How can I remotely change settings on an iPhone?

[KTK1990]

I am about 600 miles away from my parents, and they are having issues with their iPhones. When trying to help them out over the phone it ends up in a lot of confusion when they get in a different menu.

Is there any good way for me to remotely view or control the settings app on their phones?

I have a iMac running Yosemite with Xcode, they have a 4s and 5s running iOS 8. The only two options I've thought of now is a regular call or using our iPads to FaceTime each other and show just the iPhone screen during the chat.

Thanks.

 

[Shadowbech]

Not that I know of, but do they not have Apple store near them?

If not I would say facetime would be the best option and just show them what needs to be done.

 

[617aircav]

Even if it was possible, you would have had to set it up before hand.

 

[lordofthereef]

Are there a ton of settings they want to change? You can set up assistive touch (so they see what to select) and just take screenshots of your own device, no?

 

[KTK1990]

Not that I know of, but do they not have Apple store near them?

If not I would say facetime would be the best option and just show them what needs to be done.

Thanks. They do, but I don't like their closest Apple Store. The "geniuses" there aren't that great, when trying to optimize battery life they changed made it worse.

I was going to look through all their settings and change nearly everything. Like removing email addresses they don't use in the email app, changing from push to hour fetch. Disabling background updates and stuff.