Thanks for some of the replies.
Yes, I think many are missing the joke in the title and taking things a little to literal, however some good stories have stemmed from it.
It is an iPhone 5S.
She has it working enough to send text and unlike the android she has previously owned has taken to the iPhone well so far.
Yes in Australia the feature phone 2G network is about to get the flick and is what has led us to making this post.
The phone has only got 10G of storage (so must be a 16G 5S). We will need to off load a fair bit in the near future as us "kids" (or young whipper snappers as we are better known as) send her photos and video she'll no doubt want to keep.
I have a bunch of her photos already that I will transfer to her new iPhoto account.
As for using an apple email as an apple ID, I was under the impression this was not possible and would like to know more because it makes sense that apple would want their emails used for their accounts.
I don't wish to have any of her data on my macbook, in fact I don't have much of mine on it either and I'd like to keep it that way.
My Macs are clean, well organised and not full of junk or with messy file structures, I'd like her iTunes, iPhoto etc on an external drive for more flexibility of use.
Oh iCloud. Yeah. Well for us, we have to sell body parts to afford to access the data on 4G. She doesn't have an internet connection.
On top of that, it is a PrePaid account and her prepaid credit will get destroyed by the phone carrier Telstra if she so much as thinks of accessing the cloud. In Australia we think about vegemite a lot because of this.
Using iCloud for storage is out of the question.
10G of free storage is not going to stretch far either.
I like the seperate user account.
I like the external drive.
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Will your mother use this very expensive phone to its full potential or just use one for calls, some texting ? Maybe you should let her try your phone on for size for a bit to see if she really needs one. One older person is different than the next for needing a smartphone.
I'm 70, and sent my iPhone 6s+ back since it was way more money than I should have paid for some thing I don't use to its fullest, and settled for a 5S instead, since all I use it for is calls, photos, a few texting, weather information, and some SIRI stuff
Mum, is that you?
The 5S is a freebie hand me down, so no matter what the usage, that's the phone she has. The old network won't support her old phone.
She is taking to it really well.
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My Non-Tech savvy Mother and Aunt both took to the iPad in record time. It just takes Patience and some babysitting from your end in teaching your mother. The most important thing is to re-assure her that she can't "mess up" the iPad or iPhone... be there for her when it goes wrong.
Get her an unlimited data plan and then you won't have to worry about any rogue apps or explaining differences in Wifi/Mobile.
PS. Would it kill you to facetime your mother every once in a while?
Unlimited data. Ahhh the dream.
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My mother uses an iPad and an iPhone. She's 81. She syncs only to iCloud, although she knows how to copy her photos to her PC, should she need to.
I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
iCloud is out of reach for her. There is not an affordable prepaid option that is data friendly. Plans are out of the question.