constrained layouts, and then shipped a Pro Max Tab whatever that was the same proportions, but with everything scaled up.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    They ship the iPhone SE. That’s about as small as you can reasonably expect any smartphone to be.
    - vincnetas 3y ago
      Oh how things changed when iPhone 5 (4'') was considered normal phone and anything from 5'' up was a phablet. Now you have basic phones starting from 6''.
      - drewzero1 3y ago
        I had an iPhone 4 and then a 5c (same size as the 5). The 4 was usually fine, sometimes a bit cramped, but the 5c really hit the sweet spot for screen size and one-handed usability. Someday I hope someone makes a decent modern phone just like the 5c.
        wstone 3y ago
        And bring back the plastic back (albeit using recycled supermarket bags or whatever). The 5c was such a great phone.
aidenn0 3y ago
> I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them with just 3 apps. Text, phone and contacts. No data or wifi either. A dumb smart phone. Much better than the ageist demeaning Doro big button phones. I've used an MDM with a kiosk mode for a similar effect. I won't recommend the one I'm currently using because the kiosk launcher crashes every couple of days; still looking for one that works well, and I've tried most of the ones I could find that weren't "call us for pricing" I don't own a phone that LineageOS supports or I'd try it.
encom 3y ago
>ageist demeaning Doro Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  > Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does. My father has a Doro handset. I recommended it to him based on a misunderstanding of the advertisement* and have regretted it every since. The user interface is confusingly designed, with nested menus ten levels deep in which pressing the wrong button can just delete your message, contact etc. without waiting for confirmation. The screen is tiny and low resolution - I have 20/20 eyesight and still can't see what the status icons are supposed to be! It is so awkward to change the ring volume and unclear what mode the phone's in, that my father doesn't trust it not to ring at concerts, so leaves it at home. All that leads me to the opinion that Doro is just predating on older users and their carers with the idea of being simple and accessible, whilst actually doing absolutely no real UX research. Yet, their 'dumbphones' approach the price of some basic smartphones which have hardware orders of magnitude more powerful. * This was back when 2G was new, and I incorrectly assumed that it would imply some level of internet capability on any handset new enough to support it. The device in question does not have any internet support.
  - stacktrust 3y ago
    BlindShell sells a phone for vision-impaired users, with support for popular assistive apps, plus audio for NFC tags, https://blindshellusa.com https://blindshellusa.com.
    - seabass-labrax 3y ago
poisonborz 3y ago
Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. All the text the UI displays, how it is worded. It's ridiculously unintuitive, not inclusive, a real barrier. There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. If you say that would severely restrict apps becoming that big, yeah that would be kind of the point.
- BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
  Recently I was helping someone in my life who'd gone through a stroke (not too old or tech-unsavvy) to learn a password manager and go through various websites' password reset flows. It really forced me to confront the reality of what you described, i.e. that computing really has become an inscrutable, confusing mess where nothing makes sense and we've just come to accept it. It used to feel like being "tech savvy" meant thinking logically as the system designers would have, but now I think it just means being conditioned through years of abuse into knowing the unwritten rules of how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns.
  - qiine 3y ago
    > how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns. I hate how accurate this is, especially on mobile
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    This is one of the reasons I'm putting my hopes into passkeys. The login flow couldn't be simpler. You could even give someone a physical key snd tell them that's what they use to log in, so they can keep their logins safe like they do their house key. You'll always need a password and some difficult second factor for your Apple/Google account, but when you've got that sorted, the rest becomes do much easier.
- drooopy 3y ago
  I kind of agree with this. Whatsapp for example, has become so incredibly big in many different parts of the world that it has become a sort of de facto standard for communication to the point where government agencies even use it to communicate information to citizens via chatbots. It feels to me like there is a need for formal standardization but how would you go about enforcing that?
mavhc 3y ago
Why would they need to buy a new phone every 2 years anyway? Buy a cheap phone, use it for 4 years at least
grey_earthling 3y ago
Can LineageOS do major upgrades without needing support? (so once it's installed you never need to reinstall, and you can keep it safely up-to-date forever by clicking a button every so often - like Silverblue)
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  No. Not even Google Pixel can promise error-free major upgrade jumps e.g from Android 12 to 13. But on LineageOS you can update through all the updates for the major Android version (mostly ASB fixes and some new features here and there) by clicking a button from the Updater menu, courtesy of Android's A-B dynamic partitioning update system.
- 4oo4 3y ago
  It can't, but major upgrades are much easier now if you are using SeedVault to reinstall all your apps and restore your app data. https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Seedvault https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Seedvault
utrianenuirtne 3y ago
Do you mind sharing in want kind of context you do this/what structure allows you to do this? Sounds like a nice way to help people.
egberts1 3y ago
Don't forget Doom! We got lots of time on our hands.

by reify 3y ago

drewcoo 3y ago

> They are all amazed how beautifully simple the phones are and with just one or two taps Wouldn't they prefer one or even no taps? > Have you ever watched an elderly person trying to navigate the complexity of a modern smart phone Assuming that's a question, then "yes!" It is not at any level designed for what they want to do. The "mother of all demos" talked about children but not seniors. Ever since Engelbart, no one has cared either. Despite the boomers (with boomer cash) ageing out . . .

broodbucket 3y ago
>The "mother of all demos" talked about children but not seniors Children will press things until they figure it out. Adults (moreso as we age) are scared to press things they don't understand.
- iforgotpassword 3y ago
  > Adults (moreso as we age) are scared to press things they don't understand. I have one outlier in my family. He's old, understands less and less about tech. like while ten years ago he was still able to understand how there are multiple Windows open on his laptop belonging to multiple apps, nowadays he starts confusing minimizing and closing apps, can't tell apart wether a program is running or it's just the pinned launch-icon, uses edge, Firefox and chrome interchangably and gets confused.... But at the same time, he still wants to figure everything out himself on both laptop and smartphone which resulted in hilarious mess-ups sometimes. I don't know if it isn't worse than a child. At a certain age a child might still get scared by some of the prompts, I've seen firsthand an 8yo going "oh no this costs money, abort" in panic. I'm not so sure my relative would do that when they think they know what they're doing...

palmfacehn 3y ago

>When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I'm nowhere near 80 or retirement and I have the same sentiment. Add datamining concerns to the list. The modern smart phone can stay off my lawn. I get enough Internet here at my desk.

humpydumpy 3y ago
This. I really like the idea of a pocket supercomputer like modern smartphone hardware. But I despise the software ecosystems that apple and google have built for them, with constant surveillance, lock-in, ads, tracking, horrible UIs and centralization.
- rchaud 3y ago
  A computer lets you build and run programs directly on device, with no internet. Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
  - humpydumpy 3y ago
    True. I like the analogy. The sad thing is that this is purely a software limitation. The hardware would be capable of so much more, it is more powerful than desktop computers of just a couple of years ago.
    - EasyMark 3y ago
      for the way I use computers these days, it could very easily replace my laptop with a proper monitor and docking solution (but not my tower server/gaming machine)
  - Goronmon 3y ago
    Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers. I think you have the relationship reversed. Supercomputers are closer to Super Nintendos than smartphones.

broodbucket 3y ago

I wish there were more incentives for people to develop accessible software experiences. Navigating the digital world is really hard for the elderly but it doesn't have to be that way. I guess this problem will eventually go away as digital native generations are all that exist, but it does feel like we've left a lot of the populace behind (and then bemoan that they don't understand us).

bsimpson 3y ago
Apple has claimed to be at the forefront of design for decades,but their UIs look just as garbage as many others at elderly font sizes. It would actually be nice if they shipped a small phone to get regular developers to care about constrained layouts, and then shipped a Pro Max Tab whatever that was the same proportions, but with everything scaled up.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  They ship the iPhone SE. That’s about as small as you can reasonably expect any smartphone to be.
  - vincnetas 3y ago
    Oh how things changed when iPhone 5 (4'') was considered normal phone and anything from 5'' up was a phablet. Now you have basic phones starting from 6''.
    - drewzero1 3y ago
      I had an iPhone 4 and then a 5c (same size as the 5). The 4 was usually fine, sometimes a bit cramped, but the 5c really hit the sweet spot for screen size and one-handed usability. Someday I hope someone makes a decent modern phone just like the 5c.
      - wstone 3y ago
        And bring back the plastic back (albeit using recycled supermarket bags or whatever). The 5c was such a great phone.

aidenn0 3y ago

> I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them with just 3 apps. Text, phone and contacts. No data or wifi either. A dumb smart phone. Much better than the ageist demeaning Doro big button phones. I've used an MDM with a kiosk mode for a similar effect. I won't recommend the one I'm currently using because the kiosk launcher crashes every couple of days; still looking for one that works well, and I've tried most of the ones I could find that weren't "call us for pricing" I don't own a phone that LineageOS supports or I'd try it.

encom 3y ago

>ageist demeaning Doro Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
> Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does. My father has a Doro handset. I recommended it to him based on a misunderstanding of the advertisement* and have regretted it every since. The user interface is confusingly designed, with nested menus ten levels deep in which pressing the wrong button can just delete your message, contact etc. without waiting for confirmation. The screen is tiny and low resolution - I have 20/20 eyesight and still can't see what the status icons are supposed to be! It is so awkward to change the ring volume and unclear what mode the phone's in, that my father doesn't trust it not to ring at concerts, so leaves it at home. All that leads me to the opinion that Doro is just predating on older users and their carers with the idea of being simple and accessible, whilst actually doing absolutely no real UX research. Yet, their 'dumbphones' approach the price of some basic smartphones which have hardware orders of magnitude more powerful. * This was back when 2G was new, and I incorrectly assumed that it would imply some level of internet capability on any handset new enough to support it. The device in question does not have any internet support.
- stacktrust 3y ago
  BlindShell sells a phone for vision-impaired users, with support for popular assistive apps, plus audio for NFC tags, https://blindshellusa.com https://blindshellusa.com.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago

poisonborz 3y ago

Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. All the text the UI displays, how it is worded. It's ridiculously unintuitive, not inclusive, a real barrier. There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. If you say that would severely restrict apps becoming that big, yeah that would be kind of the point.

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
Recently I was helping someone in my life who'd gone through a stroke (not too old or tech-unsavvy) to learn a password manager and go through various websites' password reset flows. It really forced me to confront the reality of what you described, i.e. that computing really has become an inscrutable, confusing mess where nothing makes sense and we've just come to accept it. It used to feel like being "tech savvy" meant thinking logically as the system designers would have, but now I think it just means being conditioned through years of abuse into knowing the unwritten rules of how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns.
- qiine 3y ago
  > how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns. I hate how accurate this is, especially on mobile
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  This is one of the reasons I'm putting my hopes into passkeys. The login flow couldn't be simpler. You could even give someone a physical key snd tell them that's what they use to log in, so they can keep their logins safe like they do their house key. You'll always need a password and some difficult second factor for your Apple/Google account, but when you've got that sorted, the rest becomes do much easier.
drooopy 3y ago
I kind of agree with this. Whatsapp for example, has become so incredibly big in many different parts of the world that it has become a sort of de facto standard for communication to the point where government agencies even use it to communicate information to citizens via chatbots. It feels to me like there is a need for formal standardization but how would you go about enforcing that?

mavhc 3y ago

Why would they need to buy a new phone every 2 years anyway? Buy a cheap phone, use it for 4 years at least

grey_earthling 3y ago

Can LineageOS do major upgrades without needing support? (so once it's installed you never need to reinstall, and you can keep it safely up-to-date forever by clicking a button every so often - like Silverblue)

Timber-6539 3y ago
No. Not even Google Pixel can promise error-free major upgrade jumps e.g from Android 12 to 13. But on LineageOS you can update through all the updates for the major Android version (mostly ASB fixes and some new features here and there) by clicking a button from the Updater menu, courtesy of Android's A-B dynamic partitioning update system.
4oo4 3y ago
It can't, but major upgrades are much easier now if you are using SeedVault to reinstall all your apps and restore your app data. https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Seedvault https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Seedvault

utrianenuirtne 3y ago

Do you mind sharing in want kind of context you do this/what structure allows you to do this? Sounds like a nice way to help people.

egberts1 3y ago

Don't forget Doom! We got lots of time on our hands.