18 ms·

I spent the day teaching seniors how to use an iPhone

• dangus 1y ago
  I think some of the comments on the post summarize it nicely: if an iPhone is a struggle, maybe that person doesn’t need it at all. Alternatively, I think OP actually should look into the accessibility mode (“Assistive Access”) because it doesn’t take “hours” to configure. It basically turns the iPhone into a wildly easy dumb phone-like experience.
  • hahn-kev 1y ago
    Sounds like a very expensive dump phone
    • dangus 1y ago
      If you buy the most expensive kind, sure. But there are carriers that’ll sell you an iPhone 13 for $50 or 14 for $99. And it’s not like the phone doesn’t have apps, you just configure it so that the desired apps are on the simplified home page.
• rzzzwilson 1y ago
  There's a quote from Bjarne Stroustrup showing it's not just Seniors having trouble: I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
  • eholk 1y ago
    Bjarne Stroustrup is 74, so he probably counts as a senior too at this point, although surely more technically literate than the stereotypes. Still, I'm in my early 40s and I find myself baffled when I help my mom with her iPhone. I've been an Android guy ever since that was an option.
    • xatax 1y ago
      He was around 40 years old when he said it and he wasn't talking about smartphones - at least what we call smartphones today. > "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone". > I said that after a frustrating attempt to use a "feature-rich" telephone sometime around 1990. I'm sure the sentiment wasn't original, and probably not even the overall phrasing; someone must have thought of that before me. https://www.stroustrup.com/quotes.html https://www.stroustrup.com/quotes.html
      • flomo 1y ago
        He worked for AT&T at the time, right? Those corporate PBX systems had all sorts of crazy features which people mastered by pounding the 12 keys really fast. And he was probably on the bleeding edge of that. (In many places digital voice mail commonly predated email.) edit to agree: obv Stroustrup in 1990 was not talking about your cell phone.
        • doublerabbit 1y ago
          The terminal menu driven interfaces were archaic but a dream. You had help, everything was explained in manuals, they rejected invalid outputs. Now everything is close eyes, press enter and pray it works. Siemens ISDX was what I worked with. To build a new corporate extension was something like option 5-2-1-1 ext code Y 2-4-7 and then 9 to confirm. Simpler times.
          • nyarlathotep_ 1y ago
            > The terminal menu driven interfaces were archaic but a dream. MicroCenter (by me, at least) still uses what looks like some terminal interface for checkout and such in stores. It's a riot cause it's all young kids and all the keyboards are RGB gamer ones. I've never seen a faster checkout at a register.
      • vasco 1y ago
        A lot of nerve from the guy that invented the hardest programming language to use right, and the easiest to use wrong.
  • nitwit005 1y ago
    Telephones only seem intuitive because we got taught to use them as kids. If you look back, there was a massive effort to teach people to use them. You can still find some of the educational films: https://youtu.be/p45T7U5oi9Q?si=5fiNEiqccg41nxQb https://youtu.be/p45T7U5oi9Q?si=5fiNEiqccg41nxQb
  • BrtByte 1y ago
    It's wild how phones went from being the simplest tech in our lives to these over-personalized, over-contextualized systems that require a user manual just to change a ringtone or wallpaper
    • sevenseacat 1y ago
      holy shit, ringtones. An absolute minefield to use custom ones on iOS
• jolux 1y ago
  It's possible to simplify all of this significantly in the settings if you know what you're doing, but I also think a lot of older people would benefit from just not having a smartphone to deal with in the first place.
• bombcar 1y ago
  The biggest thing when teaching someone to use an iPhone - do NOT assume they need to know all the things YOU know how to do. Instead, ask them what they want to be able to do, and show just that. The temptation is to show too many things. Also, you can still configure an iPhone with no passcode, which is honestly the way to go, probably.
  • taneq 1y ago
    Mostly agree, but also - if someone's genuinely new to phones, they might not actually know what's possible that they might want to do. You have to be a little bit opinionated on how to use the phone, at least until they know enough to have opinions of their own.
  • bapak 1y ago
    Oh yes, you can, then an update is installed overnight and now they're presented with a non-dismissable screen that forces them to add it. Literally happened this month with iOS 26 on my family iPad. Suddenly it had a passcode and I knew exactly why.
    • Telaneo 1y ago
      You can opt to not add a passcode, but the option to skip on setup is hidden, and people generally aren't going to go back to the settings to remove it once it's added. It's a dark pattern I kind of get, but it's still not ideal, especially for a market segment like the elderly.
      • bapak 1y ago
        Again, I did that, but then iOS keeps asking until it reaches someone who doesn't realize that there's no option. Effectively you have to reject it regularly, which isn't practical in this context (the elderly)
        • Telaneo 1y ago
          I agree with that. I was just disputing the 'a non-dismissable screen that forces them to add it' of your comment. It is skippable, but it's hidden in a way your Grandma isn't going to discover.
• avalys 1y ago
  The iPhone - and macOS too - used to be a paragon of simplicity. Today the setup experience on a brand-new iPhone or Mac is abysmal. Entering the same username and password multiple times - then sometimes a different username and password - competing notifications, irrelevant feature nags, a popup from some random product manager about their pet thingy. Permission questions from some meddlesome privacy team about the feature you just said you wanted to turn on. Uncertainty about whether you’ll break something irreparably by “skipping” the expected setup path. A choice of several inscrutable interface modes because no one has the balls to commit to a single solution. Just terrible. I guess this is what happens without a dictator to tell people they’re fired for shipping garbage, and when a company worries about meeting quarterly KPIs rather than doing something great.
  • k2enemy 1y ago
    And after all of that there are still red bubbles nagging you to sign up for various services and to enable features you already said no to. I remember switching to Mac years ago to avoid this type of user-hostile crap in Windows.
    • SoftTalker 1y ago
      lol yes. I’ve had my iPhone for a few years now and there’s still a red bubble on settings because I never set up Face ID.
      • Barbing 1y ago
        Annoying - familiar with the workaround? (disabling the badge, or you need it in case a software update ships?)
      • zevon 1y ago
        I never tried it with FaceID specifically, but all the other red bubbles I've encountered behaved the same way: You say "not now" during the initial setup, then you get a nag/reminder in the settings app. If you tap on the reminder and say "not now" or "don't use feature XYZ" or whatever again, it goes away permanently.
• wanderingstan 1y ago
  I empathize. My dad is 98 and can mostly use his iPhone fine, but I just wish I could turn off all the “shortcuts”: He doesn’t get swiping down from different edges of the screen for control panel vs notifications. He doesn’t get hard-pressing on icons for different options (like the flashlight), and so on. Wish I could turn off Siri and Apple Pay, because hitting the “sleep” button just slightly wrong can invoke them and then he’s stumped.
  • Telaneo 1y ago
    > Wish I could turn off Siri and Apple Pay, because hitting the “sleep” button just slightly wrong can invoke them and then he’s stumped. This should be possible? Or at-least it was when I was still using an iPhone, which was less than a year ago.
  • wlesieutre 1y ago
    Try Settings -> Apple Intelligence & Siri -> Talk and Type to Siri You can individually turn off 1) voice activation phrases, 2) press and hold side button, and 3) double tap bottom edge to type For the flashlight, I assume you're talking about on the lock screen. You can customize the lock screen and remove that button entirely. If he has a newer iPhone, flashlight is probably a good use for the "Action Button" on the left, if he doesn't want to use that for toggling ringer/vibrate.
  • joules77 1y ago
    Not just your dad but the vast majority don't use these features either. The human brain has a natural upper limit in how many times it's beliefs can update per year. If the Total new features shipped by every company in the land, every year exceeds that limit, most of it is a gigantic waste. Large, cash rich companies beyond a point attract opportunists. And soon they outnumber innovators. After that happens we get run away Involution (change without purpose). There is never ending amount of work going on, hyper specialization, elon/trump style self glorification/back patting, and all happening with very little purpose or meaning being produced. The solution is well known. Orgs which have purpose are tuned into the Limits baked into the system.
  • Barbing 1y ago
• captainkrtek 1y ago
  We tried to get my grandma to use an iPad (not my idea), she ended up locking it in a drawer because she got upset with it. I can't blame her. Ultimately, I don't think it's to her detriment. There would be some ease of mind if she had a cell phone and were comfortable using it (over a home phone) but tech is not for everyone.
• malux85 1y ago
  One of the things I’ve noticed with senior people is that fine motor control tends to start to go, Things like double click a mouse is difficult to perform two very fast clicks, without also moving the mouse, Same with iPhone, swiping without deviating, pressing TINY buttons, and even what constitutes a tap are difficult for the elderly. Yes there’s zoom but that only makes it 10% better, as I watch them
  • SoftTalker 1y ago
    Also tiny fonts and poor contrast.
• arrty88 1y ago
  Older/earlier iOS was more simple, intuitive, and usable from my point of view (mid 30s tech oriented male). Now even i find myself getting lost in the endless settings menus and too many different home screen / option screen / extra screens. I don't even use MacOS Launchpad. Just give me a desktop, window manager, and simple notifications. I dread the day my older mom updates her iOS and calls me for help.
  • alex43578 1y ago
    What really has been added in terms of endless menus? Control Center was like 2013, Widgets were like 2014. Today, 90% of things are still controlled via the settings app, except for a few app-specific settings that are controlled via the specific app. The latest iOS has some rougher edges, but I can't see how it's confusing.
    • arrty88 1y ago
      Here is a practical example: When I simply want to switch wifi networks at home or work or the coffee shop, or I want to disconnect my car from bluetooth and go with just my AirPods (for a private call with the kids in the car), it takes more than 3-4 clicks to do the "right thing" from that slide down menu. The UI reaction feels more delayed now. If i'm in the middle of a call and want to go private, or some how got connected to the slow network, and i want to switch to the other one. I feel like I used to be able to do it with 2 or 3 simple clicks. Now i cant remember if i need to click once, or click and hold, and by then the animation changed and now I tapped again and its doing something i did not expect. For me personally, I used to be a wiz at navigating this phone on older OS versions - and now i feel like a klutz and it doesn't do the thing I expected anymore.
      • arrty88 1y ago
        Don’t get me started on the new mobile safari UI
        • ZPrimed 1y ago
• 51Cards 1y ago
  I taught my now 83 year old mother to use an Android phone 10+ years ago and now I use Nova Launcher to do my best to emulate the experience she's used to every time there is an OS update. She does pretty well, but recently Google changed the default Phone app and she hates it. It's tricky keeping the experience stable once they have learned it. There are also several "senior" launchers meant to simply the UI but all of them have been a little too restrictive.
  • Telaneo 1y ago
    Might be worth it to try Fossify Phone as an alternative phone app. If anything, it's less likely to change overnight.
• SoftTalker 1y ago
  iPhone is full of unintuitive, undiscoverable “features” that you either stumble upon by accident, or someone shows you, or you just never find them. Even within their own apps they are not consistent, let alone what third parties do. It’s a pretty terrible experience but Android isn’t much better so we just have to tolerate it.
  • fragmede 1y ago
    Oh god. iOS has undo in text areas if you three finger tap. How the hell was I supposed to find that?
    • notapenny 1y ago
      Oh, it opens a little toolbar with that option. I literally just discovered this because of your comment. This highlights my experience with these controls pretty well... I have no idea what is n-finger touchable or holdable anymore and I just stumble into features accidentally.
  • mrweasel 1y ago
    Yeah, I'm in my 40s, and I can barely operate any type of smart phone. UI and UX design is out the window, and people expect phone to do more and more. I'd argue that the current form fact simply isn't suitable for what we ask if it. If you don't care about the phone, like many seniors, and just want a tiny slice of the functionality it can bring you, then modern smart phones are insane difficult to use. When people ask if I can help with their phone, and they aren't my parents, then the answer is always "No". I don't understand smart phone and I don't care to learn. They are forced upon me by others, they are hard to operate, they hurt my eyes and makes me feel sick if I have to look at the screen for more than a few minutes.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• chasil 1y ago
  The question is what motivates them. My mom wanted conservative social media. I just had to install it, and off she went. She barely answers phone calls correctly. She can't pull up her contacts or voicemail. Google maps is something that somebody else needs to do. The refusal to learn is solid and hard. What to do? Parents.
  • bapak 1y ago
    My mother's brain immediately blanks out the moment I tap something on screen. I can see it. If it's 3 taps she says "oh it can do so much, I'll never remember it" And that's it. Complete refusal to learn. She uses her phone daily but struggles "to go back," pressing every x and back button until there's nothing, then finally swipe up to reach the iPad/iPhone's Home Screen. She's not that old.
    • chasil 1y ago
      My relationship is not like yours, but... What's her favorite novel? Load it as an epub and spend as much time as you wish in visits reading it to each other. Make her run the ereader app. Expand on that. If you don't want to spend time in this way, connect her to the grandchildren on facetime. Wow is that a critical function that I was not expecting.
  • ZPrimed 1y ago
    I would've refused to give her the cesspool that is conservative social media, but I guess if she's explicitly asking for it she's probably too far gone to remediate
    • fragmede 1y ago
      The question is, how much would you pay for fake conservative social media?
• sleepyguy 1y ago
  Touch screens can be difficult for seniors to use due to the reduced moisture in their fingertips, which often leads to multiple attempts for the device to register a touch. I'm not yet a senior, and I'm already experiencing this issue myself. This is why I believe the future lies in touchless technology, like META Glasses. We should be able to control devices using voice commands or simple hand gestures. The need to touch icons or swipe feels outdated.
• bapak 1y ago
  I placed a Facebook Portal at my 90-year-old grandma's and she video calls me with it. Extremely easy to use. I fear the day Facebook finally kills it and I have to navigate the nightmare that are tablets, their ever-changing UIs, and endless unprompted prompts.
  • ZPrimed 1y ago
    Chromebooks work pretty well for seniors, IMO. Cheaper than iPads too.
  • nicolaslem 1y ago
    You could look into MDM solutions. These are meant for unattended devices like kiosks in public spaces. You should be able to control devices remotely and lock them down to only the essentials.
• alex43578 1y ago
  Why try and force a smartphone onto someone who doesn't need it? It's like trying to get someone to use Excel when they just need to add two numbers.
  • bapak 1y ago
    Video calls or video in general. Even photos. My grandma loves her Portal's photo slideshow.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • Telaneo 1y ago
    Because they might need it (or at-least want it) for one stupid little thing, be that Facebook or their bank (and general computing defaults to phones these days for normies apparently, plus it's generally cheaper than buying a laptop).
    • nitwit005 1y ago
      But Facebook or banking is likely harder than the basic phone usage they're trying to get them through, including the same account setup issues.
      • Telaneo 1y ago
        My experience helping my Grandma begs to differ. Not to mention that Facebook and banking is what they're actually trying to do. That's the end-goal they're motivated to achieve. Random account setup bullshit and notifications about shit they don't care about is nothing but a hindrance placed in their path for nebulous reasons they don't understand.
• k310 1y ago
  I am a senior and a techie all my life. I think that if it were simpler, I'd be less inclined to do more with it than it is actually useful for. In particular. Selecting anything is a struggle. No exceptions. And selecting more than one screenful is a horror. Scrolling often clicks on something I didn't want to click. And just try grabbing that invisible scroll bar. Any auto correct or suggest is ludicrous. I had to kill them all. Swipe text refuses to type "and". I get Anna's or Ava ( that was a live demo) regularly. Searching for an image is good for laughs, except for ocr'ed text. Paste? HOLEY MOLEY. Any "action after a delay" infuriates me, especially when it's hit-or-miss. Give me a paste button! These are "99%" things, not outlying operations. Disclaimer: the ipad with keyboard case, trackpad, pencil, ARROW KEYS!!!, and BT mouse is better. Almost a laptop, but right/control click is NOT macos like. Okay, enough rant. It's basically the clumsiness, compared to the precision of a desktop, that gets me. Advantage? I can use it on the easy chair in the living room. No $1800 computer chair. The desktop is harder on my anatomy. Just to say that some "features" stink regardless of user age, though no doubt harder in seniors. I figure out one of the 140,000 obscure options/tricks via internet search, something that decades of experience helps me do, but especially in recent years, is next to useless for normal people. And! When switching apps, more often than not, safari loses all my typing in a text area!!! I lucked out this time.
  • fragmede 1y ago
    > safari loses all my typing in a text area!!! One feature I like about Chrome is somehow it saves it if you go back, so if I've got a long ass comment I've typed out, and then I get distracted, I'll go back to the tab, the text I wrote won't be there, but when I go back, it reappears.
• OGEnthusiast 1y ago
  I've always thought it's a bit unfortunate how having a smartphone (which almost always also means having an Apple or Google account to download third-party apps) is slowly becoming a near-necessity in today's society, rather than a nice-to-have. Even some places like national parks (in the USA) require you to download an app just to enter.
  • ratmeadow 1y ago
    Agreed, it's becoming silly. Particularly for thing that are infrequent. Like no I don't want to install an app to check into a flight given that I fly once a year. And of course each airline would have their own app. Forcing an app on me when your service is not a primarily digital product, or there's no reason why your product needs a special unique app, is a great shortcut to me hating your organisation.
    • perilunar 1y ago
      Refuse the app and use the website. If there’s no website, complain.
  • sethammons 1y ago
    What national park requires an app to enter?
    • HaZeust 1y ago
      Rocky Mountain National Park here in Colorado does - both for timed entry and - I believe - for location pinging in case of S&R https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/discover-the-nps-app.htm https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/discover-the-nps-app.htm
      • LeafItAlone 1y ago
        Where on that page does it show that it is a necessity? I haven’t been to Rocky Mountain recently (and when I did go right before COVID don’t need one) but am an avid National Parks visitor and have never once needed a phone. You can print the timed entry codes (which I often do because of lack of cell service in some).
• giardini 1y ago
  Someday the cellphone will "come to us". The standard telephone did that and was a marvelous success for a century and a half. Cellphones will likely suck until manufacturers figure out what their customers really want/need. Time spent learning, training and relearning your cellphone is time forever lost. I chose a different path and refused a cellphone for years. A year ago I got one. I use it for "away" situations only (when I'm out of pocket). Otherwise it sits in my office, just like my old AT&T phone did. If someone needs to get me, there's always e-mail.
• zabzonk 1y ago
  I'm a retired 72. I've been programming in C, C++, Fortran, ASM etc. etc. for over 40 years, and used just about every OS/GUI going. But, but, but I really cannot get along with mobile phones! Whenever I pick one up I swipe or press the wrong thing. Just answering a call usually goes horribly wrong! And I have literal nightmares about it. So I am pretty much stuck with my VOIP landline, but am worrying things like my bank will stop supporting the tech. Luckily, I guess I've done my three-score-years-and-ten, so I don't probably need to retrain. But I can completely understand non-techie oldies having problems.
• AnonC 1y ago
  Two things stand out: 1. The setup process should have a heavily simplified mode right at the beginning. It may not be simple for Apple to decide what to exclude from the standard setup process, but there are several obviously time consuming, annoying and unnecessary steps in it. A lot of behaviors with side button double click, camera button swipe, etc., should be off by default. 2. There should be a very short test on finding out the accessibility needs of the user (to the extent possible, because some people may not know how to follow written or spoken instructions). These are not just for the elderly, but also for many others who have accessibility needs, who lack knowledge about gadgets (or can’t be bothered keeping up with changes in interfaces and disappearing physical buttons), who just need something simple that serves a few actions (like phone calls, video calls, taking photos, viewing received photos and videos, etc.).
• jerezzprime 1y ago
  Also, when you age your skin dries out and touch screens are less sensitive to your presses. So not only are these things exceptionally complex to use (eg many abstract concepts) the interface also does not really function well, making it a double whammy. I've had multiple cases watching my aging parents where I say press that or drag this, and it literally does not work, and makes them feel completely inept. For the sake of our parents, we (as technology builders and buyers) need to be more comfortable saying the latest iPoop Galaxy S might be just not the right choice for a big segment of our society, and we need to make phones with buttons.
  • chiph 1y ago
    I'm starting to run into that and I'm not even retired yet. Mom uses a stylus with a conductive rubber tip to operate her Pixel. Which shouldn't be necessary. With regard to learning to use a new release - since Apple (and no one else either it seems) ships a manual with their pocket computer these days, they need to have a group of people creating videos that explain how to use it. Of course, if you can't get past the OOTB setup, that might of of minimal use...
• krackers 1y ago
  The single biggest change in both ios and android is the swiping everywhere, and lack of button depth. Now it's impossible to navigate, and impossible to know what's a button or not. The only way is to just try tapping and swiping everything.
  • Telaneo 1y ago
    I remember a bug/feature report for some Android ROM complaining that switching the 3-button navigation layout to have the back button on the right side, and someone mentioned that they probably wouldn't do that, since button navigation was going to be deprecated in favour of gestures anyway, so no point in putting in the effort. The comments following that one weren't very kind. And I agree with them. I'd hate for gestures to be the only option, and find the 3-button layout option to be the saving grace saving me from dreading to use my phone. I can't imagine that option disappearing, precisely because Grandmas and the like need that option to use their phones, but the fact that there are people out there who see that option as deprecated, and not even as an accessibility option at best, scares me. That thought is the start of process that eventually ends with some critical functionality being removed and never coming back, breaking a category of device for a large group of people, in a similar way to how the X11 to Wayland migration has broken several accessibility features on Linux.
• al_borland 1y ago
  I’m lucky my dad worked in IT and has kept up on things. He’s retired now and has started teaching classes through AARP. He’s done a few on the iPhone. More recently he did one on ChatGPT. The ChatGPT class was so popular they are moving to a bigger venue for the next one. The important thing is to keep it focused on what people might actually use and care about. For the ChatGPT class, he wasn’t talking about generating code, he talked about how he used ChatGPT to help him understand results from medical tests, which led to getting bypass surgery 6+ months sooner than if he had waited for the doctors to call him every time. I’ve found most people want to know the bare minimum to get what they need done. People are busy and they aren’t looking to be technology experts. They just want to know how to do the basics they used to know how to do without feeling lost. These days, for someone who had issues with the complexity. I’d turn on Assistive Access[0]. There is also the option to refer them to Apple. That’s what my dad would do during his class if someone needed more hands-on help than he could provide when teaching a whole room of people. Apple offers classes at their stores, and people can call support. So he made sure to cover that to shift some of that to the experts. [0] https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welcome/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welc...
  • netsharc 1y ago
    I hope he explains the Chinese Room thought experiment when teaching ChatGPT...
    • sigwinch 1y ago
      I wouldn’t recommend this explanation. Even still-sharp older folks accuse me of complicating things. It’s very hard to successfully advocate the benefits of these systems while keeping their attention span. I always refer to chat interfaces as a computer. A single episode of dialogue with a thing with no mind.
      • netsharc 1y ago
        Feh, fine, as I commented, I did think about my own anecdote. To ELI75 it: I had a chance to interact with Sony's Aibo dog, the salesgirl said if you put your hand in front of it, it will yelp. Same as if you stroke the sensor pad on its back. It took a few tries, it did it, and I was delighed. Then I realized it was just some algorithms responding to input/"seeing" someone's hand with motor movements and an audio file of dog barks, there's no dog there happy to see you...
• stevenjgarner 1y ago
  Seniors created the iPhone
• mettamage 1y ago
  what I always found hard is that my grandfather doesn’t have great memory. It took me 10 years to teach him what a username and the password was and what it meant for logging in, or what logging in was for that matter.
• jmmv 1y ago
  I recently got an Apple Watch for my kids and… OMG the setup process was painful. So. Many. Questions. I couldn’t believe it and I could tell when the whole ordeal was going to end.
• throwawaymaths 1y ago
  It's incredibly hard to teach a senior how to angle the phone correctly for face unlock to work (there's also no feedback that you've done it wrong). If you're using the power button, then you have to teach how to not hold it too long, or else, siri shows up. Or maybe you want them to use siri voice command, then you have to teach them to hold it down long enough (and there's no feedback if you're off of the spot you're supposed to swipe up from). Swipe to unlock (password or otherwise) was impossible. I gave up and returned the phone. I was desperately wishing some hipster had refurbished an old style rotary or physical push button phone with a Sim card, but not even that exists.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • fragmede 1y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Opis-60s-mobile-4G-Phone/dp/B0CV5XN9H6?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Opis-60s-mobile-4G-Phone/dp/B0CV5XN9H... $200
    • throwawaymaths 1y ago
      no way, gotta try this!
  • array_key_first 1y ago
    Hijacking the power button for marketing of new features was evil from the get go. I mean, I get it. It's the perfect engagement metric-driven design. It's the perfect dark pattern. I'm sure you switch that on and whoa!!! Look at how many people are using Siri!!! They must loooooove Siri!!! It's a thing on Android too. I switch it off. I know it exists and I know not to activate it, and I still switch it off.
• flomo 1y ago
  My parents are seniors. My dad has never had interest in computers, and only used them to the extent he had to. But my mom has mastered the iphone/ipad stuff. > Nokia "dumb" phone I don't think this exists anymore. I got one for my dad because it has an emergency button on the side to call mom. But its really some android front-end with a bunch of modes, and not at all 'easy' if you weren't into this interface back in the day. He has lots of problems with it. Next plan is Apple's 'Assistive Access' on an old iPhone. https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welcome/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welc...
  • red369 1y ago
    I think there are still Nokia branded "dumb" phones being released. It seems they are now developed by HMD Global, another Finnish company who brought the Nokia mobile phone business. Seems like they still run the same software. They might only be widespread in some parts of the world though. Perhaps not available at all where you are. Here's one, which is some sort of retro-revival. I've just chosen that because there is a Wikipedia page for it.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210_(2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210_(2024) There are quite a few other examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HMD_Global_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HMD_Global_products
    • flomo 1y ago
      Yeah, thanks, it was a 2780 which runs KaiOS (and not android). I am really disputing the premise that this interface is really in any way easier or "dumber" than an iPhone. It is more primitive and maybe people learned it's ways a long time ago and don't want to learn anything new. But it has loads of modes and it's really easy to get stuck in some place where you can't do something basic. It is not at all a "dumbphone", it is a complete smartphone with a dumb interface. (IMO it was a total mistake on my part, and the only thing good about it is the emergency button.)
• LeoPanthera 1y ago
  The post says this: "I know there are accessibility modes, but you don’t want to have to go through all that and spend hours trying to customize the phone." I don't think the author has actually tried "Assistive Access" mode: https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/about-assistive-access-iphb86e84e2baa/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/abou... It is ideal for the elderly or those with cognitive disabilities. It removes almost every complex feature and reduces the rest to large clearly labelled buttons. And it doesn't take that long to enable. I highly recommend it.
  • heavyset_go 1y ago
    The author says this in their OP: > The phones are too fiddly now, and pressing random things as they try to hold the phone meant the phone got lost in a sea of opening stuff up. So, I tried the assistive access, but why isn’t this an option from the get-go? It asks you the age of setup; why not have a 65+ or something for a senior mode?
    • wickedsight 1y ago
      > why not have a 65+ or something for a senior mode? Damn... I'm guessing OP is pretty young or something. I know people 80+ who have hardly any problems with regular iOS. I also know people under 60 who do. Age isn't a great thing to assume ability from.
      • julian_t 1y ago
        Dam' right (he says, still developing at 70). Getting older may be compulsory, but I regularly have to help the youngsters out with tech-related matters.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
        63, and I learn new stuff, every day. I need to remember that I don't represent the norm, when it comes to stuff like that. I guess the saddest thing (to me), is seeing people that consider learning to be a pain point. Even young folks don't want to learn. Us geeks aren't exactly representative of the vast majority of folks. That often makes it difficult for us to design stuff for them.
• swinglock 1y ago
  > There were too many apps; all they wanted was the phone app, but it doesn’t default to the keypad, which was too much for them to find. Then why buy an iPhone? There are phones designed for seniors that do just that. You don't need to pay 10-30x more for functionality you don't need and can't understand. Buy a Doro if you just want to call.
  • Mistletoe 1y ago
    The Jitterbug was made for these seniors that insist on calling when a text would suffice.
  • Telaneo 1y ago
    > Buy a Doro if you just want to call. The thing is that even the elderly want to do more than just that. Some want to be on Facebook. Some want to do their banking, especially if their PC is 17 years old and a smartphone makes for a cheaper purchase than a new PC. A Doro or equivalent is if you literally only call (and maybe text), but even the elderly generally want to (or are functionally forced/compelled to) do more on their phones.
    • argsnd 1y ago
      Can a person who can’t find the keypad tab at the bottom of the Apple Phone app really use Facebook or internet banking?
      • Telaneo 1y ago
        You'd be surprised what sufficient motivation can achieve.
      • mystifyingpoi 1y ago
        This. If they can't make a trivial call, do not ever ever let them touch web browser or anything like that. They'll click on a first lottery ad and be scammed instantly.
• seabird 1y ago
  I've been using an iPhone for the first time in 10 years, and it confuses me as to how Apple has somehow managed to make them as opaque and arcane as they are today. Most interactions with the phone are noticeably and negatively affected by bizarre UI decisions. With how much it frustrates me, I can't imagine what it would be like trying to learn it as an elderly person.
  • OhNoNotAgain_99 1y ago
    [dead]
• heavyset_go 1y ago
  The last iOS device I owned was an iPad Mini and I basically interact with iOS now only in emulators, besides doing small things on someone's phone when their hands are tied or whatever. To an outsider, the iPhone UX is heavily dependent on non-discoverable gestures. Some of the gestures are obvious and shared with the design languages in other operating systems, but some aren't. Some of them "make sense" once you learn them, but others feel arbitrary and non-obvious. If I was ever handed an iPhone and asked to contact someone specific in an emergency, I'd probably end up fumbling around for a dumb amount of time. I'm sure the necessary steps are easy once you know them, the issue is going in blind not knowing them. Having worked a job getting seniors acquainted with using desktop computers as a teen, I don't imagine the same task would be easier today with iPhones. It feels like the UX assumes you're already fluent in their language.
  • Barbing 1y ago
    Undiscoverable gestures to avoid (gasp) extra icons(!!) are really rough. Control Center is hard, Apple. (Not for my generation but millions of people)
  • throwaway290 1y ago
    > If I was ever handed an iPhone and asked to contact someone specific in an emergency, I'd probably end up fumbling around for a dumb amount of time. True for a dumb phone also. I remember then because i'm old
• reilly3000 1y ago
  If you came up with a rotary phone, a keypad might feel unintuitive or even difficult to learn a new technique- even though it’s faster and easier. For the first 60+ years of life for this cohort the only option was to remember phone numbers or keep records of them. The concept of not having to “know” a phone number anymore, and of a searchable contact list is pretty far out. In the past 20 years there have been plenty of people who saw no problem with what they had. Now we can push virtual buttons on glass to do things that used to take a phone call. Some people really enjoy talking on the phone. Some people need it. The fact that the smartphone is so mutable means it’s a phone new relationship with a device and its makers. Not everyone is ready to commit to that sort of relationship, and I think that is a freedom we should fight to maintain. App-only services aren’t really accessible, and says they only care about a certain kind of customer.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• kerrsclyde 1y ago
  My parents were always good with tech, we always had the latest PC at home. As they now enter their 80s their patience / resilience has evaporated to nothing. If it doesn’t work immediately the get stressed and give up (or ask me). I’m not sure as developers how you get round that.
• ksec 1y ago
  I remember I last counted iOS and macOS features in 2022, since 2012 I barely count 5 features that is useful to me. Without Steve Jobs, everyone work with their own incentives, if shipping features is how you get promotion and raise. That is what we end up with. I know this is controversial take on HN. 10 years spend on Swift and SwiftUI. It would have been better if we continue some small and iterative improvement with both C23 and Objective C. Every year we see Apple SoC improvements, but my iOS or macOS is still not instantaneous. Safari 18 got better, and now 26 as well. But comparatively speaking it is still behind Chrome and Firefox in terms of responsiveness, and resource usage. In terms of Design, the Home Screen is still a mess. Compare to Old Apple, new Apple's rate of improvement and productivity has dropped significantly , with double or triple the resource but half of the execution in terms of Software. ( Hardware they are doing fine if not exceptional ) But if Apple software is really this bad, it just shows Microsoft and Google have been absolutely appalling in the past 10-20 years.
  • defraudbah 1y ago
    [flagged]
• yapyap 1y ago
  I reckon OOP will spend another day or two doing so looking at the shitfest of iOS 26
• ggm 1y ago
  I do this fortnightly, and the feedback I'd give their UI /UX would be very explicit: you're letting a significant cohort down badly by some confusing choices. "Why can't I delete those photos in icloud from here" "Why does the thing I have to select move around?" "What are all these ghost windows in safari and email and how do I get rid of them?" "How do I yell at the clouds when this does not work?" "How do I tell which bits are decoration and which bits are active?" "What do you mean I can't take over my dead husbands account or move data from his account to my account"
• ilitirit 1y ago
  I switched to iPhone from Android for a few months earlier this year. I don't think I qualify as an elderly person yet (I'm 47) but even I had trouble figuring things out. I don't think it was super-hard to use, but I often found myself asking "Why would they do it like this? Who uses a smart-phone like this?". I just found some things very unintuitive. Take for example re-arranging icons. I don't know if I would ever have figured out this technique without looking it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTdZLY9r4lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTdZLY9r4lg
  • maccard 1y ago
    I definitely agree that Apple have buried the complexity of some features, but moving icons on the Home Screen is press + hold and then drag by default, same as android.
    • ilitirit 1y ago
      I'm referring specifically to the technique mentioned in that video. Yeah it's cool that it's there, but that doesn't seem intuitive at all.
      • maccard 1y ago
        Sure but the same can be said about any number of windows, android, Linux features.
  • lnsru 1y ago
    I went through many iPhones, my first iPhone 3G is still lying around. But nowadays I need to look for howto vidoes and blogs for rather simple things. The simplicity is gone, there are too many settings and bugs. Looking for used Google Pixel 9 or 10 Pro Fold to install GrapheneOS and give it a try. It can’t be worse than my iPhone 14 pro max with broken mail.
  • MarioMan 1y ago
    It used to be simpler. I remember it taking years before Apple finally added this ability to move more than one icon at a time, and it’s a change for the better in my opinion. Using it as a reordering technique is a knock-on effect I’d never really thought about, but I think using this to move multiple icons to another page or into a folder makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure how you’d do it better (though I’m sure I’m lacking in UI imagination).
• zkmon 1y ago
  Some of my folks have iPhones and I think it is a punishment they accept in return for the high social perception they get, of using an expensive phone. I feel for them. Apple sold the abysmal usability under the disguise of high-class label and durability. Example: They are scared to use their camera, as the camera app applied a myriad of it's own settings and effects that they don't have a clue how to take a simple stupid photo without any effects. And the reason why this flood of complexity hits an unsuspecting user is, the businesses were under peer pressure to boast of more features and options while not recognizing the negative effect of the complexity on the usability.
• graycat 1y ago
  Got an iPhone 16 Plus: Apparently somehow needed to have an "Apple account." Don't want one -- don't want to be subservient, subordinate to, dependent on Apple or hurt my privacy -- but relented and applied -- refused!!!!! The phone rang, apparently with someone from Apple Help who somehow noticed that my frustration (wasting time) was about to explode with some gigatons of TNT, enough to level everything from me to CA on to Hawaii. Soooo, apparently Apple HQ is somehow always online -- outrageous privacy threat. Since I was trying to make the phone work for even the simplest things, I could not receive the call. Heck, could not even get an Apple account. Super, semi-quasi, pseudo bright: The phone isn't working so to help call the phone that isn't working. Apple, to communicate with a new user, use some REAL computing, including email. Understand??? New user? That iPhone is my first cell phone, first Apple product, and hope my last. Using some computing that has a real keyboard, 30" screen, an 8 core AMD processor, and Windows and actually works, eventually got to Apple online help. Was advised to press the "Down Volume" button. I asked which one of the five was that button, and the help staff didn't know. Soooo, not even the Apple help operation knows what the buttons do. Disney with Donald Duck could make total riot out of this disaster! I declared the iPhone 16 Plus a disaster, expensive, useless, worthless, at best a puzzle box, and will return it to Xfinity. Actually, of course, the iPhone is a grand triumph of electronic engineering, optics, software, etc. -- still for new users is useless and worthless as a phone, i.e., won't make or receive calls, just won't; several hours a day of absurd mud wrestling in the dark for several days yielded no utility at all. Useless? First big problem: Apple, apparently with rock solid, ironclad determination, deliberately, totally refuses to DOCUMENT, say, with an easy to find, COMPETENTLY, BEAUTIFULLY, EFFECTIVELY written PDF of D.O.C.U.M.E.N.T.A.T.I.O.N. Go bankrupt, maybe. Write documentation for new users, NEVER. Won't do it. Me? Can I read tricky material from good documentation? Hold a Ph.D. in applied math with plenty of pure math where learned lots of tricky stuff, but from well-written books. Apple, shut up, sit down, and listen up -- until you DOCUMENT, for new users your expensive phones are worse than worthless junk. Sure, maybe high school girls form little groups and share some of the basics they discovered somehow, but I'm out of high school. One word Apple -- DOCUMENT.
  • MarioMan 1y ago
    Here’s the first time setup documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105132 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105132 And the general iPhone documentation: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/welcome/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/welcome/ios Sometimes, I wish this documentation was a bit more technical, but it’s not bad at all. The film on the front of a new iPhone, that you remove to reveal the screen during unboxing, provides pictorial icons of what each button on the phone does. For volume down, you can see a minus in a circle. It’s the bottommost button on the left. I’m not sure why you had so much trouble creating an Apple ID, but you can still skip that when it prompts you to do so. I believe it’s under “Forgot password or don’t have an account”.
• dorianmariecom 1y ago
  my grandma (87 years old) uses an iphone 12 mini no passcode, no touch id, no face id
• anal_reactor 1y ago
  I'm a software engineer, I've been using MacOS for five years already, and I still don't know how to use Finder, and I randomly open up some emoji app and also Dictionary. Literally the worst UI design I've ever seen, because such nonsense never happened to me on any other platform. Two months ago I switched to Linux and the distribution I chose is ten times more intuitive than MacOS.
• shermantanktop 1y ago
  Accessibility for seniors is a real problem and an iPhone is a terrible choice for people who can’t use their thumbs or see the screen very well. But an article about some very elderly people who cannot remember their own birthday has triggered the exact same Apple-UX-is-in-decline rants that a post about Liquid Glass or literally any other HN post about Apple does. I agree with some of the criticism but it’s not really engaging the point.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Bengalilol 1y ago
  From what I read in the comments, the core problem (for any UI/UX) is that users need time to discover and learn where the features are. On iOS (and now also macOS), some features end up in places where we wouldn't naturally expect them. When we first discover a new OS (yes... OS), how much time are we willing to spend on learning? I bet not much (as paradoxal as it may sounds). In my opinion, standardizing almost everything into uniform list-based UIs actually makes it harder for the brain to remember. Variation and distinct visual cues help us build stronger mental maps. But in the end, it's a matter of time and practice until things feel 'in the right place'. Apple should definitely have a R&D team working on such approaches.
  • Oarch 1y ago
    An awful lot of the functionality is superfluous for an awful lot of us. I'd love to switch off the App Library page, the Today View, Tab Groups in Safari. I frequently open these and it's always unintentional.
• Simulacra 1y ago
  I used to volunteer at an independent living facility for seniors. With a few others, we spent several days teaching them how to use tablets and smart phones. The one thing I came away with is what I called the "try it" mentality. A lot of people who came of age with computers, through the 80s and 90s, and especially tech enthusiasts, are more comfortable with this. If you don't know how to do something on a device, try something. Imagine how you would do it in real life without the device, and then try to replicate that on the device. Unfortunately, a lot of non-technical people, especially older people, are deathly afraid they are going to break something. They worry about this so much that they are not willing to just try things, and figure it out. We had to get them comfortable with making mistakes, and that it was OK to make mistakes with these devices, because they are mostly locked down and you can't break them. Especially if you're 73 years old, trying to play bingo.
• ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  It’s not just iPhones (although I fully expect folks to jump all over Apple. They’re an easy target). It’s pretty much everything. That includes things like kitchen gadgets, Web sites, government services, phone support, automobiles, etc. Android is every bit as bad as iOS. Windows is as bad as MacOS, and Linux is as bad as either of them. And it’s not just older folks. I routinely run into problems explaining technology to relatively younger folks; even highly educated ones. I’ll bet that the author would have been just as frustrated, teaching Android to a room full of doctors and lawyers. My doctor just sold his practice to NYU Langone, a very good organization (and he got lots of money, I’m sure). They installed a really intense (and expensive) IT setup in his office. I’ve been watching him and his staff, struggling with it. It’s actually an excellent system, and I’m sure that many folks here, would be proud of it, but they still struggle. He has a full-time staff member, supplied by Langone, whose only job, is to come in and help staff use the IT services. She’s very busy (and patient). I feel like Accessibility needs to include discoverability, affordance, and usability, as principal axes. The terminology we use, the words we pick, in user interface and feedback are vital. The design of affordances, the placement of UI elements, etc. Glossaries are really important, and I watch people’s eyes glaze over, when I start talking about them. You can have Design Language glossaries; not just text ones. It’s a huge topic, and not a particularly popular one. I feel that a good start, is highlighting examples of products that get it right, with discussion on how they do it. I get pretty tired of everyone complaining about the failures. That’s just discouraging, and tends to get people circling their wagons. I think good examples would be very helpful. I’ll start. My wife likes OXO kitchen gadgets a lot. So do I. She tends to buy stuff that I’d never get, if I were making the decision, but I find really good, once I start using it.
  • taminka 1y ago
    unfortunately this is an inherent property of a system (software in this case) that punishes stability and rewards changes for the sake of changes if you don't modify your library, app, OS, etc for 2 years, it's perceived as abandoned or obsolete, meaning even if you're achieved perfection in your product in terms of ui, you can't stay there, you must move forward and break it (i'm not talking about bugs or security vulnerabilities here, only the functionality itself) prominent example is w/ microsoft word, where they kept adding an absurd number of features simply bc they felt like they had to, since ppl were paying for it, and this will KEEP HAPPENING TO EVERYONE so long as the software keeps moving at breakneck speed and backwards compatibility and stability are thrown out of the window...
• anilakar 1y ago
  > Also, the whole phone setup process needs to be delayed; having to go through it for an hour puts them off from even wanting to bother This is also an issue with Android. When I changed phones a month ago, I ran into trouble with my Google account. The only internet connection I had was my cellular data plan and during the mandatory initial set-up I could not enable hotspot on the new phone to do online 2FA on the old device.
• marckrn 1y ago
  I used to work as a UI/UX designer when we bought our, now late, grandmother an iPad Air 2 so she could "stay connected." This was around the iOS 8 era, and helping her through the setup process turned out to be an eye-opening experience for me – and for my then-profession: "Yes, yes, darling, I see all these cryptic hieroglyphs [icons] – but I don’t know what they mean. Am I supposed to? Where can I look them up?" That was a long day.
• m000 1y ago
  From a quick read in TFA and the comments, it is interesting that nobody questions iPhone as the right device for seniors. It is pretty much unquestionably presented as the only device option, even though it is pretty obvious that a lot of seniors are just not interested into its features. I'm not sure where this can be pinpointed. Monoculture? Mimicry? FOMO?
  • gloxkiqcza 1y ago
    It’s MacRumors forums, basically a definition of a monoculture/fandom.
  • unethical_ban 1y ago
    Let's assume a smartphone is the requirement. Secure communication via text and video, as well as email access. Who do you recommend otherwise? Particularly for professional assistance when I am not around? Every Best Buy and Apple Store is trained on it. Samsung would be the only other option.
    • m000 1y ago
      Literally any Android smartphone should do: - install one of WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Signal - install one of Gmail, Outlook, Proton Mail - protect/hide away settings and app store - lock homescreen icons Done. It's a pretty foolproof setup. And I'm not sure why you would need a brand specialist to get help for such basic stuff. Walk with a Motorola into a Samsung store, I'm pretty sure they will be able to help you, especially if you are a polite senior.
      • keanb 1y ago
        An Android smartphone would have the same usability problems for geezers.
      • unethical_ban 1y ago
        In my experience with technophobe seniors, concierge service would be a bonus. And I wouldn't assume competing brands would help each other beyond "is this thing on" level checks. But he's there are ways to lock the system so things don't move around much.
• quitit 1y ago
  While the set up can be easier, I think there's a few self-inflicted problems at play here: First: Giving a senior with aptitude or dexterity hindrances is already a mistake. Even if they are set up they're going to be having trouble with much harder to use apps such as banking, ticketing and government apps which seemingly delight themselves in publishing rubbish. Second: iPhones have assistive access modes which preserve core phone functions while addressing accessibility impairment: https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/ https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/ Third: The apple stores are help centres. Not only do they provide free guided setup (and help with forgotten passwords), but they also provide free training on how to use different functions of the phone, both in person or online. Fourth: At any age we already know that some people use and understand technology better than others. (It's interesting to watch different people set up touch-id, some will resist reading any instructions provided on the screen over their own intuition for how the set up should work.) Grouping a room of seniors together to set up a phone is like getting kids from school years 1 through 10 together and expecting them all to perform equally. Finally: Like giving a car to a teenager, one must take some responsibility in dumping such a product on a person who might not be able to handle it. Seniors are still autonomous and will look for help if you're not providing it - scammers enjoy "helping" seniors part with their money this way.
• Yizahi 1y ago
  I would also say that for pre-elderly cohort iPhones are also hard to learn. Gestures are completely baffling for unfamiliar people, and Apple generously removed basic on-screen buttons. Dealing with files is nightmare (yes, people still dare to use files in a year of our lord 2025). Back button being inconsistent and badly placed doesn't help. Native mail app works unpredictably (I couldn't be bothered to debug if it was a user error or not), so I've installed them gmail. Other random minor issues often rise up too. For instance I had to teach them icons in a Safari at least three times on separate occasions.
  • nyarlathotep_ 1y ago
    > Dealing with files is nightmare (yes, people still dare to use files in a year of our lord 2025). This is one of the largest detriments for iPhones for me, personally. On Android phones I can just connect via usb and drop ebooks, movies, audio, pictures whatever quickly with no fanfare on Linux/Windows/MacOS (I think? with some android file explorer thing)
• stuaxo 1y ago
  Yes, its terrible. I did a similar thing with my dad when he was going through parkinsons. When I got him a book for seniors it turned out to be really thick, and justifiably so. Egregious bits of the interface include the parts you can drag from the bottom and the top. As well as things at the ends of the springboard. There is so much in there its way too much to explain. That's before you get to stuff like the difference between ordinary calls and say WhatsApp.
• fedeb95 1y ago
  if those people don't need passwords and accounts, they probably want to do very little with their phone. hence they don't need an iPhone. Otherwise, if they want to use email, whatsapp, etc., they also want passwords and accounts, hence security measures must be there. Someone has to help them.
  • tim333 1y ago
    You'll find old folk think they just need phone calls but then they want to see their kids photos on insta etc and access their bank if it switches to app only and the like.
• ghm2199 1y ago
  So one thing I feel is that many old folk find it impossible to understand and build with multiple UI/UX abstractions they are not familar with. Take the file explorer(or whatever mac has for viewing files) abstraction. If you aren't familiar with the concept of where files are found — e.g. where are downloaded files — it becomes infinitely more difficult to them to remember and add another UX/UI abstraction e.g. how to open a file using a suitable application. Lack of homogenity between OSes and Platforms makes it all the more harder. This just keeps repeating for everything. Making attachments, knowing how to clear browser history, bookmarking, opening and searching through mail etc.
• vertnerd 1y ago
  I am convinced that someday, device manufacturers will realize that complicated, small touchscreen UIs are a horrible idea. They're even worse for seniors, because our fingers are losing dexterity, may be slightly swollen and stiff, and are prone to tremors. So, at a point in our lives when merely holding the phone can be a challenge, navigating some ambiguous UI while our fingers are obscuring the very thing we're trying to use is insanity. But Apple is the worst because of its Apple ID requirement. I tried to resurrect an old iPhone of mine only to get stuck in a week-long perpetual ID recovery loop with Apple. Enter the new password wrong too many times, and you have to wait another week to try again. Want to create a new Apple ID? Nope. No duplicate IDs attached to the same phone number. I finally just recycled the phone. I'm old. I don't have time to waste on an iPhone.
• Gravityloss 1y ago
  We have an iPad sitting in its box for over half a year. Taking it into use was such a harrowing experience that I could never find the will to complete it.
• QuantumNoodle 1y ago
  > They don’t need passcodes, accounts, and a sea of information. I would go further and make they case the don't need all the smart features either and all they need is to make calls and that an iPhone, or any touch phone, isn't the right tool for the job. One might argue "well I want to face time and send them pictures" or whatever. Print them favorite pictures. A missing product is a video calling devices, similar to a dumb phone, that all it does is take and receive video calls. But the issue you'll run into is Apple's closed protocols or having to support a slew of other applications, like Signal or WhatsApp. Having elderly relatives in other countries, I've resorted to making a touchless video phone with a raspberry pi, a big screen, speakers, a mic and a camera. I made a similar one for all relatives that want to talk as well. The "dialer" is just buttons that connect to other relatives directly. The software on them connects through a server I set up. I spent near 1 grand, or a price of a modern iphone, and managed to get 4 households connected.
  • TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    Anyone who realises that AI would be ideal for this is going to make a fortune. "Send this photo to its-kostya" instead of "Open Photo app, click send, click the send channel, scroll down the list of names, click the one/s you want to use, click send if you can find it again." We've inherited dumb a tradition of dumb procedural UIs which are effectively manual scripts that have to be repeated for each action. There's been next to no useful progress on automating this. Siri looked like it was going to do it, but then it died on the vine. There's a very basic "Call XYZ" feature but the entire OS should have that level of accessibility, from Settings upwards. Apple hasn't had a User Champion for well over a decade now, and it shows. There's the occasional Nice Feature™ - "Hey we need a nice feature for the presentation this year" - but there's no longer a Nice OS, and no one at Apple seems to have any interest in creating one.
    • squigz 1y ago
      Ah yes, voice assistance and the elderly... a famously compatible combination! :)
• itissid 1y ago
  Most of the western world population is about to become a lot older and hence more % disabled in the next decade. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone just asked the user what were the main features they used and configured only those services on the OS? Settings could be super simplified. People using, for e.g. mail and browser only, could ask for an integrated UI/UX experience for both. There could be a remote assistance escape hatch as a permanent UX feature for the early days of use for someone you trusted to help you. Power users can ask for more stuff and add more features. Another thing would be for a AI to do just one thing. e.g. you can configure it at set up to just help one how to do X. This is really not easy. e.g. an AI would need access to your windowing system and peripherals and then infer from your prompt where you are stuck to help you. So many wonderful things could be done if they invested more into user research and figured out how to help people. It would boost adoption — and more importantly brand love — up the wazoo.
  • carlosjobim 1y ago
    > Most of the western world population is about to become a lot older All of the world population. Nobody can escape aging.
    • sigwinch 1y ago
      But specifically the old-age dependency ratio changing from 48% to 60% could pass a tipping point which presents a shock.
• notmyjob 1y ago
  It’s just like Groundhogs Day. They forget as quickly as you teach them, and the next day it starts over.
  • Retr0id 1y ago
    This is unfortunately accurate, at least, for those with dementia. They need to already know how it works otherwise it's just not happening. imho the solution is skeuomorphism i.e. make the experience as close as possible to that of a landline phone made ~30 years ago. Tie it to a physical phone book with their main contacts written in a large font. (They don't necessarily need to key in the full numbers each time, a carer can pre-program "speed dial") Have any unknown/invalid numbers go through to a default primary point of contact.
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  Lately I've been ranting about the Grandma Test. Simply stated, if Grandma cannot understand the technology enough to use it, (in many situations just the UX) it is objectively bad. You are losing customers to frustration. Rote memorization is the hack that got her to this point in life in her world, and constantly and consistently shifting things is breaking her hack. Key takeaway: You could have thousands of additional customers if a lightweight 2nd UI that materially does not change existed for your product.
• anthonybsd 1y ago
  Counterpoint: I have two senior citizens living with me (my inlaws). They are 75 years old. They have no trouble using their IPhone 13 Maxes. Yes, I did set it up for them 2 years ago but after that they've been on their own. Maybe once every few months they can't figure something out and they ask for help but for the most part experience has been largely painless. They have a decent range of apps they use - youtube, facebook, viber, some games, some utilities, family ToDo shopping lists, translation apps, camera, messaging. I wouldn't call them power users by any stretch but they definitely feel comfortable with their devices.
• sotix 1y ago
  The modern Apple experience is defined by removing the head phone jack, the silent switch, and worse, the home button. My dad has used an iPhone and an iPad for years and occasionally uses a Mac at home. He's not terribly old and is fairly competent with tech. One day he randomly said to me, "I'm afraid about when I'm older. I won't be able to understand how to use my devices because they've become so complicated and keep changing every year." And I realized it's so true. Removing the home button on the iPhone and iPad was a massive mistake. It's the one interaction my 85 year-old grandma who doesn't understand computers could interact with. She couldn't even change the volume, but she knew that one button on her iPad exited things. When I set up a new Mac, I wanted to display the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar for quick pairing because it wasn't there by default. When I searched online for how to add it, I got four different results for the past few years of MacOS updates that kept changing where the setting was. When I updated my Mac the other day, the Bluetooth icon was gone again! Once again, I had to search for how to add it to the menu bar because that setting is not located within the Bluetooth settings page. When I went to see how I could display if I was using Ethernet in my menu bar, I discovered that I needed a third-party app and had to spend time researching which one to download. Meanwhile I get all of those features on KDE out of the box, and any more niche changes I want to make are much easier to discover because the settings and UI have looked the same for years. KDE is so simple. I'm currently using arch Linux, which is wonderful for me but will certainly be more complicated for the average user. That's where I'm very excited for KDE Linux[0]. Switching to KDE has been a revolution. I know more about computers than most people I know. And yet I feel like I possess significantly less domain-specific knowledge than my mom who is a MacOS power user or my dad who uses Windows at work. My mom's knowledge of macOS is impressive, yet I don't need half of that expertise to use KDE. It's the same feeling I had when I switched away from accounting where people were writing insane formulas, using VBA macros, and Alteryx to software engineering where I learned python and could write twenty lines of code to accomplish the same task. However, KDE is even easier to pick up than a programming language! Unfortunately, I don't know what to do about phones or tablets or what to tell my dad. He's starting to think he should go to the sessions at the Apple Store every time a major update releases annually, which significantly changes his daily-use devices. The regular crowd at those events is normally the elderly who grew up without computers. My dad doesn't quite fit in. But Apple has built devices that require you to have grown with every iteration and built up a deep level of context. Every time he upgrades his iPhone after five or six years, the new phone is unrecognizable to him. Apple famously had a mouse with one button. Begrudgingly, they accepted the right click despite it being a less than intuitive interface. They've taken that design pattern to the extreme, and it has infested their approach to everything. The designers are too much of Apple experts to understand how far they've gone with the context requirement for successfully navigating their devices. [0]: https://kde.org/linux/ https://kde.org/linux/
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  It's not just software. I have witnessed seniors grabbing their device 'wrong' when they pick up the phone to answer a call. They cannot hear the caller because they are literally holding the volume button down when they pick up the device and don't notice. There is no easy way for me to disable the hardware volume buttons.
• everdrive 1y ago
  It's also worth noting that every little ecosystem acts as if: 1) You actually care to learn their ecosystem in the first place. 2) You don't have to learn tens or hundreds of other ecosystems. This shows up all over the tech space, and no one seems to recognize that I don't want to learn another UI, to learn other conventions, etc. It's all being pushed on us because teams just have this desperate, insane need to add a small bit of complexity every year until their product is an unwieldy mess. Attempts to "simplify" and "modernize" often go badly sideways as well.
• cainxinth 1y ago
  This is a difficult task generally, not just with smartphone or Apple products. I have helped many a tech challenged person (of all ages) learn to better use their devices. You need a lot of patience and to actively resist succumbing to the curse of knowledge. The first and most common roadblock is that they often don’t know their passwords!
• kavinaidoo 1y ago
  Two years ago I set up an android tablet for my grandmother to make and receive WhatsApp calls. Was a fun challenge to have the setup compensate for her never having used a touch screen before. One interaction that missed the cut was using the tablet's accelerometer to answer calls so she wouldn't have to interact with the screen at all. Simply tilting the tablet forward and back on it's stand would have answered the call. You just can't beat the customizability of Android (with Tasker) for things like this. https://kavi.sblmnl.co.za/grandmother-communicator/ https://kavi.sblmnl.co.za/grandmother-communicator/ https://kavi.sblmnl.co.za/grandmother-communicator-part-2/ https://kavi.sblmnl.co.za/grandmother-communicator-part-2/
  • stnmtn 1y ago
    I believe this is doable through iOS shortcuts or accessibility - a gesture can be programmed to simulate a tap on a part of the screen.
• anonu 1y ago
  As an Android-only user, and occasional iphone user (my wife's phone) I agree that the iphone is not as intuitive an interface as it is was. Especially compared to Android. I would also add that overly designing things usually makes interfaces worse over time. Designers assume some sort of prerequisite knowledge from a user which is not always the case. On the other hand, having observed kids explore the interface I'm always amazed at how quickly they intuit everything.
  • xandrius 1y ago
    > On the other hand, having observed kids explore the interface I'm always amazed at how quickly they intuit everything. I believe (for some reason) that to be true for anything a kid has an interest in. As a kid we figured out how to navigate games in black and white, Japanese and without any guide/tutorial/internet, just because we wanted to play Captain Tsubasa on our PSX. Maybe the game was nicely and intuitively designed or maybe we just put the effort and time to figure stuff out. Conversely, you get people (regardless of the age) unable to figure out the simplest systems (from a 2 buttons espresso maker to kettles and toasters) just because they can't contemplate having to sit down more than 5s to understand things out.
• anonu 1y ago
  I'll never forget teaching my elderly aunt how to use a desktop computer. She put her hand over the mouse and rotated it left and right like a steering wheel. Things many of us take for granted need to be learned if you've never experienced it.
• mwexler 1y ago
  I am continually surprised that Apple doesn't offer an "older" user set of options, as part of accessibility. My mother in law is confused between contacts, contacts in messages, contacts in phone (we should have one place to do one thing: store names she wants to contact. She doesn't get that it's the same thing in each app). She routinely long taps on things accidentally, turning on or off functions she doesn't understand. No easy way to figure out what she reconfigured from miles away. Tap targets are all small, with non-scaling buttons even in Apple's app. Making everything large across every setting I can find either breaks apps or has inconsistent effects. Having all settings in one Settings tool means having to leave an app to change how it works, which is counter-intuitive (to change the toast time, go to the fridge and move the butter around) to many folks. I've stripped the device to just her favorite apps, but I can't limit access to settings, controls, or other aspects. I just want an extra step so she can pause and "cancel" things she doesn't understand. Apple gives no option: everyone is a user with benefits (no super users in iOS). I tried the child protections, but she's not a child. She should be open to watch what she wants, chat with whom she wants (yes, there is risk there) and that's the opposite of of what child protections do. Long time Apple fan, but the complexity and lack of controls is becoming really painful. For folks who need simplicity and consistency, Apple appears to have left that far behind. My fear, of course, is that she is future me: my interactions will suffer with mixes of gestures and mental controls and smell-ux, and my kid won't be able to set the device to work with my needs.
  • BrandoElFollito 1y ago
    > My mother in law is confused between contacts, contacts in messages, contacts in phone (we should have one place to do one thing: store names she wants to contact. She doesn't get that it's the same thing in each app). I am confused too (o, Android), after discussing with developers and reading documentation. Some things simply do not work despite the producer telling you they do. Contacts is one of the worst offenders.
  • robertoandred 1y ago
    They do: https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welcome/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welc...
• edoloughlin 1y ago
  and the whole swiping from the button [bottom?] kept making the screen go down to the bottom half This happens to me way more than I would like. For the life of me, I can't figure out the utility in being able to move my lock screen 1/2 way down the phone and have blank space on top. I don't know what this feature is or how I would activate it if I actually wanted to.
  • quux 1y ago
    That feature is called "reachability" and is designed to let the user access controls at the top of the screen with their thumb. It's a nice idea but triggers unintentionally too often IMO. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-reachability-iph145eba8e9/26/ios/26 https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-reachability-iph1...
    • ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
      Thank you! I couldn't remember the name of it (and didn't feel like digging through menus to find it), so I haven't been able to disable until just now!
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • ryandrake 1y ago
        I preferred the original "reachability": Making a phone that is small enough for my hand to reach the entire screen.
        • ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
          I pivot between small phones and phablets every upgrade cycle. Currently enjoying a Pro Max and loving it, but I'll hate everything about it in two years and go for the smallest current gen iphone
  • senordevnyc 1y ago
• gverrilla 1y ago
  I wonder what percentage of senior fraud has to do with phone UI madness - must not be irrelevant.
• sudosteph 1y ago
  My Father-in-law resisted smart phones for much longer than most, but he's had an android phone for a couple years now and it's really cool how much he's adapted it to his own personal use style. Nobody showed him the "usual" way to do things so he made his own system of sorts. He almost never uses search or menus for anything. Instead he has a bunch of home screens that he customized with quick links. Like he has one for each of his children with a one shortcut to text them, one to call, one to send a Facebook message, one link to their Facebook profile, and a note with special dates (birthdays, anniversaries) for each so he can remember to call them then. He's got another home page he has for stuff related to the Marines, websites and meme pages, etc. He's very meticulous with getting everything exactly how he wants it, and is so proud to show it off. Sometimes he still needs help (last time I was there he asked me to help him set "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as his ring tone), but I'm honestly really impressed with how well he's adapted. Meanwhile another older family member handed me their phone to fix, and it's completely unusable from malware that's highjacking everything they try to click, then they try to install something else to fix it themselves and somehow add even more malware. Took me like half an hour to track everything down and disable it so it was usable again, couldn't convince him to factory reset it. We had a nice long chat about installing things after that. I can't imagine he used anything other than the playstore, but man, it was wild.
• OhNoNotAgain_99 1y ago
  [dead]
• 827a 1y ago
  I hate to be crass about this, but to be frank: This is a temporary problem that the world will solve for Apple. Modes which help accommodate age, degrading motor and visual function, etc, are awesome; and Apple truly leads the pack on this. But software complexity is different; if you have this sense that "the iphone is simpler than alternatives", you seriously need to re-frame what the word "simple" means. Here's how you should frame it: The only definition of "simple" that matters is "What I'm Used To". Currently, and again, I'm going to be crass here so prepare your sensibilities: we have a dying population of boomers who are not used to any kind of technology; but aging into their place is a population of substantially more tech-literate Gen X and younger individuals who won't need a different experience beyond, again, normal degradation of motor, visual, and hearing function. My mom (~70s) refuses to get an iPhone. Why? Because she's always had a Galaxy S9. I've tried to buy her an S24, to at least get a newer phone, but its so different that she won't go for it. So, we've replaced this old S9 like 3 times now lol. My dad (~70s) switched to an iPhone, and we've told her, at least if you switch to the iPhone you'll be on the same device and be able to solve problems for each other a bit more easily; no dice. The nokia anecdote in the post is awesome because it illustrates this beautifully: There is nothing Apple could do which could help. Oftentimes it isn't even about the phone being simpler; its just an inability or unwillingness to learn anything new. What we do, as younger people helping them where they're at, is probably the only thing that can really make a difference.
• MandieD 1y ago
  Determinism, determinism, determinism. The three main principles of UI/UX design, particularly for seniors, but honestly, for everyone who doesn't have "learn new software" as a hobby.
• jrmg 1y ago
  I kinda think that most commenters here haven’t read the article, and are not appreciating the scale of the problem here. An iPhone 1 wouldn’t have met their needs either. Old keypad Nokias had already been deemed unsuitable because they couldn’t use them safely. From the post: none of them could understand how to unlock the phone. Entering a passcode was a nightmare because they kept forgetting it, even though it was a birthday they knew, lol. … I left there achieving nothing because they couldn’t figure out their old Nokia phones. The unlock thing on the keypad was too difficult, and if I turned that off, they kept dialing 999 in their pockets for some reason. That’s why I was there: they were calling emergency services 100 times a day, lol.
• everyone 1y ago
  Smartphones are just the dumbest fucking human interface design and iOS and Android are the most vile OSes for multiple reasons. Why corrupt innocent old people with that trash?
• Workaccount2 1y ago
  My parents both have android phones, and all I needed to do (recently) was teach them how to ask Gemini stuff. So now they can hassle Gemini instead of me when trying to figure out how to look at their pictures or turn on speaker phone.
• kasperset 1y ago
  Smartphones feel like a saturated devices in terms of functionality. Way too many things depend on it and interface is riddled with so many functions. I miss the very first iPhone. Perhaps it was the novelty at that time. It was slower and had way less functionality but easy to use. I guess it is hard to balance functionality and ease of use. It is becoming a hodgepodge of apps/things. Sorry to echo the sentiments expressed here.
• S_Bear 1y ago
  I'm a technology librarian and I spend around 20 hours a week helping seniors with their devices. I really wish that phone and TV engineers could shadow me for a few weeks and see what problems people really have using their devices (yes, people drag their TV to the library for me to look at). The number 1 complaint by far is getting rid of the home button on iphones and ipads. I've had a few patrons switch to android because it has fewer touch controls.
  • flanbiscuit 1y ago
    Even with Android I had to enable the "3-button navigation" at the bottom because they defaulted to Gestures whenever they introduced that (google search says it was Android 10 in 2019).
    • wilsonnb3 1y ago
      Depends on the vendor, Samsung still defaults to three button navigation.
    • bjoli 1y ago
      On my last two phones I have been asked what I prefer. When I selected gestures, I had to do a course. Which is better than iOS in every way, because there is just one way to go back and there being no indicator in the app how you should do it. Do I swipe or do I look for a back button?
  • ryandrake 1y ago
    I'm really tired of this (now long lasting) UX trend of getting rid of physical buttons and sometimes software buttons, and replacing them with vague "gestures." Totally undiscoverable, and also, by the way, not easy for people with limited dexterity. I'm hanging on to my iPhone 7 for dear life, even as Apple and 3rd party developers abandon it and try to shame me for keeping it. The last time I tried to use my wife's newer phone, I had no idea what to do. I just kept randomly swiping from top to bottom and bottom to top and all over the place at random speeds until it did what I wanted it to do. Infuriating. Even if touch screens are not remembered as one of the worst inventions of the early 21st century, they are going to at least be remembered as enablers of terrible human-computer interaction patterns.
• rootusrootus 1y ago
  My mom used an iPhone quite successfully up until a few weeks before her death at age 82. Maybe she was just brilliant. Or maybe some of these horror stories are contrived.
• dchow1 1y ago
  technology builds on itself in organic ways, but it feels increasingly inaccessible for people who weren't present for the previous wave of UI. Especially with how developers are using AI as an opportunity to "reimagine how we engage with tech"--that divergence is gonna increase. There are so many creators nowadays helping make AI more accessible and that stems from this broad sentiment from most people outside of silicon valley that they can't keep up with the pace of change Maybe the solution is more education programs that help people catch-up. And teaching kids that the most important skill is to constantly experiment with what's new
• charlie0 1y ago
  "All they wanted was the phone app. " This is key. A smartphone, any smartphone, was never going to be the answer for these folks.
• danesparza 1y ago
  The Apple UX teams need to do this on a regular basis.
  • tclancy 1y ago
    Yes. Based on that thread, which is a fairly good representation of my experience on the Internet, we all could use that. Anyone who interacts with computers in a different way is someone a UX person must sit with and a developer should sit with. Instead of opening ourselves to new ideas, we tend to do what the folks in the thread did: attack the author as wrong, say the author is overstating the problem because a parent is just fine right this second or just get upset anyone would attack Apple/ Brand I Have Attached Myself To. My sister recently asked a group of us coders how to help the blind folks she works with complete a Gov.UK One Login signup that requires a passport and matching selfie. I consider myself relatively conversant with accessibility issues but none of us could find a sure thing workaround.
• MarkusWandel 1y ago
  I watched my dad - a fine craftsman - utterly fail to comprehend pointing and dragging with a computer mouse when introduced to one in his late 60s. My mom would end up printing out emails for him to read. She, enthusiastically adopting this new technology in the early 2000s when she herself was in her early 60s, gradually lost the neuroplasticity to adapt to new things, and clung to her Windows XP laptop (32 bit) until that was obsoleted by Gmail POP/SMTP access going to Oauth, which the obsolete software couldn't accommodate. It was still possible to teach her Whatsapp, SMS and Gmail on an Android smartphone when she was around 80, but that was the window of opportunity closing; by a couple of years later, while she could still use those skills (and still had the finger dexterity and vision to do it) nothing new would go in. This was an issue when her hands got less steady and she sometimes would tap or click the wrong thing and then get confused. The concept that a message, ever so slightly clumsily tapped so the tap was seen as a right swipe and therefore "archive" was getting difficult. So it goes with old folks. At one point someone got her a "Doro Phone Easy", a retro flip phone with big buttons and simplified UI. She never took to that one, but I can see the point of it. And why not just set up your elders with tech that they are familiar with? You can take an old landline phone - even a rotary dial one! - and plug it into a VOIP adapter and register that with, say, voip.ms, and provide the old familiar calling experience. Didn't work for my mom, because long before becoming uncomfortable with technology, she was already deaf enough to not be able to hold phone conversations - so email was crucial to her. As for iphones and confusion. As they got more and more locked down, they didn't just get locked down against purse snatchers and such. I've seen several otherwise still fine iphones become ewaste because the giver couldn't figure out how to unlink them from "Find my phone" or activation lock or whatever it's called. These are people who can't fathom the difference between their Google account password and their Apple password. Not old people. Just people who can't give a crap about any of that, they just have a phone that someone helped them set up, and it works and that's that. That was one of Steve Jobs's talents - to see technology as a neurotypical non-geek sees it and make it work for them.
  • everdrive 1y ago
    >So it goes with old folks. At one point someone got her a "Doro Phone Easy", a retro flip phone with big buttons and simplified UI. She never took to that one, but I can see the point of it. We've got to keep churning UX constantly, for no reason whatsoever. The elderly be damned, usability be damned! What matters is that UI conventions always change and often get worse, and most importantly that this happens for no reason whatsoever.
• MarkusWandel 1y ago
  The single most powerful tool I had for helping my mom with tech, was remote control of her laptop screen. This was a hack, using (on Linux) x0vncserver and an ssh reverse tunnel. No approval needed at her end. If the thing had internet connectivity I could see and manipulate her screen. All this has been sacrificed at the altar of privacy and security. How I wished I could have similar remote control over her Android phone. That would have saved sooo much trouble. But it was impossible.
  • thewebguyd 1y ago
    > How I wished I could have similar remote control over her Android phone. A bit of work (and it's not free) to set up initially, but you could use an MDM for this. Most allow remote access/ screen control over Android devices, with the bonus that you also can remotely install & uninstall apps for her, control settings, etc. TBH I think there's a market opportunity for a consumer-oriented MDM for families. There's a lot of features and control that's only possible for businesses with these devices, and I'm not sure why no one is making any kind of centralized management but for consumers.
• CharlesW 1y ago
  In my experience, "seniors" aren't a monolith. One of my elderly neighbors is happy with the generally-fine iOS defaults. Another elderly neighbor (I'm the "helpful computer guy" on our street, paid in appreciation, good karma, and baked goods) is a tech enthusiast, loves to play with his devices, and is no more intimidated by an iPhone than a Gen Z'er. My mom-in-law is 87, and we tried Guided Access with her but it was "too weird", so we use FaceTime's "remote control" feature if she needs help. https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/request-give-remote-control-a-facetime-call-ipada92df253/26/ipados/26 https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/request-give-remote-con... I'm not blindly cheerleading Apple here, beyond just noting that they're the most accessible choice of mainstream smartphones if the Apple ecosystem is the best solution for that particular elderly person and their support network. There are several very good non-Apple options for "semi-smart" phones like the Jitterbug Smart4, as well as good old-fashioned dumb-phones with big buttons, any of which may be a better choice than an iPhone for a particular senior. My understanding is that there are many Android launcher-replacement options designed for seniors and the visually impaired as well.
  • OrangeMusic 1y ago
    " Note: Remote control isn’t currently available in the European Union. " Infuriating.
• aucisson_masque 1y ago
  I have given my old Sumsung to my father, who barely know how to send a mail, and enabled the ultra power mode. What it does is restrict the phone to the home screen, you can have a maximum of 8 apps (which are all shown on the home screen) and barely anything else. He does have notification but it's only for these 8 apps. And somehow he managed to get it working, he only make phone call, send messages and take photo. That's all. Before I had bought him one of these senior flipflop phone. The thing was expensive, horrible and the battery was absolute crap. It died in 2 years. My Sumsung xcover pro on the other hand, battery last 2 weeks and he is running it since 5 years without complaints.
• boplicity 1y ago
  The Design of Everyday Things should be required reading for Apple's UX designers. This used to be a book that informed the core of their design philosophy. Unfortunately, that seems long gone. If a user can't figure out how to do something, the user is not to blame. The designer is. With so many features in iOS now completely invisible to the naked eye, it's very clear who is responsible for this mess. And it ain't the users.
  • jjcm 1y ago
    I don't think it's a failure of design, but rather a symptom of too much functionality. The original iPhone had ~30 features it had to make work in harmony with each other. The current version of iOS has thousands. Each additional feature is an increase in difficulty in making it feel harmonious, and it's beyond the remit of what a single designer with a single vision can handle. It's grown to a scope such that no single person can contain a mental map of every aspect of it at once.
    • boplicity 1y ago
      Gotta strongly disagree on this. For example, I know there's a way to get to the app switching screen, which shows all of the apps in a grid. You just have to drag up from the bottom the right amount in order to get the grid to stay. Despite knowing this, I fail to do it half the times I try. I just can't figure out how much to "drag" up from the bottom. Too much or too little and it just doesn't work. So frustrating. And so many other similar examples.
      • 1una 1y ago
        The iPhone vibrates when you swipe up just enough to reach the app switching screen.
        • boplicity 1y ago
          The iPad doesn't.
      • 1y ago
• jmount 1y ago
  It won't keep. The UI hides so much behind modals, hamburgers, indescribable gestures (swipe, press, hard press, hold, corners). A user interface used to be a describable map from desired actions to low-state inputs (press this key, click on this image ...). Now it is just a state filled soup.
• jdbdbfhch 1y ago
  I don't get it, the elderly of today (80-90) we're in their prime when the whole microcomputer revolution took place You need to be actively avoiding technology for the last 50 years to not be able to use a smartphone or PC today An evening of tutoring won't undo that mindset
• BrtByte 1y ago
  I think the market is screaming for a dead-simple, modern flip phone that works like an old Nokia but with 2025 reliability
  • richardhenry 1y ago
    I don't think there's any real evidence for that.
• giankhand 1y ago
  Apple has rotten to the core and should be composted. It would be good for the planet!
• thisisauserid 1y ago
  Good skills to have for when they move into that great big walled garden in the sky.
• m463 1y ago
  I remember teaching an elderly person how to use an iphone. Just the phone app itself is a NIGHTMARE. Why would I say such a thing? Because touching anything will dial. Because of this, the person was super anxious every time they used the phone. You can touch the spam caller in the call log and it will CALL back. I've done this myself, accidentally calling back spammers, or "butt dialing" friends and family accidentally at ridiculous times. This is really easy to fix: - have a setting (turned on by default) to confirm before dialing. (a butt dial should never happen) - it might also be nice to add "call <person> (local time 4:37 am)"
  • throwaway290 1y ago
    there's a thing where you can enable phone wide delay for touch events (accessibility). But yeah it's not a good solution. Phone app is terrible...
• bjoli 1y ago
  Every time I hear people say that Mac os/iOS is so logical and intuitive I wonder if it is all just a big conspiracy where I am the only one who get's a phone or a computer that is so full of bat-crap stupid decisions that I want to scream. Mac os is not intuitive. iPhones are not intuitive. I have had to use one for years and I am still confused about when I should use the settings app and when I should change the settings in the app. And to whomever thought it was good idea to get camera access by swiping the lock screen: Did you ever meet a three year old? Why can't I turn it off?
• pizzathyme 1y ago
  A sad realization I had: - Well-run companies prioritize against a bell curve of core customers vs long tail customers - Today, many of us are inside that curve. Products are made intuitive to us - But many people (elderly) are not in the middle of that bell curve And the kicker: - One day, all of us will move out of that bell curve. Therefore, many products will suddenly become maddeningly frustrating to understand, at once What's the solution? There's definitely a market opportunity for the long tail customers. But, it's tough to build a smartphone for a (relatively) smaller market. Maybe that's a startup opportunity
• SteveDavis88 1y ago
  "...the Siri thing kept popping up on the phones with Touch ID, despite turning it off" Sad.
• animex 1y ago
  That's where I really appreciated Android's ability to sub-out its entire UI to something totally customizable, accessible and able to be locked down. Drag my face contacts of myself and siblings onto the home screen so Mom can just click a face and it calls her contact. On the desktop, Windows is terrible for seniors, MacOS too. iPad can be decent but there are alot of areas where seniors get confuddled and have to call someone in.
• ninalanyon 1y ago
  > why not have a 65+ or something for a senior mode? No thank you. Why should my phone assume that because I'm nearly 70 that I'm unable to think. In fact why should my phone know how old I am in the first place, or anything about me at all? Much of the UI on modern electronic items is just total crap regardless of how old the user is. And the few things that are currently reasonable soon get changed for no good reason. One example is Google's Android Photos app. Extracting a fram from a video use to be a single tap, last week the app was 'upgraded' and now it takes three taps.
• GarnetFloride 1y ago
  This is a great UX test case, if you can't go into a senior center and get someone using your software, you need to try again. Color-blindness filters are good or a monochrome monitor. Some dark sunglasses and vaseline get the low vision point across too. Rubber gloves for touch issues.
• daemin 1y ago
  It's because phones are not single devices these days they're a (restricted) general purpose computer, that fits into your pocket, and does not use physical input devices. The software is geared towards it being this way rather than it being a communications device where you use for calls and text messages. It doesn't help that the user interface changes every year or two so every time there's an "upgrade" you get confused and need to re-learn how it should be used. Or that on every update there's a slew or dark patterns designed to cost you money or privacy, or both. (This applies to computer operating systems as well which further reinforces the fact that a phone is a computer and not a dedicated device.) It's also unfortunate that you cannot ever decide to stop using a mobile phone, as many essential services like banking and government require you to have one. So you're stuck using one for the rest of your life wether you like it or not.