What's the best home computer and cell phone set up for my aging mom?

[stui_magpie]

@cher3

This is interesting. My husband is sure that she should have an ipad and an iphone, but the consensus here seems otherwise, and I’m starting to agree. She claims to be “visual”, but she is used to a keyboard and mouse to the extent that she is a computer user at all. It’s easy to get around on touch screens, but maybe less easy to get yourself out it you get lost inside some app or other. She really can’t make heads or tail out of her current cell phone and I find it pretty unintuitive myself.

I kind of like the idea of a simple, “emergency” cell phone with a few key numbers. That’s really what she needs it for.

This is the phone I got my mum. https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/prepaid-mobiles/telstra-easycall-3

You may be able to get something similar. She lives alone and had a fall a couple of years ago and broke her hip. I got this phone and told her to make sure she takes it with her if she goes into the garden. If she falls over again all she has to do is push the panic button.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@gaffa

It’s impossible to screw it up…

Bwahahaha! Chromebook hasn’t met my mother! She calls me at least once a month because she has screwed up the TV remote again, and that just requires one button. I love her, but technical she ain’t.

[PatrickLondon]

One further suggestion: whatever solution you finally settle for, make sure there’s a written-down description of the set-up, how it puts together, and how to get it working again if anything else goes wrong, and keep it in a safe place (or more than one). Might be worth writing a simple set of instructions your mother can refer to, as well.

[puzzlegal]

@cher3

She isn’t really “used to” anything. She’s never had an email account or used the internet for herself. She can use the cell phone as a phone, as long as she doesn’t hit the wrong app button and get lost somewhere. She thinks of herself as a computer user because she had a bookkeeping job back in 1992, but since then, her use has been pretty much limited to Quicken and Solitaire.

If she uses Qucken, she is used to having a keyboard. She won’t like a tablet. Not if she has to type on it. And there’s kind of no point to email if you can’t reply.

She might like playing solitaire on a tablet, though. Tablets work really well for that sort of task.

[gaffa]

@Doctor_Jackson

Bwahahaha! Chromebook hasn’t met my mother! She calls me at least once a month because she has screwed up the TV remote again, and that just requires one button. I love her, but technical she ain’t.

It would be an interesting test case then. It is a device to visit web sites. No hard drive, no local programs.

[puzzlegal]

My son’s has a small hard drive. It doesn’t run software off the hard drive, but it does store some media there.

[Napier]

I vote for an iPhone and either an iMac or iPad or both, depending on how your mom is with the physical act of typing. I have these three things and have them all synced together. I use mostly the native Apple apps, though I use iBank for personal accounting (on the iMac only) and a password manager that is a bit too complicated.

I’m motivated first by just wanting the stuff to work, without me having to make a hobby out of it. I’m disappointed that things screw up as often as they do, but the alternatives are certainly worse (I hate how much trouble I go through because we must use PCs at work).

I also like the idea of having some kind of “computer friend” to help with it. The Apple Store kind of claims to be that, but it’s such an overstimulating madhouse that I think finding a personal alternative is better.

[AllShookDown]

My mother was awful at the PC. It took forever to get her to understand using Reply instead of Reply to All. She also always managed to get her computer to slow to a crawl after a few months of having a new one. She knew how to type so that was ok for her. I think an iPad would have been much easier for her and prevented her from getting viruses and stuff and just generally screwing things up. Her biggest problem with iPads (which she only used once or twice before she died) was that she had long fingernails and didn’t understand that she had to use skin to screen contact to make thinks work. I think she’d have figured that out if she’d have had more time with one. She had a hard time getting around so the iPad would have been easier for her, rather than having to get up to go to the computer.

[gaffa]

@AllShookDown

My mother was awful at the PC. It took forever to get her to understand using Reply instead of Reply to All. She also always managed to get her computer to slow to a crawl after a few months of having a new one.

Again, that’s the argument for a Chromebox. You use the standard keyboard and monitor that probably already is connected to the desktop machine that gets funked up. It cannot, as far as I can tell, be infected with malware. I just moved some friends who are not tech savvy from a Windows 7 machine to a Chromebox.