[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to manage phones and PCs for elderly par...
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Ask HN: How to manage phones and PCs for elderly parents?
I have a friend whose parents are getting up in years. They're
still functional enough that they want to be independent and surf
the web, check their stocks, etc. He has some remote desktop
software installed on their PCs, and antivirus installed and locked
down. But they keep destroying their PCs with downloads, keep
turning airplane mode on for their phones and can't figure out how
to disable it, and recently his dad got in a cleaning mood and
deleted a bunch of system files and bricked his machine. He's
almost to the point of setting up an Intune tenant just to onboard
and lock down his parents devices. Any suggestions on how to manage
phones and PCs of the elderly to keep them functional but useful?
Author : thepuppet33r
Score : 241 points
Date : 2024-04-23 01:12 UTC (21 hours ago)
| k310 wrote:
| Blast from the past, but might be useful. Sun tentatively made a
| computer that ran from cdrom, as TAILS does. The OS was
| immutable. You could store files on external media. Presumably,
| have those backed up in time-machine fashion, so as the be able
| to recover lost files, rather than a snapshot backup.
|
| What a struggle computers are. I am old as dirt but supposedly on
| top of things. Apple Mail.app forgot my sender address and kept
| asking me for a "hide my email" From: address. Being a propeller-
| head, I found it and fixed it. What a fright it must be when
| things go bonkers and you have no clue.
|
| I don't recall where user settings go on a cdrom OS. Perhaps on a
| separate home partition or overlay on removable RW storage.
|
| Can't speak for phones.
| breadwinner wrote:
| > _Sun tentatively made a computer that ran from cdrom_
|
| You mean the NC [1]? ChromeBooks are the modern version of NC.
|
| [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/mcnealy-sees-huge-
| nc...
| al_borland wrote:
| I found the issues went down a lot when I moved everyone to
| macOS. The OS itself is sandboxed, so a user can't really destroy
| it. My mom downloaded some "screensavers" that were actually
| viruses, and since they were .exe files, they didn't run or do
| anything.
|
| I think the only thing better would be some kind of immutable OS,
| where each reboot restores it to its original state. I haven't
| set up anything like this on hardware, but I've seen it as a VM
| offering.
|
| Of course, if they are already used to some other system, like
| Windows, changing is probably more trouble than it's worth. You
| could just really lock it down, so they only have access to
| certain applications and their home folder.
|
| For the phone, if on iOS, Apple introduced Assistive Access not
| too long ago to dumb down the phone for people who might need it.
| You can control which apps they get, and present a simplified
| version of the apps.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/set-...
| smackeyacky wrote:
| This is a good suggestion. I don't know why but my mother is
| intent on destroying her laptop by visiting a lot of religious
| sites. They all seem to be infected with all kinds of malicious
| advertisements and bogus download buttons.
|
| For the phone, she has an Android but I'm moving her to an
| iPhone at the first opportunity I get. I tried to talk her into
| a Macbook Air when she replaced the last laptop but since I
| wasn't there at the time they foisted another Windows machine
| on her.
|
| Another source of problems is the endless email chains that her
| generation seem to love, they will forward all kinds of content
| that is all "hey this is funny watch this" sort of stuff, but
| turns out to be malicious in some way i.e. download this thing
| to watch the video, where the thing is some kind of hideous
| malware.
|
| (please note: this is not an anti-religious post, but the
| malware makers seem to target those sites much more than
| anything else I have seen.)
| youainti wrote:
| > (please note: this is not an anti-religious post, but the
| malware makers seem to target those sites much more than
| anything else I have seen.)
|
| I would guess it is because older people are more likely to
| visit, so setting up such a site or just buying ad space on
| it is a good way to target an older (and less tech-savvy)
| audience.
| al_borland wrote:
| I was thinking it's more of a trust thing. "If it's on the
| church site it must be ok."
| mnsc wrote:
| Why not both?
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > They all seem to be infected with all kinds of malicious
| advertisements and bogus download buttons.
|
| If ads are a problem there is pretty good solution: Firefox +
| uBlock Origin and perhaps some other extensions. Apple
| doesn't allow Firefox on iOS which is why I would never
| recommend it.
|
| The thing I have a continual problem with is "accidental"
| rearranging of the home screen. "My xyz application has gone"
| is a continual complaint. (It's been dragged to another
| screen.) Accidental is in quotes because the young grandkids
| delight it rearranging it once they discover how.
|
| There is no solution on iOS. Android can potentially solve
| this because you can replace the launcher. But only
| potentially, because I've yet to find a good "elderly
| friendly" launcher. Actually, it's not just "elderly only" as
| if I found one that allowed you to lock the launcher layout
| somehow, I'd use it. "Pocket rearrangement" of my home screen
| is far too common.
|
| In general "aggressive simplification" of the UI is the key
| here. Provide just the things they use, and remove things
| they don't like "don't disturb". In the hands of an elderly
| person a "don't disturb" button hidden in the notification
| area becomes a "break my phone" button. Android does in
| principle all you to remove all of those. iOS doesn't.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Of course, if they are already used to some other system,
| like Windows, changing is probably more trouble than it's
| worth.
|
| I thought that, too, but I installed Xubuntu on my parents PC,
| told them it works like Windows (like double click desktop
| icons to open programs, the X button in the corner closes
| them), showed them how to check email, watch Youtube, play
| solitaire, and shut down. I expected them to say "put it back
| like what it was", but after about 10 years, it never happened.
| I eventually showed them how to keep it up to date, but no big
| security issues ever happened like on Windows.
| knappe wrote:
| I too did this for my family, but with Ubuntu many years ago.
| I expected it to be a rather rough switch from Windows, but
| everyone migrated without a hitch. And the number of support
| calls went to basically zero.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| I did the same with a similar outcome.
|
| Turns out they stopped using the computer.
| danielskogly wrote:
| Did this, but with Linux Mint, and had the same experience.
| If one only needs a browser and word processor, many Linux
| distros seem perfect.
| mavhc wrote:
| Might as well get a Chromebook
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Linux is great for power users and the absolute lightest
| users, with nothing but punishment in the middle.
| skyyler wrote:
| I've not had problems recommending Fedora to people. The
| punishment seems to come with trying to play games that
| aren't supported by the developer.
| weakfish wrote:
| +1. My dad even figured out how to use LibreOffice, which
| was awesome
| rob74 wrote:
| We here on HN may have our doubts about Linux on the desktop,
| but for basic usage (= mostly using just the browser) it's
| more than good enough. And the main advantage (same as with
| MacOS) is that it's _not Windows_ - which isn 't necessarily
| going against Microsoft (although they are doing their part
| too with botched Windows updates), the biggest problem with
| Windows is that most malware is still targeting it.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _the biggest problem with Windows is that most malware is
| still targeting it._
|
| And even so, when's the last time Windows had a serious
| security issue? I've been out of the Windows loop for a
| while, but it seems the biggest vulnerabilities of the past
| few years are OS agnostic.
| rob74 wrote:
| Then again, you don't need a huge vulnerability, you just
| need enough hapless users who voluntarily download and
| install software containing your malware...
| Symbiote wrote:
| So don't give them root access, and mount the /home
| partition as noexec to prevent executing downloaded
| programs.
|
| I set up a dual-boot Ubuntu install many years ago like
| this. It worked for years without me realizing -- the
| Windows install had some problem, and my dad started
| using Ubuntu without telling me.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| I figure the downloaded malware is more a reference to
| machines running Windows, not Ubuntu.
| desdenova wrote:
| It's still pretty easy to download malicious shell
| scripts that can wreck your user data and configs on
| Linux, so noexec is a great tip for setting up a system
| for a non-technical user.
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Great example. Similar design patterns result in similar user
| experiences irrespective of platform. Who would have thunk?
| stacktrust wrote:
| _> I think the only thing better would be some kind of
| immutable OS, where each reboot restores it to its original
| state. I haven't set up anything like this on hardware, but
| I've seen it as a VM offering._
|
| Stateless Windows:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40127728
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >Stateless Windows
|
| Good suggestion.
|
| This is the Universal Write Filter (UWF) which descended from
| the earlier Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) in Windows Embedded.
|
| Basically Windows runs like normal (i.e. from your Windows
| folder on the drive it is installed on), but any time there
| would normally be a need to write to the drive (for updating
| settings, files or whatever) the writes are directed to the
| RAM instead, so writes can be discarded as desired upon
| reboot for Windows to return to the reference state.
|
| The UWF can be combined with Windows Kiosk Mode and it can be
| a foundation for a pretty well-mangaged stand-alone (or
| networked) desktop.
|
| Alternatively, with a Linux Live desktop like you get when
| booted to a Linux Live "install" USB stick (without Linux
| actually being installed on HDD or SSD), the OS and entire
| file system itself runs from memory, and any updates or apps
| you install are also in memory only unless you enable
| "persistence", otherwise there are no routine writes to the
| USB drive and it reboots to the same reference defaults every
| time.
| m463 wrote:
| You would think that macos didn't have problems, but I recently
| cleaned up someone's mac after I noticed a LOT of redirects
| when loading a website in safari.
|
| Lots of weird directories with almost the right name, launch
| daemons, things that would re-install themselves when removed,
| etc.
|
| the situation was basically nuke from orbit and start over.
|
| this was a few os's back on intel. Maybe it's better now?
| al_borland wrote:
| I can't remember exactly when macOS made the change. It was a
| few years back.
|
| >The system domain contains the system software installed by
| Apple. The resources in the system domain are required by the
| system to run. Users cannot add, remove, or alter items in
| this domain.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Fi.
| ..
|
| I'm sure it's still possible to junk a system up, but a user
| shouldn't be able to screw up the actual system files.
|
| /Library is probably the biggest wildcard, as it impacts all
| users on the system, otherwise, creating a new user account
| should clean up pretty much everything, without having to
| reinstall the OS itself. I assume making a normal user
| account for the persons could allow the admin the ability to
| prevent the user from adding things to /Applications and
| /Library. The user would still be able to install apps using
| a ~/Applications folder and have settings in ~/Library.
| ~/Library is typically used automatically, while
| ~/Applications is something that needs to be created, but
| works just fine. I use this at work to install some things I
| would otherwise not be able to install.
| m463 wrote:
| I don't recall if that was after APFS and the immutable
| system. I do remember the stuff I tried cleaning up was in
| the user's home directory.
|
| Not exactly this name, but it might be a directory
| 'ApplicationSupport' instead of 'Application Support' or
| something like that.
| al_borland wrote:
| My guess would be whatever subfolders were in the bad
| Application Support folder would point to the poorly
| written software that needs to be removed.
| m463 wrote:
| To be clear, it is not "poorly written" but malicious and
| hiding itself.
| wil421 wrote:
| Same thing happened to me with Mac Keeper malware. Some bogus
| software I downloaded automatically checked a download Mac
| Keeper checkbox and it was down the rabbit hole for a few
| days.
|
| I think I ended up doing a clean install on a days old back
| up to rid my self of it. It was years ago on an Intel Mac.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I think the only thing better would be some kind of immutable
| OS, where each reboot restores it to its original state
|
| I looked into a few of these, but none of their OS update
| stories were good, it's confusing if anyone random helps out,
| and saving photos across reboots is fragile.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I found a Chromebook, well "chrome top" desktop did this well
| enough. It's not technically immutable but it's hard enough
| to install and break things that it worked well with my
| grandmother.
| donatj wrote:
| The biggest problem I have had since I switched my parents to
| Mac is just my brother in-law who lives with them and regularly
| loudly proclaim about Macs being a waste of money. He's
| installed "virus scanners" multiple times that were themselves
| if not viruses, at the very least adware. He's also attempted
| to defrag my moms ssd-having Mac Mini with some sort of
| software that claims to do so.
|
| They don't have admin rights anymore most because of this. For
| some reason though their printer driver regularly pops a
| notification asking for admin privileges.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > For some reason though their printer driver regularly pops
| a notification asking for admin privileges.
|
| Printers are garbage, printer drivers are dumpster fires, and
| the people responsible for both are sociopaths.
| mdasen wrote:
| The thing I love about my parents getting Apple products is
| that they can just go to the Apple Store and have someone help
| them. An app wasn't launching on their phone, they went to the
| Apple Store, the person figured out that they hadn't updated
| their apps in a long time, did that, made sure it worked, and
| turned on auto-updates (after asking if that would be good for
| them). Perfect, I didn't even know they had a problem until I
| heard the story about it being fixed.
|
| I've had relatives go to other tech support places and usually
| it means they pay money for someone to upsell them on something
| else or tell them they need a new machine. Apple is fine
| supporting my parents who don't want a new iPhone. Yea,
| eventually it's out of support, but it's a long enough time.
|
| I also love that the Apple ecosystem tends towards "you should
| be willing to pay money for something" rather than "let's see
| how we can scam money out of someone unwilling to part with
| their money." If you're techie, you know the difference between
| real stuff and fake stuff. When non-techies get a pop-up on
| their Windows laptop telling them that their anti-virus
| subscription is running out (that came pre-installed) and that
| they'll be vulnerable to all sorts of bad things if they don't
| pay $50, they get nervous and call me. Then I have to figure
| out (over the phone) how to uninstall the crap and get
| Microsoft Defender working.
|
| Even Windows 11 is just becoming a pile of ads and other junk.
|
| With streaming TV boxes, Roku ends up installing apps they
| don't know how to uninstall because if you press the play
| button while the TV is off, it installs whatever app they're
| promoting on the screen saver. Fire TV and Android TV are a
| mess of ads and it's hard to know what content you have access
| to and what you don't. I'm just so sick of relatives asking me
| "How did this app get on my Roku? How do I get it off?" and
| things like "How do I only see the shows I have access to? Why
| is it showing me Showtime when it tells me I have to pay when I
| click on it? I think dad might have subscribed to things
| because he didn't know what he was doing. How do I cancel that?
| No I don't know what he might have subscribed to."
|
| Sure, you can say that Apple TV comes with the Apple TV app
| pre-installed, but it isn't constantly pushing things on you.
| Sure, Apple would like an iCloud subscription, but if my
| parents end up giving Apple $1/mo, I'm fine with that. The
| level of difference is simply astonishing. It's like having a
| store email you once "hey, we have new pants" compared to the
| stores that email you twice a day "HEY!!!! HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT
| NEW PANTS!!!!" You can say "they're both doing it", but there's
| a huge difference.
|
| Apple isn't perfect, but I feel comfortable with non-techie
| people in my life having Apple products. They can get support
| when they need it at the Apple Store, Apple is happy with the
| money they've paid for the product, and I can put their
| technical needs out of my mind. They love it too. They get
| unlimited free access to helpful employees who fix their stuff
| faster than I can get to it. Yea, if you're techie you know how
| things work and what to look for and you can make decisions for
| yourself. When relatives buy non-Apple stuff, they're making a
| decision that I'm going to fix things for them.
| cjk2 wrote:
| My father has completely destroyed two M1 iMac installs so far.
| YMMV.
|
| He watches YT videos all day and is paranoid about everything.
| End game was he managed to install two different VPN packages
| on one install and managed to install a system cleaner on
| another and spend about PS500 in total and end up with two non
| working systems and higher blood pressure.
|
| I think at this point he needs an iPad in a rugged case with
| screen time turned on and all his credit cards taking away.
| Possibly locking his hands in a box somewhere where they can't
| curse anything as well.
| walthamstow wrote:
| He needs an adblocker! Most YT adverts are designed to open
| the wallets of unsophisticated people, often giving them
| nothing good in return.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I put AdGuard on it. It's mostly in video sponsorships
| (fuck you NordVPN) and I don't think there's an equivalent
| to sponsorblock for safari.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| SponsorBlock for Safari exists btw, I use it. Check the
| App Store, though you can also compile it from scratch if
| you're adventurous.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I will have a go at this later. Thanks for the heads up.
| dotancohen wrote:
| What was the problem with Nord?
| cjk2 wrote:
| I think the point is more what's the point of NordVPN?
| dotancohen wrote:
| As opposed to any other VPN?
| cjk2 wrote:
| As opposed to no VPN.
| eitally wrote:
| Watching region-locked content is a compelling use case.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I just don't bother or steal it.
| javajosh wrote:
| Another option is to pony up for youtube premium, which
| eliminates most ads.
| mavhc wrote:
| Don't give people admin rights, that's madness!
| cjk2 wrote:
| Difficult not to give admin rights to someone who paid for
| it. I tried.
| mavhc wrote:
| Give them a second user with a really really complex
| password that's written down and sealed in an envelope.
| On the inside of the envelope put another piece of paper
| that says "I told you so"
| cjk2 wrote:
| Problem self-rectified. He died this afternoon :(
| huntoa wrote:
| I'm sorry for you loss. I wish you strength.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Thanks. Appreciated. Staring at HN for distraction.
| wpm wrote:
| This works only if you're on-call for every little thing.
| macOS is not Windows, running as a standard user is highly
| constrictive.
|
| For someone just watching YouTube videos maybe it can work,
| but its also incredibly infantilizing too.
| skyyler wrote:
| The topic of this thread is protecting the elderly from
| their devices. Some level of infantilising is required,
| unfortunately.
| blooalien wrote:
| My mother once somehow trashed her MacOS X install so bad it
| was stopping at a gray frowny-faced Mac logo screen and going
| no further. Because I had helped her set up SSH service on it a
| while prior, I was able to easily remote in from my Linux
| desktop and actually fix the thing and reboot it for her from
| hundreds of miles away. Macs make _great_ machines for tech-
| terrified parental units, even when they break down. :)
| superb_dev wrote:
| > I think the only thing better would be some kind of immutable
| OS, where each reboot restores it to its original state. I
| haven't set up anything like this on hardware, but I've seen it
| as a VM offering.
|
| Doesn't ChromeOS do something like this?
| walrus01 wrote:
| For whatever it's worth giving people a desktop or laptop
| computer that is a bare bones linux install and desktop
| environment will also prevent old people from screwing up a
| computer. Literally 99% of what they are ever going to do is
| inside a browser, and will function just fine inside of Firefox
| and/or Chromium as their user interface to the computer.
|
| It's highly unlikely that an older person is going to
| successfully find, download and install a malicious .deb file,
| or follow the instructions to "copy this to clipboard and paste
| it with sudo" into their shell to compromise a linux machine.
| mxvanzant wrote:
| Agreed: my father-in-law was continuously trashing his
| Windows install. Many years ago, I put him on Linux Mint +
| MATE where he only uses Firefox and a bit of LibreOffice --
| he's been fine with this setup -- his only remaining issues
| (for the most part) are when his Yahoo Email interface
| changes, etc. And, he has not managed to trash it yet! ;)
| icar wrote:
| You might want to set up NixOS with impermanence, with
| something like https://github.com/nix-community/impermanence.
| Install an easy to use desktop environment like ElementaryOS,
| and configure NixOS with or without Flatpak, if you want to
| give the user the ability to install new software or not. Then
| set up automatic updates, automatic garbage collection and you
| have a truly stable system.
| breadwinner wrote:
| ChromeBooks are great for this since all they really need is a
| web browser.
| analog31 wrote:
| Just for fun I installed ChromeOS Flex on an old Lenovo laptop.
| Installation was a breeze, and ChromeOS seems quite snappy. The
| number of possible settings are pretty minimal -- connecting to
| your local WiFi and logging into your Google account may be the
| only setup needed.
|
| Also, ChromeOS doesn't come pre-loaded with tons of obnoxious
| crap-ware.
| vundercind wrote:
| Accessibility features are really bad though. Given their
| market is old people and kids, I was shocked at how bad it was
| when I tried to help my dad set his up to work better for him.
| I'd just assumed they'd at least be _close_ to Apple operating
| systems.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| First time I hear of this issue. Which aspects are bad?
| ninju wrote:
| A Chromebook a good option.
| mynameisnoone wrote:
| Definitely not. These timeout creating e-waste and are
| borderline useless.
| dangus wrote:
| Old people don't need to care about e-waste, most computers
| will last longer than them.
| stacktrust wrote:
| _> most computers will last longer than them_
|
| With a life expectancy of 80, there's 15 years from 65-80.
|
| Chromebook lifetime:
| https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366
| nolist_policy wrote:
| I don't know what you're talking about. Chromebooks receive
| 10 years of updates.
| userbinator wrote:
| If you're looking for an easy way to restore Windows to a known-
| working state, this might be useful:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/iot-enterprise...
| rawgabbit wrote:
| My MIL has early dementia. We are trying to keep her living at
| home as long as possible but her mental decline has made it more
| and more difficult. Her behavior is getting more and more out of
| control. She has an iPhone she is attached to. She has YouTube on
| 24 hours a day. That and she uses FaceTime. Looking back, we
| should have gotten her an iPhone with a physical home button.
| Sometimes she forgets how to swipe away apps. In frustration she
| turns the phone off. Don't get me started about all the scams.
| There is a not scammer she completely trusts and will argue non
| stop with my wife that my wife should listen to the scammer and
| sign over the house etc.
| vundercind wrote:
| The home button is one of the most-brilliant pieces of design
| in computing, period. I'm still bitter that between ditching it
| and post-iOS6 software design changes they've made iOS devices
| so much less intuitive and friendly.
|
| It was like a little safety net for people who easily get
| "lost" in their computers. Which is most users! Watch non-nerds
| use a computer some time. God I miss that beautiful little
| button. What a step backwards.
| RGamma wrote:
| iPhone SE has them still.
| wruza wrote:
| Also the borders. My grandma simply cannot avoid touching the
| screen while showing me something. "Oh, it disappeared".
| Borderless devices require very specific, unnatural palm
| motorics to handle.
|
| Also, when choosing my phone I was between 13 mini and se2. I
| got se2 and my buddy 13 mini. Our every interaction in
| telegram ended with <buddy recording audio>, because to swipe
| away an app you have to squeeze your phone in palm, which
| touches all sorts of borders. I want to shame everyone
| "borderless" designer out there, you suck.
| wpm wrote:
| Yup I replaced the battery in my old XS and gave it to my mom
| as an upgrade from her aged 7 or whatever. She hated the
| swipe gestures and still complains about them. Should'a just
| bought her an SE.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Not exactly the answer to OP, but when we had to decide what
| device to buy for my mom, we bought her an iPad. Best choice
| ever. Zero maintenance, it's fast, she can do whatever she needs
| and wants and it's light and easy to move. Drop some water on it?
| It's fine. Not even the cat can destroy it.
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Drop some water on it? It 's fine._
|
| Careful. I did this to my Magic Keyboard recently. $350 later..
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Yeah the point is with an iPad you don't have a keyboard to
| ruin with dust, dirt and liquids. Sure you can't literally
| dunk it into a pool, but the lifetime is extended compared to
| a laptop, if you are a person who's not good at taking care
| of your device.
| rl3 wrote:
| I just assumed the Magic Keyboard had the same water
| resistance rating as its parent device. Turns out, I was
| unfortunately right: iPads aren't rated for water
| resistance, unlike iPhones; TIL.
|
| At least the keyboard was kind enough to take one for the
| team. I never want to find out Apple's unit cost for those.
| vuln wrote:
| Costly assumption.
| dangus wrote:
| You can also put iPads in MDM software and manage them remotely
| very easily.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| Where can I learn more about this?
| vishalontheline wrote:
| My parents are retired and not as computer literate as I hope,
| and they prefer to keep it that way.
|
| They have Apple products - iPhones, iPads and the Genius Bar
| takes great care of them.
| AmVess wrote:
| That's what I did for my mom. She can poke her way around
| Windows, but she doesn't know how to do backups.
|
| Iphone/Ipad is easy. Automatic cloud backups. I bought her a
| new iphone, and she was delighted with the transfer of
| everything. I simply put them next to each other and poked a
| few bottons. 5 minutes later, all her stuff was moved over.
| apimade wrote:
| If the cognitive load of migrating away from Windows is too much,
| ManageEngine is free for your use-case (for forcing
| updates/policies, monitoring, and managing access). I'd look at
| using Assigned Access too (previously known as Kiosk Mode) for
| locking down their environment to things like browsing the
| internet.. And nothing else: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/configuration/assi...
|
| However, locked down Chromebooks and Android profiles are
| generally the best way to go. Not sure about the Apple ecosystem
| (even though that's what I'd choose - just haven't found readily
| available advice).
| ulfw wrote:
| I moved my mum over to iPad while she was still around. Best
| thing ever. Much easier to use for elderly people and it does
| absolutely everything she needed to do without the hassle of a
| full blown desktop OS.
| mynameisnoone wrote:
| iPad and iPhone. Much less to maintain than an Android phone
| and a desktop PC. Ask me how I know. ;@)
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| My father is 84. On average once a week he calls me in a state of
| confusion and despair that he can't do something on the computer.
| 100% of the time it involves logging in to a website or paying
| for something. This is when I'm so happy he has a Mac - I open
| Messages, find the last message from him and click on the Share
| Screen icon. We then complete the activity together, as if I'm
| sitting next to him. I'm always surprised how few people know
| this is built into macOS.
| glaucon wrote:
| I know nothing about the Apple world so take my question in
| that context. Is there something equivalent for iPads ?
|
| If my wife could take control of her Father's iPad then both
| parties would be happier, as far as I have been able to
| discover this is something that isn't able to be done, by Apple
| software or third-party. If I found I out I was wrong that
| would be good.
| NaOH wrote:
| If your wife is in the Apple world this MacWorld article
| gives a good overview of the options.
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/672451/how-to-share-
| screens...
| sneusse wrote:
| Well, AnyDesk allows screen sharing from i-Devices, not sure
| about remote control though.
| duskwuff wrote:
| You could start a FaceTime call, have him share his screen,
| and lead him through whatever he needs to do. You don't have
| direct control, but if he can follow directions, it'll work.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/109365
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I do this easily but with anydesk. It's always on on his Linux
| Mint laptop and I just start the session, he clicks accept on
| his popup and we're off.
| Moru wrote:
| I help so many friends AnyDesk has decided I'm a company so I
| can't use that any more. Now I use RustDesk.
| spike021 wrote:
| Almost this same exact thing happened with my parents last
| week. The only thing is that MacOS' remote desktop seems to
| work inconsistently. Sometimes it sends the permissions request
| immediately and sometimes it takes a while. Or the person on
| the other end says OK but the approval never goes through.
|
| When it works it's fantastic though. Ditto for FaceTime screen
| sharing.
| mackatsol wrote:
| I find that doing a FaceTime audio call and having them
| answer on the device.. the requesting screen sharing makes it
| work every time.
|
| If you do a FaceTime video call they can screen share from
| inside the call.. but it's more steps for them.
| skatanski wrote:
| This sounds so good. My father is using windows. He has
| teamviewer installed - and half the time when I wanna connect
| with him it turns into a nightmare of new version update. I
| only have most recent version. He doesn't know, which version
| he has. I can't connect to him, then I need to guide him how to
| update his version. It'd probably be easier for me to run older
| version in a VM, but then I don't want him to run potentially
| insecure old version of screensharing app.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| If you're both on Windows 10+ you can use Quick Assist which
| is built in and seems to work pretty well.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I would just go for an iPad with, if necessary, MDM of some kind.
| With Stage Manager and an external monitor they're fully
| functional as pseudo-Macs at this point, as long as you don't
| need anything outside of the App Store.
| gibbonsrcool wrote:
| My father continuously had problems sending pictures over SMS,
| which would be super helpful so that I could help him accomplish
| tasks remotely. The built-in app on Android was too confusing for
| him thanks to cognitive decline. I made a super simple app that's
| only purpose was to send pics via SMS. One screen, contacts
| selected by drop down, camera view in the center, one button.
| Google wouldn't let me publish it because SMS apps on the Play
| Store have to implement ALL SMS functionality. I sent him the APK
| by email so at least there's that. It worked well for him at
| least. Fuck Google though.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| Can you link to source. I'm in the very same situation.
| youainti wrote:
| Would you be open to putting it on F-Droid or something like
| that?
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Fuck Google for asking to always sign in to Google accounts for
| everything and tying up shit together.
| ale42 wrote:
| SMS or MMS? Or is that uploading the picture somewhere and
| SMSing a link to it?
| ankurdhama wrote:
| Maybe try Windows S mode ? This is a locked down mode of Windows
| home edition where you can only install apps from MS store and
| there are many other restrictions that will prevent accidentally
| breaking your system.
| dangus wrote:
| Honestly, quitting is an option. My Grandma gave up on email
| because it was frustrating, especially after her account got
| locked out thanks to Google's weird security setup and her lack
| of recovery options.
|
| I was a bit upset about it at first. I wanted her to be connected
| to the family. I made her a new paid email managed by me. She
| didn't want it.
|
| But it turns out, it's not that hard to stay connected the old
| fashioned way.
|
| I send her photos in the mail with Shutterfly. I call her. I
| visit her. She doesn't really need a computer for anything. The
| finances are handled by the family now, but before that she'd
| just walk into the bank branch or brokerage office.
|
| I might argue that they are a little closer to not being
| independent than you think.
|
| Still, some of the advice around here could help. Definitely use
| mobile device management. Migrate to iPad or Chromebook style
| devices rather than a full operating system. Take airplane mode
| out of the control center. Remove all the options they shouldn't
| touch. Explore the accessibility options, set the text size and
| cursors big enough.
| lanthade wrote:
| I got sick of repairing and rebuilding my in-laws windows PC
| about 7 years ago and moved them over to the largest ipads that
| were available at the time. It was 100% the right move. I haven't
| had to fix their computer in the past 7 years. Bought refurbs to
| keep the price down but it was still a couple grand total for two
| units. I got the cell enabled ones too so they work when they
| travel. Totally worth it.
|
| A couple years ago I finally got them to switch from their pre-
| paid flip phone to an iphone. That's also gone extremely well.
| They own a Thor RV which (no surprise) has a terrible OEM stereo.
| Replaced that with a carplay capable one with a giant (but pretty
| low res) screen and that's made their RV travel GPS integration
| far less buggy than when using plain old bluetooth.
|
| TBH moving them to iOS from windows was far less of a painful
| process than I expected and I'm pretty apple positive. The fact
| that it just works and they really can't 'f it up makes a big
| difference. Now they can download all sorts of shit games and I
| really don't have to worry about the system getting hosed. If I
| considered how much I value my time and the frustration
| multiplier then it's an investment that has easily paid back in
| multiples.
| bsuvc wrote:
| We have switched to chrome boxes and chrome books for our aging
| parents.
|
| It's not perfect, but at least they are less likely to get
| viruses or spyware, which was about every 6 months with Windows.
|
| What is it with older people and their penchant to install every
| possible crapware they encounter, no matter how strongly you warn
| them?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I refuse to do tech support for relatives. It's like getting into
| any other kind of business with them: a bad idea.
|
| If they want a computer, they deal with the fallout when they
| screw it up.
|
| The most I'll do if they ask about technology is is ask "what do
| you want to do with it" and the answer will almost certainly be
| iPad or Chromebook.
| milkthefat wrote:
| I've reduced 99% of tech calls from elderly family(60s-80s) by
| moving them to either ChromeOS/Android or MacOS/IOS and all
| printers to Brother lasers. If they spend money on phones I lean
| toward Apple ecosystem. If they penny pinch - Google is king with
| all second hand Samsung galaxy/books, Dell enterprise
| chromebooks, or chromeboxes - making sure to verify years of
| support. It also makes it significantly easier to not mix
| ecosystems. I then set updates to automatic and make ublockorigin
| default in the browser. The last 7 years nearly every issue was
| resolved with a restart.
| dntrkv wrote:
| How fucking great are Brother laser printers? The UX is shit,
| but you very rarely have to interact with it because they just
| fucking do their job.
|
| Mine was in the closet for a couple years once and I took it
| out, plugged it in, and just printed what I want through WiFi.
|
| I remember dealing with HP drivers on Windows back in the
| day...
| mike503 wrote:
| Just ditched my HP for a Brother a couple months back, after
| having continual issues with individual colors running out
| and eventually it refused to recognize a single color
| cartridge slot, I never used color anyway. So went to a
| Brother monochrome. Been smooth since.
| raihansaputra wrote:
| another vouch for brother printers. not optimum but i just
| plopped one connected to wifi only and it can print with
| minimal config and also scanning through mac's image capture
| app.
| matthewtse wrote:
| Yes. Installed a Brother printer myself the other day, was
| expecting a half-day affair, but it all just worked in 5
| minutes.
|
| Contrast this with an HP printer I bought. I had to:
|
| - manually install sketchy HP software on my mac
|
| - use that sketchy software, through a USB cable to update
| the firmware on the HP printer
|
| - somehow figure out how to get the HP printer to connect to
| Wifi
|
| - get it working, and never touch it again
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Relevant link:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-
| printer-2024...
|
| "After a full year of not thinking about printers, the best
| printer is still whatever random Brother laser printer that's
| on sale."
| sowbug wrote:
| The popular "just buy this printer" Verge article recommends
| the Brother HL-L2305W. But Brother appears to have gone the
| subscription route and replaced that model with the
| HL-L2405W, which is "Amazon Dash Replenishment Ready" and
| whose product description says "Requires enrollment in a
| monthly billed Brother Refresh EZ Print Subscription service
| plan based on monthly printed page allotments."
|
| The older model is no longer available new from Amazon.
|
| Is Brother still a good recommendation? This subscription
| pivot gives the company all the wrong incentives.
| piperswe wrote:
| I'm looking at the Best Buy page for the printer, and I can
| see where it would be confusing.
|
| > Choose Brother Genuine TN830 Standard or TN830XL High
| Yield replacement cartridges. And with Refresh EZ Print
| Subscription Service, you'll never worry about running out
| of toner again and you'll enjoy savings up to 50%. (3) Get
| started today with a Free Trial. (4)
|
| > (4) Requires enrollment in a monthly billed Brother
| Refresh EZ Print Subscription service plan based on monthly
| printed page allotments. Unused pages roll over,
| limitations apply. Additional page set charges and taxes
| apply during trial.
|
| It's just saying that the free trial of their subscription
| requires enrolling in the subscription. The subscription
| isn't required to use the printer.
| sowbug wrote:
| Excellent, thanks for the parsing help. :) I didn't find
| anyone lamenting that Brother had turned to the dark
| side, so I remained hopeful.
| Biganon wrote:
| They are the only printers the Just Fucking Work(tm).
|
| Kinda sad, in a way.
| m463 wrote:
| Your comment makes me forget that sometimes it's an inside job.
|
| Yes, sometimes it's not sketchysite.com or the "make money
| fast" email, it is the printer manufacturer that's installing
| the garbage.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I think this will not go down well here on HackerNews because I'm
| going to suggest sticking up to Apple. Here is my experience. I
| tried with cheaper phones that we can just replace when they
| lose, drop it, or many other reasons.
|
| Get them on iPhones, Macs, Apple TV, and iPads. They can be used
| ones or hand-me-downs, but that ecosystem works for them. Here is
| a setup for the in-laws.
|
| An Apple TV drives as the "Apple Home" Setup while an iPad (the
| backup) is mounted near the TV. That room/area is the "talking to
| the kids area" where they just know how to respond or start a
| video call. The only other button they learned was to switch
| between their favorite local cable provider and the Apple TV. It
| did take a lot of repeated practice from "I can see on the iPad
| but not TV" to "seeing and talking on the big TV".
|
| iPhones/Macs (instead of selling yours, give them your old one)
| are the easiest to set up and maintain. The contacts sync, and
| they have stopped complaining about getting back their phone
| contacts. The father-in-law once hand-wrote about a 5-paged A4
| with about 200+ odd numbers and came to me to sync to the new
| phone. They are not losing their photos anymore and can spend
| hours browsing photos of their gigantic family members.
|
| Tip: Set up your Apple TV screensaver with a specific Album and
| keep sharing photos there. Now, watch the grandparents, grand-
| everyone just sit in front of the screensaver and spend hours
| talking, laughing, arguing, crying, and sleeping off.
| mamcx wrote:
| My issue is that I don't know how to avoid the apple password
| never getting in the way (fail them cause account lockdown). Is
| it possible to totally restrict access to settings/password
| entering in iPad?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| LOL! So, this used to happen a lot when the kids wanted to
| play with the grandparents phones. So, I explain nicely to
| everyone that the devices are out of bounds for everyone and
| no-one touches the devices any more. That solves that.
| However, on rare occasions, there are needs to enter the
| Apple password -- my wife have a few other cousins who helps
| out. For parents with no access to external help, I suggest
| printing out on a paper and keeping it safe (use a font-size
| large of a serif fonts). If your local language is not
| English, complex password but based off the local language
| are easier -- (in locale) my dear friend's NAME that died
| during WWII on this DATE, etc. ;-)
|
| Update: For cultural context and to avoid confusion with
| others around the world who have separate living spaces, my
| in-laws lives in a pretty large sprawl of almost a colony on
| their own with their brothers, sisters, cousins, and the
| entire families. On Google Maps, I had actually named the
| central home of that locality (my in-laws) to a specific name
| based on their family name -- making it easy for deliveries
| by post (Amazon, Post Office, Air Cargo deliveries, etc). In
| that part of the world, addresses are not precise and still
| goes on word of mouth.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Yes, you can disable Passcode in Apple Configurator, which
| uses a Mac to create the XML policy profile.
|
| There's also an OSS project for iOS/macOS configuration
| profiles.
|
| https://github.com/ProfileCreator/ProfileCreator/wiki
|
| https://github.com/ProfileCreator/ProfileCreator
|
| https://github.com/ProfileCreator/ProfileManifests
| wpm wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised Apple didn't spin their Fleetsmith
| acquisition into a free, privacy friendly
| parental/caretaker oriented MDM for home users. Instead,
| they decided to wade into the crowded waters of "cheap MDM
| for basic business needs that requires a business license".
| stacktrust wrote:
| To dedicate a device to one app, iOS/macOS has single-app / kiosk
| mode via Apple Configurator.
| asciimov wrote:
| Hands down Apple products. They all work together well, last a
| good long time, and have good software coverage.
|
| iPads are the best for those that just need the internet. The
| MacBook Air is good enough for the advanced stuff, and reasonably
| priced.
|
| Roku is the one product that I don't think needs the Apple
| replacement. It is super simple to use, has a simple remote, was
| easy to tie into a sound system for them. They liked Roku so much
| that they replaced their older EOL TVs with Roku TVs. Also, I'll
| lump Sonos into this as they make a great sound product that
| easily connects to the TV and auto comes on, which is fantastic.
| refurb wrote:
| Didn't want to move away from Windows and Android so:
|
| - declutterred both to the greatest extent possible - made sure
| auto updates were working - installed Chrome Remote Desktop on
| the PC and a remote app on phone
|
| I might get 4-5 questions per year and when I visit I'll make
| sure everything is working and updated
|
| Being able to remote in from 12,000 km away is a godsend. It's
| usually some minor issue like a setting or update stuck.
| blackoil wrote:
| If you don't want to change OS. Simply creating a non-admin
| account and installing ad-blockers will go a long way. Tell them
| most software on Internet have virus so install is blocked. Also
| enable remote desktop on all.
|
| Edit: For some issues like airplane mode, see if you can remove
| them from quick access.
| psandor wrote:
| Strange that I had to scroll down this far for this answer.
| Creating a normal, non-admin user for them will greatly limit
| the damage they can do as they won't be able to make system-
| wide changes. I also disabled installing extensions in Edge.
| blackoil wrote:
| I would never recommend something like iPad. I feel
| psychologically it makes you a passive consumer, while
| something like Mac/Win is more action oriented.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Is that a problem for the elderly?
| elchief wrote:
| do your parents write a lot of code?
| elchief wrote:
| > Simply creating a non-admin account
|
| tried that on my father's computer, and he decided it was
| "broken", so took it into a shop to get re-installed...
| TomJansen wrote:
| My grandma's pretty good with her Android phone, but every month,
| she calls us totally lost because apps like WhatsApp keep messing
| with the UI. Why do they have to change the interface so often?
| Most times, these changes seem pointless and just confuse her.
| dpacmittal wrote:
| I use tailscale and ssh+RDP/vnc setup on all my machines. Makes
| maintaining them super easy.
| sherr wrote:
| Lots of good suggestions here but I have a comment. My 90 year
| old uncle lives near me so I can pop round and help with
| problems. Trouble is mostly bad UI on web sites.
|
| - finding the login button
|
| - cookie/consent popups blocking page and causing confusion
| (especially those that dim entire web page).
|
| - finding the close button ("x") on the above
|
| - dynamic UI surprises and confuses basic usage
|
| This week he tried to login to a finance web site from an email
| they sent him. The only links on the web site were twitter and
| facebook (UI icons). No actual links to their site, so he failed
| to login. He was trying to login to their Facebook site using the
| web site credentials.
|
| The internet/web is very poorly designed for many oldies (and not
| just them).
|
| Lastly, if they're messing up settings or deleting things, it
| just needs to be locked down. Tough but better than broken.
| pkulak wrote:
| I've had great success with Bluefin OS. It's immutable, updates
| itself flawlessly and automatically, but is still easy to install
| and remove apps on. Show them where the Firefox button is and
| you're done. Plus, it'll run great on a 2013 Dell Optiplex, or
| whatever else is lying around.
| j45 wrote:
| Android phones have some decent remote access tools, in addition
| to the mdm of android and iOS.
| dewey wrote:
| iOS also has screensharing through FaceTime which is great for
| cases like this.
| relyks wrote:
| I really wish there was a way to easily remote control my 104 old
| grandpa's smart TV... It's not as simple as you'd think
| t312227 wrote:
| in my experience:
|
| 1. linuxmint for PCs / laptops => either the cinnamon or mate
| edition <== for older hardware!!
|
| and yes: semi-cheap brother or kyocera laserprinter - they also
| work like a charme with linux-based desktops ... but avoid the
| cheapest ones which sometimes need the windows-software for
| printing :)
|
| 2. either android phones or simple feature-phones with big
| buttons targeted at sight-impared / elderly people.
|
| if you buy them new, avoid the ones which do not support LTE/4G
| ... depending on which country you are in: here in central/west
| europe they start to switch off UMTS/3G soon, so the old ones
| will fall back to GSM/2G.
|
| if they don't need a computer:
|
| 3. android tablet for media consumption ... with at least a 10
| inches screen, because of sight imparement!
|
| nearly forgot that ... :)
|
| just my 0.02EUR
| dewey wrote:
| iPad + explain how to use FaceTime which can do screensharing
| with the click of a button without installing anything.
|
| Could even use the shortcuts app to put a big ,,Call son" button
| on the homescreen.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Like so many other commenters here, buy them Apple. Macbook Airs
| to replace their PCs and iPhones to replace their phones.
|
| MacOS and iOS are specifically designed to be used by the average
| man, they're the right tool for this job.
|
| Also: Do not make them use Linux unless you want your time spent
| as tech support to increase. Just don't.
| mike503 wrote:
| There is a huge market (IMO) for elderly/"boomer" support for all
| kinds of technologies. One thing that made me think about it was
| seeing an ad for a simple phone designed for seniors that
| includes "unlimited support" - actually I think it was this:
| https://www.lively.com/phones/jitterbug-smart4/
|
| Made me think of how many older people are out there who do not
| have a child or family member type "tech support" person who
| helps them out. There's millions of them out there. I think
| there's a large market for that.
| stacktrust wrote:
| It's even broader than tech support. For some reason, services
| and vendors for the elderly fall somewhere between clinical,
| patronizing and exploitative. Yet there's so much opportunity
| to help the elderly with independent living, e.g. accessible
| furniture and living spaces.
|
| I've found a grand total of one good vendor (Mobb) in home
| health care, with quality and pricing, plus a few original
| designs, with manufacturing in Taiwan. They may be a positive
| outlier because they are a subsidiary of a larger business
| selling medical uniforms.
|
| The challenge seems to be that most products for the elderly
| are designed for institutional buyers like nursing homes or
| state/national governments. So you have the usual misaligned
| incentives when the buyer is not the user (see: enterprise
| software).
| kkfx wrote:
| As a personal successful experiment: NixOS/Xfce o Gnome Shell
| (require a bit of extra work due to not really smart basic design
| and extensions fragility), basically the system read-only, home
| on zfs with snapshots ensure enough local data safety against
| accidental deletion/bad change. Keeping it up to date is just
| only updating the config when needed and rebuild.
|
| No commercial software so far offer anything as stable, no
| classic distro/OS can offer something as stable.
|
| About phones: a Motorola GSM desktop phone for some, a Punkt for
| those who accept&like a mobile device that's apt for seniors
| while not crappy as most "for seniors" crap.
| dusted wrote:
| I started using computers in the 90s, my parents about 5 years
| later than me. I built a computer for my dad, at the time it ran
| Windows 2000, and I was already looking at Linux.
|
| I couldn't switch my dad to Linux because his favourite game (DX-
| Ball) didn't run and he didn't like lbreakout2 or the other
| alternative, so I made a DX-Ball clone, when that was done, I
| switched his PC to Linux.
|
| Having Linux on my parents computers made my life so much easier,
| I have automated backup running when they log in, the desktop
| only have relevant icons and they don't know their passwords so
| they can't sudo or do anything by mistake.
|
| If a file is deleted by accident, there's 2 months of zfs
| snapshots to go through (I do that if they ask).
|
| Phone, well, my mom has an android phone, no credit card
| attached, and I keep her google account password for her so she's
| not able to do anything too bad by accident.
| curt15 wrote:
| >I couldn't switch my dad to Linux because his favourite game
| (DX-Ball) didn't run and he didn't like lbreakout2 or the other
| alternative, so I made a DX-Ball clone, when that was done, I
| switched his PC to Linux.
|
| That's awesome!
| weevil wrote:
| ChromeOS is a good idea if all they do is surf; security risks
| are pretty low. iPhones are also fairly safe, but the older they
| get, the slower they'll get and the more you have to support
| them. I've had to explain to my dad that eventually the software
| on the phone will be so old that new apps can't go on it. He
| looks at me in confusion and aggression and asks why, as though
| I'm responsible for Apple's planned obsolescence.
|
| My family was ultimately able to convince my grandmother to get
| rid of her computers altogether, when her dementia really kicked
| in. I think we were lucky as she never really got on with
| computers, and would tell anyone who'd listen how computers 'came
| in' to her office the year she retired (in the 90s) and so never
| needed to learn.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I've had to explain to my dad that eventually the software on
| the phone will be so old that new apps can't go on it. He looks
| at me in confusion and aggression and asks why
|
| I'm with dad on this one! I have so much perfectly good
| hardware that becomes increasingly useless because Apple
| stopped providing updates, and 3rd party software developers
| insist that I'm running the absolute latest OS. I'm at that
| point yet again with an iPhone 7 that works flawlessly but when
| I go to get new apps, "SORRY LOSER. You need bleeding edge iOS
| for your bank's stupid app!"
|
| I'll channel your dad's aggression if I ever meet a Schwab
| software engineer in person. I complain to every Apple employee
| I know, too, but they all look at me like I'm crazy for not
| just buying a new phone every year.
| verinus wrote:
| You fail to understand how software development and
| maintenance works.
|
| OFC you need an updated system that has all known security
| holes fixed to run homebanking apps.
|
| Also, as a dev I would only support one config and not a
| myriad of different devices and operating system versions
| (APIs). Livelong. For 3$ purchase price. On all devices. For
| the whole family.
|
| And imho Apple devices are supported much longer than most
| Android ones...
| chrisjj wrote:
| > You fail to understand how software development and
| maintenance works.
|
| Someone complains about bad food at restaurant. Defender
| responds "you fail to understand how cooking works".
| lividly3529 wrote:
| Sir this is a Wendy's. We actually can not serve you
| lobster. Our kitchen doesn't support cooking lobster so
| sorry you will have to go find somewhere else.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Sir, you cannot order the Wendy's Baconator burger on
| account of it being the second Tuesday of the month,
| please try something else.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| An analogy is not a valid argument. Analogies are useful
| for illustrating a concept, but a waste of time when
| trying to support a claim. Also, your analogy does not
| seem analogous to me.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I agree. We're talking about phones, not a restaurant.
| bbkane wrote:
| Even food goes bad after a while :)
| ryandrake wrote:
| > You fail to understand how software development and
| maintenance works.
|
| OK, dude. It's not like I've been in software for 25 years,
| 15 of them being on mobile, both on the OS side and on the
| third party app side. But, yea, I fail to understand.
|
| On the 3p side, I've heard all the lame excuses, and they
| are almost all excuses rather than reasons. The big one is
| that supporting older versions blows up the test matrix
| (the number of device/OS/API level combinations that need
| to be validated). I can understand if you're a hobbyist,
| you might not be able to afford to buy the "myriad of
| different devices" and aren't staffed to test your app on
| each one. But if you are any kind of serious business, you
| signed up for this investment when you decided to write
| apps. Throwing a couple of older devices running older OSes
| onto that test plan should not blow your budget, and if it
| does, you probably shouldn't be writing that banking
| software to begin with. Also, almost all of your testing is
| automated, right? (Please say Yes). So it's not like you
| need to hire more human testers as your test matrix grows.
| If you are unable to support more than the bleeding edge
| OS, it makes me wonder what kind of fly-by-night developer
| shop you are.
|
| The second excuse is about valuing developer convenience
| over users. "Oh, the new OSes contain cool new stuff that
| we want to take advantage of, and it's a total bummer to
| maintain the code paths that support 'legacy' devices." You
| already have the code that runs on the previous OS or API
| level, you're choosing to get rid of it, deliberately
| throwing users under the bus, so that _you_ can clean code
| up or at least not have to maintain it. Bad tradeoff IMO.
|
| There are a whole bunch of other little excuses for no
| longer targeting older systems, and most of them boil down
| to either cost, laziness, or a skill issue. None of them
| respect the end user.
|
| I have a little more sympathy on the OS side. Sometimes a
| major step forward on the hardware (particularly the CPU
| architecture) might make it really tempting to cut off
| previous versions. I still think both major mobile OSes cut
| off old devices way too early. I have PCs from the early
| 2000s that can still run modern Linux distributions, so
| support for old hardware is usually technically possible,
| just inconvenient and costly. I'm not asking companies to
| support devices from 20 years ago, but they could.
|
| Your "security holes" excuse is ridiculous: All major OS
| vendors already provide security updates to at least 5
| previous major OS releases. There is no security reason for
| an app developer to support only the bleeding edge latest
| OS.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Part of it is also Apple. They like breaking things
| across OS versions, whether it's on iPhones or Macs.
| Unlike Windows which will run basically anything ever
| built for Windows.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Yeah but a lot of apps will require the very latest iOS for
| no reason other than the dev happened to build it that way.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Be thankful he even remembers the password needed to download
| apps, which for some reason is not simply the device's
| passcode.
| seldomcomment wrote:
| Around 2005 I was using deep freeze for 20ish Windows 2000 public
| computers with only documents folder mutable so people could save
| stuff in there. Worked like magic. I'm not related with the
| product, just sharing my experience. YMMV.
|
| Edit: link https://www.faronics.com/es/products/deep-freeze
| awelxtr wrote:
| Deepfreeze was a staple of cybercafes in the 90s and 00s
| silisili wrote:
| Put them on Apple gear, seriously.
|
| Lifelong Android user, and I know nothing about Apple, but when
| it came time for them to upgrade from their OG Razr's last year,
| I was at a crossroads. These people are tech illiterate. I ended
| up telling them to buy IPhone.
|
| Believe it or not, they mostly figured it all out pretty easily.
| They still get confused and scared by FB video calls coming in,
| but otherwise are able to talk, text, use social media, etc. So
| much so they even bought an iPad.
|
| It seems the reason I like Android - tons of options and
| customizability, are the exact opposite of what an older user
| wants from their device.
| kqr wrote:
| My wife does an impeccable job of managing smartphones and
| tablet computers for many older relatives (and some younger
| tech-challenged ones too, I suppose) and they're also all on
| Apple gear.
|
| But it's not because the users understand Apple stuff better.
| They can learn the core workflows they use on any device, and
| they have most of the important parts written down anyway.
|
| The primary reason she put them on Apple was so that they would
| have mostly the same problems and she could learn from one and
| apply to the others. I suppose this matters more the more
| relatives you manage devices for. But as you say, the range of
| opportunities one can get with Androids or PCs is much wider -
| which translates to a wider range of problems also.
| MrDresden wrote:
| I am an Android developer (and user) with 14 years of
| professional experience, and I put my elderly mother on iPhone
| many years ago.
|
| For me it came simply down to the simplicity of the iOS system.
| There are fewer clicks, buttons and functions for her to
| accidentally get into.
|
| Another reason is also that my other siblings (and all of the
| grandchildren ) are all on iPhone, so I am not a her only IT
| support person in case one was needed ASAP when I would be
| unavailable.
|
| Personally I don't enjoy the feel of iOS but for her it is
| perfect.
| matthewtse wrote:
| I got my 90 year old grandma to use an iPad. The other day I
| saw her switching languages via the keyboard to search for a
| video on YouTube using a combination of Chinese and English,
| and I was dumbfounded.
|
| It's a true testament to the intuitiveness of Apple UX.
|
| Switched parents over to Mac/iPhone years ago too. They still
| have issues, but it's usually something like "I maximized my
| window, how do I get out of that?". I wish Apple would release
| a "dumb mode", which removes 90% of the already limited UX
| features of macOS/iOS.
| fragmede wrote:
| If you're looking for a limited mode, why'd you get them a
| macOS computer instead of an iPad with a keyboard?
| matthewtse wrote:
| For my dad, he occasionally composes Word documents and
| uses other MacOS software for his business, so finding
| analogous iPad software and teaching him how to use that
| wouldn't be worth the effort.
|
| iPad could probably work for my mom, but she just uses
| hand-me-down macs from my dad or me/my siblings.
| reverius42 wrote:
| Microsoft Word is available on iPad. I believe it's a
| port of the real thing and thus has full file format
| compatibility.
| fartfeatures wrote:
| The issue is old people don't like change. If an older
| person is used to the WIMP interface there is no point
| forcing them to change how they do everything.
| ghusto wrote:
| I wish Apple would be consistent with their reasoning
| abilities :/ Much of it is great, so it's that much more
| confusing for people when there are things that make no
| sense.
|
| The gestures on iPhones come to mind. I'm used to them and
| find them indispensable now, but what? Swipe down on one side
| and it brings me some controls, swipe down on the other and I
| see my lock screen? Where am I? What's happening? No reason
| or logic.
| everyone wrote:
| This an example of the worst possible UX imo. There is
| literally zero affordances or discoverability for those
| gestures.
|
| Smartphones in general tend to completely ignore the
| fundaments of human interface design.
| sotix wrote:
| I switched back to an iPhone SE, and it's so much better at
| UX. There's a single home button that removes you from any
| app. Swiping down from the top anywhere brings up your
| notifications. Swiping up from the bottom anywhere brings
| up controls. Double tapping the home button while locked
| brings up your credit cards, which are also authorized
| because the home button has a fingerprint reader. Holding
| down the power button brings you to the power off screen.
| This phone has functionally been an upgrade in usability
| across the board compared to my iPhone mini.
| latexr wrote:
| It used to be that swiping down would lock the screen and
| swiping up would show Control Center. But when iPhones lost
| the home button, swiping up took up its click behaviours.
| Swiping down from the left for locking the screen and
| swiping down from the right to show Control Center is
| indeed somewhat awkward, but it's not immediatelly clear to
| me what alternative they could've gone with that would
| leave you with the same level of quick access as before.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I wish Apple would release a "dumb mode", which removes
| 90% of the already limited UX features of macOS/iOS._
|
| Have you seen Assistive Access?
| https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-
| iphone/welc...
|
| _" Assistive Access is a distinctive iOS experience, with
| more focused features and a simplified user interface, which
| allows people with cognitive disabilities to use iPhone with
| greater ease and independence."_
| adamomada wrote:
| I don't think many at all are aware at the lengths that
| Apple goes to wrt accessibility features. It is
| astonishing.
|
| There are blind people who can type faster than I (sighted)
| can on an iPhone.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| In Android, there's a keyboard icon on the interface, you
| click it and choose your keyboard language. It's two clicks.
| Is the Apple one more intuitive?
| sotix wrote:
| It's identical.
| asoneth wrote:
| On my Pixel phone keyboard I have two ways to switch
| language: Holding the spacebar gives me a list labeled
| "Change keyboard" with six options whereas clicking the
| keyboard icon in the lower-right corner gives me a similar
| list except the title is "Choose input method", the options
| are in a completely different order, the options have
| slightly different names ("English (US) QWERTY" vs "English
| (US) (QWERTY) Gboard"), the list uses radio buttons instead
| of a checkmark, and includes an option for "Google Voice
| Typing".
|
| These might seem like minor issues to us, but they can
| derail non-technical users who may be confused why the list
| looks different from the last time they switched languages.
| And this lack of coordination between elements is par for
| the course for Google design. Not saying there aren't
| examples of bad design from Apple, but most of their
| products seem to have someone in a position of authority
| who pays attention to detail and their issues seem less
| like oversights than bad decisions.
| Groxx wrote:
| For a small bit of context:
|
| The "hold the space bar" method is entirely your
| keyboard's feature, not Android. Though it is a
| relatively common pattern in keyboards on both OSes, in
| its defense (iOS uses it too).
|
| But I don't think I'd recommend Gboard to someone who
| needs a simplified experience. Gboard is very
| complicated.
| asoneth wrote:
| > But I don't think I'd recommend Gboard to someone who
| needs a simplified experience. Gboard is very
| complicated.
|
| Exactly. I'm not keen to attempt to explain the
| distinction between an input method and a keyboard
| language setting to a five-year-old or a reluctant
| 85-year-old. Nor am I keen to troubleshoot how they
| managed to get something as basic as a keyboard into a
| weird state.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I personally appreciate the
| flexibility, use Android on my personal device, and I
| help my folks and some of my uncles when they run into an
| issue on their Android phones that they can't solve after
| a little searching. But through trial-and-error I've
| concluded that any family members who reach out to me at
| the first sign of trouble need to be in the Apple
| ecosystem.
| darrylb42 wrote:
| The downside of flexibility. Choose input method is the
| system list. Holding the space bar is the keyboard's
| method. I sometimes switch to a non-Google keyboard and
| the Choose input method way of switching is how I get
| back. I didn't know about the long press on the spacebar
| method, learned something new today.
| eythian wrote:
| I have a third. I have two languages defined, and because
| of that I have a little globe to the left of the
| spacebar. Tapping that switches the default one (as far
| as I can tell, it biases what word it thinks you're
| aiming for to that language.)
|
| Somehow I always find it's on the secondary language and
| I haven't worked out if I'm doing that by accident or
| it's changing on its own.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Well the difference with the iPhone is the actual phone
| works for people of all abilities so the keyboard is
| actually accessible.
|
| All my elderly family running Android have been pwned in
| some way or another.
| TylerE wrote:
| Changing Green circle from "maximuze" to "full screen" with
| no way to revert it - yes, I'm sure there's some sketchy kmod
| or whatever - is one of the most baffling decisions Apple has
| made.
| latexr wrote:
| I'm not defending the choice, but there are some
| alternatives:
|
| * Press [?] while hovering over the green circle. The icon
| changes to a + sign and clicking it uses the maximise
| behaviour.
|
| * Double-clicking the title bar.
|
| * From the menubar: Window > Zoom.
| TylerE wrote:
| Oth of which involve extra motions (I have mild RSI
| issues, no no bueno), all to enable a behavior I can't
| stand.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If you need to combine a modifier key with a mouse
| gesture you've lost. There's just zero way to frame that
| as anything but a kludge.
|
| Double-clicking the title bar, a typical Apple feature
| that is totally undiscoverable except by stumbling upon
| it or having someone show you.
| adamomada wrote:
| But not of course by reading the instructions that come
| with it, right?
| TylerE wrote:
| I don't remember any instructions coming with any Mac
| I've bought I. The last decades. The license/warranty
| info sure, but actual printed documentation is limited to
| a couple pages of to plug stuff together.
| latexr wrote:
| Print instructions would get outdated with each OS
| release. But they do have comprehensive online
| instructions which do cover how to maximise windows.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
| help/mchlp2469/mac
|
| In addition, macOS and iOS come with a "Tips" app (yellow
| with a lightbulb icon) which covers several topics.
| neal_jones wrote:
| I found that iPhone and iPad work great, but my parent also
| wanted a computer and I went with it. 95% of my support calls
| are regarding _something_ with the computer.
|
| The iMac really is just subtracting value from their life.
| The phone and tablet are fantastic, but I want to hire
| someone to break into the home and steal that computer.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > It's a true testament to the intuitiveness of Apple UX.
|
| I think it's much simpler than that. For normal people, the
| aesthetics of an experience _is_ the experience. There is no
| functionality, form _is_ functionality.
|
| Apple does this more than anyone else as a side effect of
| different design goals. An iPhone competes with the 1990s-era
| cable TV-equipped television, not an Android phone,
| especially for older adults. In that comparison, you can see
| how the iPhone "UX" could be "improved:" how could it achieve
| the same level of effortlessness as switching a channel, an
| idea of an aesthetic experience distilled to a brand name and
| a button press, and then having the aesthetic experiences you
| like transferred to you continuously, nonstop, throughout the
| day, affordably?
|
| You are talking about watching YouTube specifically, and
| consider that if your grandma could "just" watch a channel
| with a mix of Chinese and English content she "likes," she
| would be even "happier." I am not trying to get into the
| normative argument over which aesthetic experiences are more
| meaningful or preferred or whatever. It's a way of looking at
| things differently, without the myopic point of view of
| frontend web development.
|
| Once you deconstruct your lived experience of watching your
| grandma, "Apple UX" looks more like a marketing idea that is
| inferior to many alternatives.
| tim333 wrote:
| That's a bit of an unusual way of looking at iPhones. They
| seem to do much the same as Android phones and very
| different from 90s TVs especially when if comes to taking
| photos, doing banking, making calls and the like.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > That's a bit of an unusual way of looking at iPhones.
|
| This is the kind of comment that becomes a downvote
| magnet. An unusual look is the point.
|
| I don't think it's true that there's some frontend-web-
| developer-graphic-design-nerd-sense-of-UX superiority to
| iPhones compared to Android phones. That's what this is
| about. There's a bunch of observations written here by
| non-elderly people trying to reason about why iPhones
| work better for the elderly than Android phones or
| whatever. Man, just get them a cable TV subscription and
| pay for it, because that's what they really want: free
| TV. That's what _everyone_ wants.
|
| It's only in this country that iPhones have such high
| market share. The fact is, Android or iPhone, the end
| user is mostly using it to consume the same garbage -
| mindless freakshow television in TikTok and YouTube.
|
| Mostly couldn't be more true of a generalization either.
| The sum of the time spent on consuming linear video
| content on phones is probably like, 90-99% of the time
| spent on the devices. Even accounting for people playing
| long session video games in Asia, because children are
| overall a small part of the population, and adults are
| for the most part not playing games.
|
| All of these hard, true facts about how utterly narrow an
| average user's usage of phones attacks sacrosanct magical
| thoughts in HN readers' heads regarding the diversity of
| the experiences people are having on computers. They
| think it's this wondrous world of diverse meaning.
| There's some truth to that. It may be you and I are
| having wondrous diverse meaningful experiences. But the
| average person is scrolling TikTok, YouTube, Instagram
| and Facebook.
|
| People who disagree and downvote: at the end of the day,
| _how do you know?_ I mean, have you ever seen the
| engagement statistics for Apple Photos? For a banking
| app? Making phone calls? No! But there are countless
| surveys, all pointing to ridiculous numbers of hours
| spent in TikTok. 90m a day on average for Americans. That
| means 1 in 5 people may be spending 180m too! Who do you
| know spends 90m a day taking photos, banking, making
| calls? It 's far more rare. You can look at the
| engagement for Google Maps and Spotify, which may be the
| only non-social media, non-TV apps with high engagement,
| but it would be intellectually dishonest to count Google
| Maps - you're using your car for navigation with an
| appliance, not your phone - and Spotify is an aberration,
| although still passive mindless consumption, a better
| more affordable UX compared to radio. If you could watch
| TV while driving a car, people would, and that would be
| it for radio and Spotify.
|
| So of course a phone can converge a bunch of other
| activities. But it doesn't mean that I'm wrong. I know
| they have a bunch of functionality. The question is, does
| it matter? No. The average person wants freakshow TV. I'm
| not the first or the last person to say this. It has
| never been so stark though.
| tim333 wrote:
| My mum's 88 and found the iPhone's esim facility useful
| recently recently when she flew to NYC to represent a
| British womens group at the UN. I think you
| overgeneralize a bit about old people just wanting to
| click dumb content.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Or, a lot of old people are still pretty capable. My aunt is
| 90 and she manages her laptop and phone just fine.
|
| I am not impressed at all by Apple's UX. Inconsistencies
| abound, and there are lots of hidden gestures and actions
| that you have no clue about unless you stumble upon them or
| someone shows you. It might be better than Android, but
| that's a low bar.
| antipaul wrote:
| Regarding exiting from fullscreen, you can suggest to them to
| "hover" over the traffic lights, for some extra tips
| AJ007 wrote:
| The Apple hardware also does nothing to protect against tech
| support scams.
|
| One of the most important, and basic, things to do is make
| sure ad blockers are installed on devices and/or on a
| firewall. This matters before a broader decline in cognitive
| functionality too.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if we see a blanket ban against all
| digital advertising for certain age groups in the EU within
| the next 10 years.
| bitwize wrote:
| Apple needs to bring back At Ease:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease
|
| The intuitiveness of the Apple UI is not a given. A friend of
| mine was one of the first Mac developers, and an Apple man
| since then. He's old now, and both he and his wife grouse
| about the iOS UI and how unintuitive and difficult it is.
| Even my wife, also a lifelong Apple fan, finds herself
| frustrated when attempting to do tasks with her iPhone much
| more obscure than "launch app". Like the iPhone has a built-
| in Apple TV remote, but to use it you have to swipe down from
| the upper right where the clock is, then press the button
| that looks like an Apple TV remote (assuming you know what
| one looks like). Not something you can easily discover or
| figure out on your own. I can't even keep straight where to
| swipe from.
|
| I think some time after Jony Ive took over Apple's design
| department, design wankery supplanted human factors. The
| original Mac UI was made functional and easy to discover, and
| _then_ made pretty. Modern iOS is made pretty and clever with
| things like "pinch to zoom", but the emphasis is not on
| making things easy to discover or making it clear what you
| can do (but the "launch app" case is pretty well solved for).
| instagib wrote:
| I purchased a paper user manual "for the elderly" for
| iOS/phone/ipad. They update it every so often and the text is
| large. They got a few years of use.
|
| Now down to a home phone and an iPad with Facebook.
| arethuza wrote:
| Thanks - my wife and I have recently got her mother (who is
| in her 90's) to try using an iPhone. It never occurred to me
| to get a _printed_ manual - I think that might really help
| her.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Yeah, I have to echo this. I moved all the relatives who would
| listen to MacBook Air + iPhone, and I have just one relative
| who is holding out on a cheap Lenovo laptop - it's as much work
| to keep them running as all the others combined.
|
| Yes, going the Apple route is more expensive. But unless you
| have a lot of time on your hands to deal with teaching weird
| Windows and Android edge-cases over and over again... well
| worth the investment. And even elderly Apple gear will
| generally serve your relatives well.
| arka2147483647 wrote:
| The app-switcher in newer IpadOS is an endless confusion to my
| mother. Somehow she opens multiple copies of web-browser,
| email, etc, and then cant find anything.
|
| How much I hope I could disable that one feature!
|
| Hiding the Inbox folder in Email is another classic I need to
| fix monthly.
| AlanYx wrote:
| It might help to disable "Allow Multiple Apps" and "Picture
| in Picture" on her iPad. This also disables slide over. Also
| consider disabling gestures.
|
| iOS 17 offers to disable all of this stuff on initial install
| if you set up a child account, because kids tend to get
| confused, especially by slide over. But they should probably
| offer that sort of thing as an "easy mode" option for all
| users.
| sneak wrote:
| Just make sure someone else is set as a recovery contact for
| the Apple ID, and also knows their Apple ID password and device
| screenlock code. One day you'll need it. :/
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Believe it or not, they mostly figured it all out pretty
| easily. They still get confused and scared by FB video calls
| coming in, but otherwise are able to talk, text, use social
| media, etc. So much so they even bought an iPad._
|
| For the 99% of use cases elderly people have with a phone, what
| exactly is it you imagine that Apple is doing better than
| Android? You click an icon to text, phone or browse the web.
| The experience is nearly identical.
|
| The idea that Android has lots of customization, but Apple
| doesn't, is a myth; even Apple has _far more_ options to tweak
| than the average use is ever going to have to get into.
| salomonk_mur wrote:
| Nearly everything UX related is better in iOS.
|
| Default logo sizes are larger, settings menus are basically
| the same no matter the device, software and hardware are
| coupled and designed by the same company making everything
| snappier. The subtle.design difference also come into play.
|
| I use Android myself, but it is a fact that Apple is superior
| in UX, which is unsurprising given that they are obsessed
| with UX as a company in general and the whole ecosystem is
| designed by themselves alone, while Android is designed and
| developed by many players. Even a 2 year old can use iPhones
| and iPads.
| hu3 wrote:
| > Nearly everything UX related is better in iOS
|
| That's funny because I heard my friend say this at work
| yesterday when I suggested that he should gift his mother
| an iPhone:
|
| "Oh my mother would have too much difficulty switching from
| Android to iOS. I know because I use iPhone and things that
| have dedicated buttons in some Android phones are gestures
| in iOS. Like the back button for example."
| realusername wrote:
| I must live in a parallel world because to me Apple is the
| king of hidden shortcuts which are hard to discover for
| beginners.
|
| Multiple fingers gestures doing different things, hidden
| swipe menus and features depending on the offset of where
| you swiped, that's all very hard for non experienced users.
|
| Not that Android is perfect, I'd say it's still not great
| either in that regard but the UI is more discoverable for
| sure for beginners.
|
| I really miss the win2k era in terms of user research and
| UX, sure it didn't look the best on screenshots but it was
| made to be as discoverable as possible.
| fullstop wrote:
| > Multiple fingers gestures doing different things,
| hidden swipe menus and features depending on the offset
| of where you swiped, that's all very hard for non
| experienced users.
|
| I can't think of any of those which are _required_,
| though. They are shortcuts, sure, but do not need to be
| known to use the device.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| I completely agree. Hell I do mobile development and
| still play "find the magical long press/swipe/spot to
| manage an item on this ui"
|
| It has zero ability to be discovered.
|
| Its not good but so many people are decades entrenched
| they do not think about how annoying it is
| techcode wrote:
| The best example I had of the same (started with Amstrad
| CPC, then Amiga, PC ... software engineer for almost two
| decades).
|
| I couldn't find "Find on page" on iOS/Safari, so I did a
| Google search on how to so it - result snippet on Google
| was cut and actual results page was full page of forum
| replies, and I was having trouble finding it by just
| scrolling.
|
| Now years later (and only Android) I forgot, it was
| something rather non intuitive where they've hidden that
| option.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Consistency throughout the user experience and, most
| importantly, consistency through time.
|
| Macos ui is largely frozen in 2002ish
|
| IOS is frozen in 2008ish
|
| This is why blind people only ever use iOS.
|
| (Linux user myself)
| itake wrote:
| Apple moved off skeuomorphism in 2013. I agree there
| haven't been big changes since then except maybe the deep
| press.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Someone who uses the word "skeuomorphism" is probably a
| domain expert and notices every little change.
|
| Most people you talk to dont notice any change until they
| pick up a device not updated for the better part of a
| decade
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| I cannot align the 3 apps the person uses on the thumb side
| of the home screen and have the rest unused. I have no
| dedicated back button THIS IS THE WORST for a 98 year old
| with very shaky hands.
|
| Consistency? Everything is all over the place for different
| apps.
| rblatz wrote:
| The back button is probably the biggest thing keeping me
| from an android. Every time I'm handed an android to look
| at something that stupid button gets triggered.
| antgiant wrote:
| Sounds like (assistive
| access)[https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-
| iphone/welc...] is what you want as it solves both of
| these. It gives full app placement control to you and an
| always on screen back button.
| boxed wrote:
| > This is why blind people only ever use iOS.
|
| That's not why. It's because iOS has great features for the
| blind, and iOS developers care about accessibility and
| making good apps.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Also.
|
| But if you're blind, I bet youd hate the UI you cant see
| and you've memorized changing under you.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Consistency throughout the user experience and, most
| importantly, consistency through time.
|
| > Macos ui is largely frozen in 2002ish
|
| > IOS is frozen in 2008ish
|
| This is verifiably extremely incorrect? Lots of things
| about the core UX of both platforms have changed since
| then. Heck, even turning an iPhone off isn't as simple as
| "press and hold the power button" anymore.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Now do Windows. Circa 2002, so you're baseline is XP. Go
| through those UI changes and the change backs.
|
| Don't forget the detours! At one point (purportedly) MS
| had a phone and they made their desktop look like a phone
| UI.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Heck, Ill double down.
|
| Go back to the late 80s and compare Mac GUI to window's.
| There are still important themes in the Mac UI that remain,
| specifically the menu bar at the top. I could get around
| System 1.0 even though Ive never touched a classic OS mac.
|
| Win 2.0? I grew up with pre-95 windows and Id be completely
| lost.
|
| Id go further back, but then Id be comparing a GUI to a
| TUI. (Which to be fair are superior to GUIs)
| richardw wrote:
| We had that same experience. My wife's grandmother was
| 90-something when I got her an Android tablet thinking it
| would be easy to set up. She kept doing stuff that broke the
| experience for her. It would go home when she was trying to
| do something else, and wouldn't go home when she wanted to. I
| can't remember everything but it was enough to really
| frustrate her. After a while switched to an iPad and 90% of
| the issues went away. Only one that didn't was taking a pic
| with a camera. There was something we couldn't sort: (IIRC,
| it's been a while) moving the red button to the left instead
| of right side so her good hand could click it easily. And she
| sometimes still turns wifi off. But that's it, and she's now
| 103. Maybe they're better now. Not going to test that!
| silisili wrote:
| The problem I guess I was referring to was options between
| mfgs. Pixel's Android isn't Samsung's Android, which isn't
| Oneplus's Android, and so on. Not just different looks and
| layouts, all different default apps, settings menus,
| features, and so on. Heck my wife even gets frustrated
| between Samsung updates, as they often change something she
| can't figure out how to get back.
|
| Generally if you ask any IPhone user how to do X, or even
| Google it, the results should work exactly the same on your
| phone. This is definitely -not- the case for Android.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Android phone will randomly stop working for some reason
| nobody's ever heard of and possibly with specifics tied to
| whatever particular phone you got, that's what Apple does
| better. That and not getting viruses.
| deely3 wrote:
| Funny, for me its opposite. And I never saw a virus on
| Android in the last 10 years.
| hot_gril wrote:
| If you know how to use a phone, you won't get any
| viruses. My friend's elderly mother on the other hand...
| anomaly_ wrote:
| Thank god the EU stepped in and fixed this for us all!
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I hate it, but Apple is really is the best choice here. Their
| devices and software pass the grandmother test better than
| anything else. The UX is unmatched. I dream of the day my
| grandmother can use GNU/Linux for the privacy, freedom, and
| frugality, but I'm not sure that day will ever come.
| cellu wrote:
| I'd agree until few months ago, but now my wife's dad lucidity
| is degrading pretty quickly.
|
| Until few years ago he was a proficient digital photographer
| with advanced Photoshop knowledge. He was definitely tech
| literate and also have used Apple gears its infancy (the first
| guy in town to own an iPhone).
|
| But now he forgets his passcode, or the fact that he can just
| use his thumb to unlock the phone. He keeps deleting his bank
| app and then goes to the nearby computer store shop to get it
| back. He also saved a scammer number claiming to be his
| daughter with a new phone (well, actually asked a friend to
| save it because he forgot how to do it).
|
| Because we live abroad it's quite hard to check on him and his
| device to make sure he's safe and have been wondering myself
| how to best deal with the situation.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Next time you visit put him in your IOS family and install
| parental controls. Then disable contact updates, remove
| permission to delete apps etc...
| eitally wrote:
| We did the same thing (but with Android) for my mother-in-
| law, who is starting to suffer from dementia (and literally
| clicks on everything). It's the same way I manage my kids'
| phones and it works pretty well.
| cellu wrote:
| thanks, I'll try! I don't have kids so didn't really think
| of this
| luke-stanley wrote:
| Nice interpretation of parental controls, with the older
| parent being the one controlled!
| paulcole wrote:
| Everything you describes sucks but I dunno why you seem to
| think it's an Apple issue?
|
| If somebody's lucid enough to use technology, put them on
| Apple stuff. If they're not lucid enough to use technology
| then Apple or Android doesn't matter - both are unusable.
| thunky wrote:
| Not my experience.
|
| If they only use basic functions (phone, text, email) then
| Android/Pixel + Chromebook is the way to go imo. One login for
| everything, including YouTube + music family plan. If they
| screw up the Chromebook just factory reset it and they're back
| where they left off.
|
| I think iPhone being easier for seniors is a well advertised
| myth.
| interestica wrote:
| What challenges did you face with them and iPhone?
| thunky wrote:
| > What challenges did you face with them and iPhone?
| - Difficulty typing on the tiny SE screen - Can't
| send text messages from the computer (no Messages on
| Chromebook) - Accidentally muting contacts all the
| time, so missing calls - Butt dialing all the time
| - Not being able to get back to the phone screen to find
| the speaker button and other basic ui functions were not
| intuitive - Spanning multiple ecosystems is a recipe
| for confusion (Apple photos vs Google photos, for example),
| and if you have to choose one Google wins (youtube, docs,
| chromecast, etc, etc). - Tons of text spam
|
| Going all-in on Apple (iPad instead of Chromebook) would
| make some of these better, but still worse overall imo.
| Just look at the iPhone SE next to the basic Pixel A, the
| SE looks like a tiny antique (the bezel really hurts).
| izacus wrote:
| Did you actually try to get someone older to use the swipe
| gestures that are mandatory on new iPhones? Many of them
| can't be disabled even through a11y or provisioning options
| and constantly frustrate.
|
| Another massive issue is that iOS doesn't really mark
| clickable elements / buttons anymore - after iOS7 redesign
| it's really hard for people to recognize what's a tappable
| element. Especially since a lot of apps now have their own
| UI design language.
|
| You don't notice these things until you try to teach
| someone non-tech savvy. Then you notice just how
| inconsistent and horrible to use the new OSes are. Even
| Apple ones.
| kolinko wrote:
| This. The moment I switched my mom to Mac OS and iPhone,
| literally all issues she had with computer disappeared. She
| still needed me to help with Photoshop install and backups, but
| besides that - no problem for the last 7 years. And running on
| the same machine at that with no problems.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| That's still way too easy to fuck up. They need something less
| "open" than MacOS.
|
| After my mom in law got scammed out of a few hundred euros I
| confiscated her laptop and moved her to a Google ChromeBook.
|
| That's quite locked down and a few years in she still hasn't
| managed to ruin the OS.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Avoiding scammers likely requires restricting access to their
| finances as well, which could involve getting a power of
| attorney.
| ocrow wrote:
| A financial Power of Attorney is the legal document that
| gives you the ability to act as that person legally in most
| ways. It requires only the person to sign the PoA document.
| Using it often requires some bureaucratic hoop jumping, but
| that's nonetheless what it does. It doesn't prevent the
| person themselves from taking legal or financial actions -
| like giving money to scammers. For that you would need
| Conservatorship which is a higher level of responsibility
| and must be reviewed by a judge. At least, that's the
| situation in the US. Things may work differently elsewhere.
| And also, for reasons to do with the federal system, Social
| Security benefits are sort of their own thing and have a
| different process.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Agreed, but I hope the Chromebook has a way to permanently
| disable installing extensions.
| mannyv wrote:
| My dad's 82 has an IPP 12.9, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and a Macbook
| Air. Over time, the MBA usage has dropped off, and is mainly
| used for financial sites that don't play well with
| Safari/iPadOS.
|
| The only real issue he has is printing. His MBA is basically an
| AirPrint bridge at this point. One day we'll get him an
| AirPrint compatible printer.
| dockerd wrote:
| You can set up raspberry pi to act as bridge or even setup
| email printing/etc.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Tech stupid enough for toddlers, geriatrics, and even
| parrots[0]. That's what they want us all to be.
|
| 0: https://youtu.be/cZSNhJcKFf4
| fckgw wrote:
| Tech accessible to everyone, yes.
| dmje wrote:
| Came here to say this.
|
| Mother in law had a PC and a whole bunch of old Android
| tablets. I'd get a phone call about once a week asking some
| kind of support question.
|
| When everything melted down and the PC got too old I got her to
| buy an iPad. Haven't heard a squeak since - she loves it, it
| does everything she wants and she's now totally self-
| sufficient.
| 0xedd wrote:
| Anecdotal outcome of US marketing. Our older relatives are all
| on PC and Android (one of them 95) and can attest to the same.
|
| Careful to what money sink you throw your elderly into.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Doesn't solve them putting the phone in airplane mode or
| getting the camera coated in an opaque film, though. Also,
| every elderly family member with an iPhone has forgotten the
| iCloud password and asked me why they cannot install apps. But
| it's still better than the alternatives.
| ocrow wrote:
| Both Android and iOS, but especially iOS, have made large
| accessibility regressions by switching to a frequently gesture
| based interface where all sorts of quite similar swipes do
| different things changing the screen context and revealing
| hidden modes. For use by people with e.g. Parkinson's disease
| this is catastrophic. Voice commands can somewhat compensate,
| but I think we're all familiar with the many ways in which
| voice commands can fail to perform even simple requests, and
| also how sensitive the voice assistants are to changes in both
| speed and volume of received speech. While iOS does have some
| good accessibility settings, they are not comprehensive, and
| overall usability has in some big ways declined substantially,
| even while more and more tasks have to be done online.
| agile-gift0262 wrote:
| I bought them Chrome OS devices and I haven't had to do any tech
| support since. Phone wise, I have them on Android and I haven't
| had many problems, but I should have moved them to iOS when they
| were younger, as I find iOS UI is more stable across upgrades,
| which tend to leave the phone more or less behave how they used
| to and new behaviours are usually behind new settings/buttons.
| And elders who are not used to technology usually struggle
| whenever there are any UI changes.
| Moru wrote:
| Not only older people. Already since the beginning of computers
| there have been changes just for changes sake in everything. My
| theory at that time was that the changes were done so they
| could sell new education courses for companies every time they
| upgraded the software.
|
| Now sometimes I have to google how to do things that should be
| very simple even in Windows or Android but now the setting is
| hidden to not confuse people...
| jl6 wrote:
| Forget the PC, move them to iOS devices, and if it's really bad,
| set them up as a child account so you can restrict actions like
| installing or removing apps.
| switch007 wrote:
| Consider setting up Screen Time too. My Mum spends literally
| hours each day on Facebook and Amazon. It's easy for the elderly
| to get addicted to Facebook and shopping when there isn't much
| else to do
| m463 wrote:
| seeing all the comments where people install Linux on their
| parents computers...
|
| Is this because it's hacker news, or is Linux becoming a non-
| crazy option for parents?
| joelthelion wrote:
| Linux is actually a great option for elderly people. They have
| very minimal needs, so they aren't going to run into
| limitations such as Windows-only software that they absolutely
| must use. With automatic updates the maintenance burden is
| minimal, and the risk of malware or viruses is almost non-
| existent.
| Tom4hawk wrote:
| You can also ensure that not many things change over time. My
| parents have been using Linux for over 15 years and they love
| it. Mate looks basically the same, as do most of the
| applications they use (file manager, image viewer, Firefox,
| Thunderbird, etc.). There's no strange software required for
| their Brother printer/scanner and nothing suddenly appears with
| each update.
| Sammi wrote:
| Step 1: https://ublockorigin.com/
| sturza wrote:
| I got 2 Chromebooks 8-10y ago and never looked back. No
| maintenance calls, ever.
| RNAlfons wrote:
| Linux Mint.
|
| I moved my parents to it from Windows and they never realised
| since they only use Thunderbird and Firefox.
|
| Never had any issues since then.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I moved them to android (Samsung) tablets: never had any issues.
|
| I moved some elderly friends in my village to Ubuntu without root
| pass and Tailscale so I can login. Also zero maintenance/issues.
|
| The only times when I get questions is Windows Home with the
| administrator account and 'everything' being generally 'not
| working' after 'an update'. Sigh.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Aside from the many excellent suggestions about how to mange the
| devices themselves, I'd highly recommend putting a pihole on the
| whole wifi network.
|
| I added a pihole to my home network via a <$100 NUC (very much
| overkill for this purpose), and the rate of my relatives falling
| for weird viruses and scams has gone _way_ down.
| rscho wrote:
| I went all out for my gramp's PC:
|
| - Linux Debian with default user privileges
|
| - XFCE kiosk mode with everything as shortcut icons (that can't
| be deleted) + removed all UI access to everything else
|
| - Monthly Borg save of the /home dir
|
| - X2Go for screen sharing when assistance required
|
| So that's the great thing with Linux: you can make it look
| exactly how you want (huge icons, etc.), and you basically just
| save the /home dir to save the "state" for the user. Downside is
| that config is a lot of work.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> Downside is that config is a lot of work. _
|
| Consider sharing the work as open source. I think that too
| often people think of "mere configs" as something less than
| programming, not valuable and not worth sharing, when they are
| in fact really valuable. Not just the configs, but the
| curation, too.
|
| If such a project caught on, I bet others would pitch in to
| smooth down the rough edges. In fact, it might be nice to merge
| and/or utilize a recovery distribution to restore such a
| configuration in the event of an issue.
| 0xedd wrote:
| Had to scroll far too long for this.
|
| In one relative's case with an old laptop, I installed some
| light distro, Firefox with an ad-block and it's been stable for
| a few years. She only browses a few favorite sites.
|
| Other's infatuation with Apple's overpriced *nix boxes is a
| true testament to Apple's marketing department. Pay more for
| less. We can't spend so many thousands every few years.
| xhevahir wrote:
| Everybody's suggesting changing to Apple or Chrome products,
| which sounds like a good idea to me.
|
| With my parents, who are 80 and having an increasingly hard time
| using technology, I have the added complication that my dad (who
| is the acknowledged tech guy in their marriage and who probably
| has OCD) absolutely hates everything Apple, and, now that he in
| turn manages his 90-year-old sister's use of her Chromebook, is
| dead set against getting a ChromeOS device either.
| Refusing23 wrote:
| My mother needed a laptop for managing the finances of some
| little club
|
| So she asked me what to get within a limited budget - a windows
| laptop. I set it up with firefox, ublock origin etc. removed all
| the bloat.
|
| and for helping her with whatever, on the computer, i installed
| Rustdesk. It has a super simple ui so you can get the password
| over the phone - then i can login and manage her computer from my
| own computer. (Rustdesk is free and opensource remote desktop and
| file sharing program)
|
| as for phone.. my mother uses a samsung smartphone. Its what
| she's used to. So i have also installed Firefox on there, with
| ublock origin and ... thats really all i needed to do. She can
| login to her email or whatever other apps she uses, by herself.
|
| My mother is 71. Not a complete tech idiot but also not really
| experienced with anything other than regular office-use (email,
| notes, managing a calendar)
|
| i chose android for her phone because i know it better - and
| ads... oh god i hate ads. Thank god for firefox and ublock
| origin.
|
| as for my grandmother who's over 100 years old... she has a
| landline. And thats it.
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| You don't need Intune, that's a fancy cloud thing to manage lots
| of machines. You can manage permissions on a local machine using
| _Local Users and Groups_ (lusrmgr). Also get either uBlock Origin
| or Brave Browser with shields.
| dvdkon wrote:
| I set up Linux desktops for elderly relatives who wanted tech
| support, to universal satisfaction. They seem to not have many
| issues, since I get fewer than 5 support calls a year total, and
| I'm an experienced Linux user so fixing anything that does come
| up is usually easy (<1 of those is actually OS related, they're
| mostly questions like "how do I do X in LibreOffice again?" or "I
| got this scam email...").
|
| It's also nice that the DEs I chose are relatively stable, not
| forcing them to keep up with changes. Running well on old and
| cheap hardware is also a plus, I couldn't convince anyone to buy
| a new or even used iMac (and wouldn't want to do that anyway,
| macOS is far from bug free...).
|
| That said, none of them have self-destructive tendencies and I
| don't expect to just give them a device and have them set it up
| themselves.
| rsolva wrote:
| I have had a great time using Fedora for family members for
| years! Fedora on a Lenovo laptop has made my OS-related support
| calls plummet to zero, basically. I check their laptop once or
| twice a year (during holidays) to upgrade to the latest
| release.
|
| I spent a few hours setting up Firefox with an uBlock and set
| up an email client, and that was it.
|
| There was an awkward period where Wayland made screen sharing
| difficult, but switching to X made TeamViewer work again. From
| Fedora 39, I switched to using the built-in remote desktop
| function (RDP) + an always-on Wireguard connection, which makes
| screen sharing so smooth when I occasionally need to help with
| non-OS related challenges. This can also be used for SSH
| access, or whatever.
|
| I recently went with Fedora Silverblue for another relative,
| which makes everything stay up to date without them noticing.
| So far it has worked fine, but installing the printer driver
| was a bit different than usual - but not a problem.
|
| EDIT: Prior experiences has been primarily with macOS, and it
| has been a lot of trouble adjusting it to their needs and
| preferences.
| curt15 wrote:
| I second the Silverblue suggestion. With its image-based
| updates and read-only rootfs, it's the Linux distro most akin
| to ChromeOS.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I second the Linux recommendation. KDE has a desktop lockdown
| mode, and if that is not enough there is also a kiosk mode.
| It's better than foolproof - it is absolutely designed to
| enable secure, limited access to specific applications.
| reacweb wrote:
| Same for my mother using ubuntu. She do not know her password
| (the login is automatic). In case of problem, I connect using
| ssh.
|
| Most of admin tasks are apt-get update/upgrade, rmdir --ignore-
| fail-on-non-empty Bureau/* (because she creates empty directory
| on desktop). The command cupsenable DeskJet-3630-series allows
| to unstuck the printer without mouse access (I was on my phone
| with connectbot). I have changed the computer after 10 years.
| It was transparent for her.
| Baguette5242 wrote:
| If it is mainly for web-browsing, then Linux Mint, with only a
| web-browser (uBlock extension), and an Office suite. How can you
| go wrong with that ?
|
| It depends on the usage of course. If there's a need to manage
| pictures from the phone, some music etc... then Mac OS with non
| admin account. Buy a 1 To external hard drive and setup Time
| Machine, you can't go wrong with that neither.
| yourusername wrote:
| How are they removing system files when the machine is locked
| down? If you do not grant them local admin permissions and
| properly configure windows defender and remoting software that
| should be your solution. You can make the WiFi connection
| automatic/mandatory with local policies. I have to suggest the
| "locking down" part was not done properly or at all if a user was
| able to remove system files.
| davidthewatson wrote:
| I'm saddened by the responses here. It's not older users' fault.
| Design teams at leading tech companies have gotten a free pass
| for designing mcmansions in software without realizing that kids
| weren't the only generation being damaged when we designed this
| mess. My only hope now is that a Jonathan Haidt and Tristan
| Harris arise from the ashes to protect the elderly without
| blaming them for software design mistakes arising over the last 3
| decades that could have been avoided. Finance paved the way for
| abuse of the elderly. Sadly, big tech has picked up that torch
| and run with it.
| thepuppet33r wrote:
| Agreed. It's also both amusing and saddening to see the
| iOS/Windows/Android fanboys duking it out.
|
| Some good ideas in this thread, though. I'll curate a list of
| recommendations and provide it to him and hopefully he can undo
| some of the negative patterns their systems keep forcing on
| them.
| davidthewatson wrote:
| Thanks for your reply.
|
| I carry a Pixel in one pocket and an iPhone in the other
| while lamenting the two decades since the deprecation of my
| Sidekick. Much like the discussion about older users here,
| it's tragic that we can't learn anything outside Apple Park
| from the SE or the mini showing the path to light and fast
| form factors. I know I'm not alone there as all my friends
| made the same half-deprecated choices.
|
| A decade later, it's hard to blame Samsung for the Galaxy
| Note being so successful, particularly for older users who
| don't have my Coke bottle bifocals now that the entire
| Android market followed suit, even if they were a little late
| to the party.
| navane wrote:
| I used team viewer in the past, for trouble shooting. I had it
| all setup so I could join in one click. But then they updated
| team viewer and everyone need accounts etc, so the solution
| became part of the problem and I ditched it.
|
| Nowadays, windows has "quick assist", which works flawlessly to
| help one windows user as another.
|
| Seeing your elders, who used to be fine with desktop computing,
| slowly struggling more and more because UX "developers" are a
| fucking joke is infuriating.
| timbit42 wrote:
| There is also RustDesk which works on Windows but also Mac,
| Android, and Linux.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I think there is a "common repository of knowledge and tools"
| missing.
|
| I expect there is some dodgy company selling this as a "manage
| your older parents" app. BUt really this is a _social_ thing. As
| is "how do I set up a openwrt router to replace my crappy ISP"
| and "what's the best way to handle time on YouTube with my 11
| year old" and a hundred similar problems that really matter to
| people
|
| Some of this will be informed by scientific studies - ut these
| will be easier to do by using the phones themselves. Imagine a
| double blind study on YouTube habits for 9 year olds, where the
| researcher gets to download history and run weekly surveys with
| parents in behaviour etc etc
|
| I am not too sure where I am going but there is as always a
| missing third space here
| wiredfool wrote:
| My current issue in this space is the win11/outlook transition,
| confusion about connecting all of their accounts with Microsoft
| online accounts, and new outlook simply not working with our imap
| setup. (Your imap username must be your email address, and our
| setup is not that)
|
| What's the best classic old school imap email client for windows
| these days?
| mackatsol wrote:
| Thunderbird
| bradley13 wrote:
| My mother died a few years back, but my choice of OS was driven
| by finding someone who could give her local support. Telephone
| support just wasn't possible, because she was completely tech-
| illiterate and would get into some really strange situations, and
| get really impatient when I couldn't wave a magic wand through
| the phone connection.
|
| There was a retired gentleman in her area who made a hobby of
| helping other elderly folk. He used Apple, so she used Apple. If
| he'd used Windows, or Linux, or whatever - then that's what she
| would have used.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > There was a retired gentleman in her area who made a hobby of
| helping other elderly folk.
|
| Kudos to that guy.
|
| My mom is pretty good at figuring things out, she would
| sometimes ask me to help and if I couldn't figure it out
| (mostly because I've been using linux since the Windows ME
| shitshow) she would poke at it until it was fixed. She also has
| a couple embroidering machines and a crazy robo-sewing machine
| she likes to use so is motivated to do stuff on her own.
|
| My step-dad... he took a windows class through his work before
| he retired in the 90's and likes to break thing in fun and
| exciting ways, almost always wifi for some reason. Then my mom
| will look at it until he pisses her off and he has to go
| without a laptop until either myself or my bro-in-law visits
| and he 'allows' us to fix it. It would be tragic if my mom
| didn't find it amusing TBH.
|
| Now they have some sort of tech support that remotes into the
| machines when my step dad gets to fiddling. I made sure it
| wasn't one of those scams and they seem to be happy bickering
| about who does the grocery shopping instead of PCs so all's
| well in the household.
| teeray wrote:
| Not PCs, but I consider my parents' network an extension of mine
| (with their consent, of course). They are on Unifi gear that I
| can completely remotely manage.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| Nokia, that's all
| arnaudsm wrote:
| The elderly are the most susceptible to falling into dark
| patterns, and most commercial software nowadays is full of them.
|
| Windows 11 was the last straw, I ended up moving my grandma to
| Gnome. And I control her desktop remotely whenever she needs
| help.
|
| Also smartphones are too cumbersome after a certain age, when you
| have subpar reaction time and large fingers.
| Loughla wrote:
| Mint is great for the elderly as well. It's Windows lite, but
| random .exe's won't work. And the file system is different
| enough they won't poke around in there.
| smohnot wrote:
| Semi-relatedly, I had my parents sign up for
| https://www.charlie.com/ There are a bunch of great anti-fraud
| features including one that lets me be a co-pilot on their
| account.
|
| Some features: it doesn't allow transactions while they are
| asleep, can block all transactions online except for merchants
| that you allow, limit international spend, and they have a
| feature that you can forward any email that you are curious about
| and it'll tell you if it's likely to be fraud.
|
| highly recommend.
| hiatus wrote:
| I've seen you mention charlie in other forums including
| linkedin. Do you have any affiliation with them?
| onion2k wrote:
| _check their stocks_
|
| Old people should sell their investments and enjoy themselves
| more. That's the whole point of investments.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _Sigh_. I 'm a career IT guy; this is yet another thing I'll want
| to preplan and have ready for my kids.
| bluehatbrit wrote:
| Given the rate of change, for both UX and scams, I think it's
| probably best not to pre-plan. There's a very high chance you
| won't be able to predict the way you'll need to interact with
| technology in the future. Knowing how stubborn people get as
| they age, it's likely better to make sure your kids are
| generally tech savvy and find ways to learn to trust them as
| you get older.
|
| They'll be better placed to keep up with everything and figure
| out the best path forward when we're old stubborn gits!
| user070223 wrote:
| Not for managing phone, but I highly recommend
| https://baldphone.com/ as Android UI/skin for elderly
| le-mark wrote:
| Don't, let them pay for support like a normal person. "I work
| with servers not phones/pcs". Cruel? Maybe but so is their taking
| advantage of their tech literate family.
|
| We actually have a local shop that does really good work. If more
| tech people refused to do free tech support, this could be a
| thriving niche (and put geek squad out of business).
| epc wrote:
| I moved my MIL to the Apple ecosystem circa 2009-2010 and have
| mostly been satisfied.
|
| She has a normal (not admin) user account on her Mac. She cannot
| install applications*. Her Documents folder is synced to iCloud.
| Everything is backed up with Time Machine, and for good measure I
| rsync her home directory to my own backup periodically. She uses
| a locked down Google Worksplace account (this cost more since we
| pay for one admin account and her restricted account). She can
| access everything from her iPhone and her iPads.
|
| Surprises: some applications can be downloaded and will install
| themselves into ~/Applications, these usually are the thousand or
| so zoom/webex/webmeetinggo variants. Initially we did not lock
| down her Google Chrome and she kept installing "Extensions that
| will speed up your browser experience!" which of course were
| scams, so we locked her out of installing Chrome Extensions (this
| has made it difficult to legitimately install chrome extensions
| unfortunately). She has, through what I'm guessing were bad UI
| questions for someone now in her 80s, wiped out her Documents
| folder multiple times, syncing the deletions to her iCloud.
| Minimal actual loss since thanks to my paranoid backup
| strategies.
|
| Hard: she's been using Macs on and off since the 1990s. Each new
| recent release of MacOS or iOS has become a bit of a nightmare.
| While I get the relentless need to upgrade and improve and sell
| more widgets I really wish there was an LTS strategy we could opt
| into that was just security or sev 1 style bug fixes.
|
| Really hard: I fell into this because every time she went into an
| Apple Store or tech shop for support they 1) would ask her what
| her Apple ID was and then just go off and create another one for
| her anyway. I found six before I got her to understand it's just
| her email address. 2) Every tech guy has his own way of doing
| shit, myself included, and it's utterly baffling to someone who
| simultaneously has been using computers for decades and yet is
| very much non technical.
|
| She's in her mid 80s now, I think we're on her last MacBook Air,
| which I just moved her to in the past year or so. The next
| upgrade, if necessary, is probably to a Chromebook.
| greggsy wrote:
| > I really wish there was an LTS strategy
|
| IMO, macOS is the only consumer LTS desktop around these days.
| Windows UX is going a million miles a minute with new Copilot
| junk every other day, intrusive widgets, and an exceedingly
| unpleasant browsing experience with shopping, coupons, MSN and
| _more_ Copilot.
|
| Edit: forgot ChromeOS. It's a proper mainstream LTS desktop.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >I think we're on her last MacBook Air, ... The next upgrade,
| if necessary, is probably to a Chromebook.
|
| Perhaps I'm stepping out of line by saying this, but: That
| Macbook Air isn't her last and the next upgrade will be
| necessary.
|
| Yes, we all pass eventually, but death is horrible both for the
| individual and the loved ones, so it's worth "lalala"ing it
| away for trivial things like this and enjoying what time we
| have.
|
| Anecdata: My mother passed five months ago. I was her tech
| support. I miss her, tech support and all.
| epc wrote:
| Based on mutual family histories, there's a very real chance
| she (85) will outlive me (56). The "if necessary" was more
| about whether this MBA is driven over by a taxi or if Apple
| updates cease for it.
| beauzero wrote:
| Made this same decision with my mom in her late 50's. She went
| back to work and uses Microsoft day to day at her job...but the
| Apple decision both for PC and for phone has been very
| beneficial. It was always more intuitive for her.
| hpen wrote:
| It's obvious that you're on Android + PC because these is truly
| an outdated question.
| interestica wrote:
| MacOS + TimeMachine + iPhone/iPad + Chrome/Google + Chrome Remote
| Desktop is my 'elderly stack'
| bcx wrote:
| Have you considered chromeOS for the pc, I've had pretty good
| luck with it as an is for kids, and you can lock a lot down with
| family controls
| thekevan wrote:
| I live this every week. I regularly get calls from my dad about a
| phone, computer or tablet that is not working right. When I
| address it, it is always either he is using it incorrectly or we
| can't reproduce the error a second time--which usually means he
| wasn't using it correctly.
|
| One thing that has helped is getting him better with voice
| instructions on his iPhone and Amazon tablet. When he messes up
| the device by clicking on something, he doesn't know where to tap
| to fix it but he can tell it to do so verbally. That has reduced
| the amount of tech support calls.
|
| I also have Team Viewer installed and set up so I can just remote
| into their computer. I had to delete the shortcuts for Edge (and
| IE when it was there) because they are more likely to download a
| searchbar or something than they are with Firefox.
| mysteria wrote:
| If you have the local infrastructure for it (or do it on cloud)
| VDI is an option. It's easy to snapshot, backup, and reimage, and
| if you store their files on a network drive a reimage won't
| affect it. You can also easily remotely access their machines to
| install software and inspect the machine, and you'll be doing so
| anyways as they shouldn't have root privileges.
|
| VDI can be usably fast even with no GPU; for instance with a
| 8GBx8vCPU instance on an Ivy Bridge server I can actually watch
| 1080p Youtube with no frame drops.
| klinquist wrote:
| One thing I didn't see mentioned, assuming you're all on Apple
| devices: Add your parents as "children" to your iCloud account.
| That'll let you restrict access to things and reset their
| password if necessary.
| jszymborski wrote:
| For PC, I have a relied on ancient Acer Chromebooks for my family
| and it's worked amazingly. Only trouble they get into is
| accepting spammy Web Notification prompts.
|
| If I had to get them a PC that wasn't a Chromebook, I'd consider
| VanillaOS or some other immutable distro.
|
| https://vanillaos.org/
|
| EDIT: Oh, and uBlock Origin is essential.
| walteweiss wrote:
| Fedora Silverlight for PC.
|
| Or ChromeOS Flex, if you need only the browser. Basically zero
| maintenance system.
|
| iPad and iPhone for mobile devices, they just work. I think
| slightly outdated devices are the best: they still very good, are
| cheap and won't attack with the updates. These days I would say
| it's iPhones 6S or 7, and iPad Air 2 or even iPad Pro 12.9 (1st
| Gen.). They are very cheap, still support all of the basic apps
| and are very good for anyone. Even I myself use the devices from
| that epic till today.
| Diederich wrote:
| It's going to be super interesting when millions of my fellow
| tech-savvy gen-Xers get really old.
| asow92 wrote:
| Chromeos flex could be worth looking at, and depending on the
| build of their old machine, they may not need to buy a new
| computer at all. CPU, RAM, and SSD upgrades could help if it's
| 15+ years old though.
|
| I recently did this to my family's old 20" 2007 iMac and it's
| perfectly adequate for light web browsing, email, and youtube.
| Not too shabby for a 17 year old computer.
|
| The best part is that it's secure and easy to use for those less
| tech literate.
| extr wrote:
| This is the kind of stuff I do for my parents (early 70s):
|
| - They both have the same phone: iPhone 13, so we all have a
| shared context for how phones work.
|
| - Maintain Google Family/iCloud family subscriptions so they
| don't worry about storage or losing data. I do yearly in-person
| hard backups of their computers and phones (mostly photos).
|
| - Create them synthetic iCloud accounts with email addresses that
| are just aliases for my email.
|
| - Password managers + adblocking on everything. They don't know
| how to create passwords really but at least it autofills easily.
|
| - They use Eero router and I am the admin - so I can remotely
| check network status, restart it, etc (this is REALLY nifty -
| "internet is messed up" questions dropped 100% when I switched
| this over from a NetGear router).
|
| - Similarly, I set their router to NextDNS and block ads +
| threats for them.
| techcode wrote:
| Sounds like those parents would benefit from having a Chromebook?
|
| If they want to play games then SteamDeck or such
|
| Otherwise for phones, I just give my mum same/similar device to
| one I'm using (e.g. Motorola Moto G[number]). There's ~1800km in
| between us, so by using same or very similar device - I can hand
| hold her step by step.
|
| And actually phone is usually not a problem - it's the TV. In
| order to have good Internet we've switched her from cable (coax
| so TV tuner was same as last few decades) to fiber. With fiber,
| now TV is basically IPTV/SmartTV - and she just wants to turn it
| on and use +/- and digits for channels and volume.
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Chromebooks even have Steam nowadays. Oh and Android apps and
| games of course.
| fallat wrote:
| VNC + Tailscale. I can VNC into their machines at any time and
| help them.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| iPad with the keyboard was transformative for my in laws. If they
| need a PC, a MacBook in user mode.
|
| Otherwise a MacBook without admin rights.
|
| Whatever beef people have with Apple, it's a better solution for
| this scenario, period. When elders start struggling with these
| issues, it can make them feel helpless and fearful... avoiding
| that is both a technical solution issue and quality of life
| issue.
|
| Futzing around with Intune is a waste of time and requires
| upkeep. In most situations, you can leave an iPad in place for
| 4-6 years with no fiddling.
| icyberbullyu wrote:
| We switched my grandmother-in-law over to Linux last year and the
| amount of support calls I've had to do has dropped to 0. All she
| does is use chrome to check her email, and occasionally edit a
| document. A majority of the time she phoned for me to come 'fix
| her computer' it was just a Windows update that had reset some
| setting, or was trying to get her to sign up for a Microsoft
| account before she could log in, or some other obnoxious crap
| that made her think that her computer was broken.
|
| We put her on Debian with Cinnamon as the DE, and downloaded a
| Windows 10 theme. We even put the Windows 10 logo as the start
| button. For her, she has 0 idea that she's even using Linux
| except for the fact that her computer doesn't randomly "break"
| anymore. All this with the added benefit that I can do remote
| support far more easily now.
|
| The other huge benefit is when other relatives come over and
| start poking and prodding, it's far harder for them to do any
| damage. A few times I needed to 'fix' things was because her 60
| year-old son (who knows nothing about computers, but is a medical
| doctor so he must know what he's doing) would come over and
| install a bunch of scammy antivirus software, change a bunch of
| settings, then leave proclaiming that the problem was "fixed".
| Switching to Linux has helped at keeping his fingers out of the
| pot immensely.
| fckgw wrote:
| I setup my parent's routers to use my NextDNS account and turned
| on adblock and scam/malware filtering. It has help cut down on a
| ton of issues they might have seen otherwise.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| I am profoundly grateful that my dad (84) is still very healthy,
| mentally acute, and tech-literate enough to avoid scams. If
| anything, he's even more paranoid than I am.
|
| But he will have nothing to do with smartphones even though he's
| a long time gadget freak with an engineering background, and at
| this point my mom would have difficulty using anything other than
| a landline. I got them onto VoIP with an unlocked analog
| telephone adapter some years back when the poorly maintained
| landline (loud hum when plugged into the demarc) became too
| horrible to use.
|
| His frustrations with Windows 10 (and MS's irritating habit of
| "helpfully" changing your settings) are about to the boiling
| point, but there's a hell of a lot of Stockholm syndrome involved
| in getting him to use anything else, not to mention he still uses
| a DOS app via DOSbox. I'm not sure how insufferable Windows will
| need to get before he would be willing to jump ship. Windows 8
| was enough for me, but only because I can do anything I
| personally need on any random Linux distro.
| aristofun wrote:
| 90 year old grandma test is the ultimate test of quality and
| usability of your software/hardware.
|
| Telling from experience - 99% of modern products don't even come
| close to passing the test.
|
| _Some_ of features of _some_ of apple products come close though.
| ingvar77 wrote:
| We keep all our parents on iPhone + iPad combo. All of them are
| very heavy iPad users, sometimes it seems they spend 90% of their
| time reading something in iPad. Honestly, we do not have any
| issues to resolve at all, everything just works. My wife's father
| used to be moderate Excel user for his small business needs, it
| was a challenge to convince him to try Google Sheets / Docs as
| alternative but he switched over time.
| deeth_starr_v wrote:
| I feel for them. I've got a backup image of wife's parents
| macbook air and ipad that I've had to use a few times. I was
| using remote desktop software but they once clicked a fullscreen
| "Your Computer is Infected" ad and followed "Apple Support's"
| instructions to download a new RD app and give them full control.
| Luckily the give full control dialog got lost behind the web scam
| fullscreen. I got rid of remote desktop apps and told them to
| never allow remote desktop apps again. I've come to the
| conclusion that any sort of banking or account tied to money is
| too much of a risk.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Whatever kind of desktop is used, Chrome Remote Desktop is the
| most reliable way I've seen of connecting to deal with stuff.
| Better than Teamviewer too.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| My wife has survived more than half a dozen strokes.
|
| She accidentally moves around the icons on her Pixel phone until
| we can not even bring back the list of all apps you get by
| swiping up.
|
| I need a way to lock down the icons so it would take a very
| coordinated person to unlock them, but Google refuses to allow
| that.
| n_ary wrote:
| If possible, buy them an old iPhone 7/8/10/11. These are fairly
| cheap at this point and hard to brick or infect.
|
| For PC, just install ChromeOS Flex! It is super barebones and
| locked down, so even if they download stuff, it is hard to
| install anything and File Explorer does not give direct access to
| OS files. You can Turn On linux dev env and install some
| interesting applications using flatpak, which are adequate and
| still has limited access to everything unless they are savvy
| enough to go tinkering around with apt tools.
| d416 wrote:
| Tell your friend to call his parents more - Most parental 'tech
| issues' escalate as an excuse to see and talk to their children
| more, rather than the flash attention they usually need to settle
| for.
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