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iPad My elderly Mother gets her first iPad

Thank you, that was very interesting. You have tremendous patience for teaching someone not familiar with computers. I wish I had that when dealing with my own mother!
 
I bet she will pick it up quickly and love it. I got my now 74 year old mother an iPad a couple of years ago before she went on a cross-country train trip with a friend.

That first weekend she was completely intimidated by it. Quickly she became very comfortable. She uses it all the time and takes it everywhere - from reading books, playing games, surfing the net, reading email (and filling my inbox with FW:FW: FW: FW: emails), watching Netflix (loves watching old shows) she's a regular pro.
 
mantan said:
I bet she will pick it up quickly and love it. I got my now 74 year old mother an iPad a couple of years ago before she went on a cross-country train trip with a friend.

That first weekend she was completely intimidated by it. Quickly she became very comfortable. She uses it all the time and takes it everywhere - from reading books, playing games, surfing the net, reading email (and filling my inbox with FW:FW: FW: FW: emails), watching Netflix (loves watching old shows) she's a regular pro.
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Would you believe my Mother is older than that?
 
I took my mom to buy an iPad air this summer when her old ancient computer finally died. I said momma all you do is check email once in awhile and occasionally check the news and such. An iPad is all you need. You can use it anywhere. The couch. Laying in bed. Even in the tub. She hardly put it down the rest of the two weeks I was there.
 
foofan said:
Would you believe my Mother is older than that?
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My 81 year old Grandma has decided after 15 years of owning the same flip phone, she wants an iPhone 5s. I don't even know...

With your Mother, did you let her learn the device on her own and walk her though the basics or did you show her everything?
 
Nyy8 said:
My 81 year old Grandma has decided after 15 years of owning the same flip phone, she wants an iPhone 5s. I don't even know...

With your Mother, did you let her learn the device on her own and walk her though the basics or did you show her everything?
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so far i have to show her most stuff. i noticed at beginning she had a bad habit of tapping with her long nails and it didn't seem to work as well. i had to make her understand that she needs to avoid using just her nails
 
What I have found with older family members is that they are very hesitant to just play around with iOS and figure out how things work for themselves. Probably because their tech experience was with early PC's running Windows. It's like they are afraid they will break the device or get themselves somewhere they can't figure out how to back out of. At the same time, if you walk them through it every time, they never learn to do it on their own and are lost on the device the moment someone is not nearby to help them. My parents and MIL all use and enjoy their iPads but do not use them as well or as broadly as they could which makes me sad as technology can open up the world to an isolated elderly person. Email, Internet, Netflix pretty much covers it. They seem to even have trouble sometimes distinguishing email from text messages! Every time I go to visit, I play tech trouble-shooter....:eek:. My advice is always "just play with your phone/iPad - don't be afraid of it!".
 
That is a perfect example of the genius of Steve. Within a short amount of time a 18 month old baby or a 90 year old can be opened to a new world. What a beautiful thing!
 
Angler said:
That is a perfect example of the genius of Steve. Within a short amount of time a 18 month old baby or a 90 year old can be opened to a new world. What a beautiful thing!
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she does have experience with Mac OS X, but it has taken years of me explaining everything. She spent the 80's using Tandy & IBM compatible computers. then in the 90's she got sucked into the whole windows 95 crap. she actually was even on the news the day win95 came out. a local news station wanted to film her at home with her grandson installing it.

It hasn't been easy getting her to switch to Mac. Even much later it was still hard to convince her that apple pages is more than enough for her and she doesn't have to have microsoft office.

As of today, sunday, she is enjoying lots of games the iPad has. she is amazed at how beautiful screen is too.

I don't like them, but i'm wondering now if she would benefit from using a stylus
 
Appl3FTW said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets super frustrated when teaching my mom with technical stuff
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The way to cure yourself of that: Picture yourself, elderly and frail. This will happen a lot sooner than you think.

Let's say you can't move as fast as you used to, and your son or daughter is getting impatient for you to move faster and think faster. Pretend you hear your son or daughter getting "super frustrated" in their voice and starting to condescend. Worse, pretend their voice lacks any sense of warmth or understanding, let alone love. Just disgust at how stupid you seem or how incapable you are.

Can't picture yourself ever getting old and frail?

What are types of problems that you weren't smart enough to figure out in school? Let's say that you really want to and need to figure out a physics problem, and you just can not pick it up fast enough for the patience level of the person teaching you.

Then you will realize how selfish the notion of being "super frustrated" is.
It's not about you. You need to step out of your own skin, and into the skin of the person you're trying to communicate with.

At that point, the problem you have to solve is to figure out how to communicate well enough or at a pace slow enough that would enable someone else to enjoy technology vs being frustrated by it.


I hope I am lucky to live long enough to become "elderly". Then, I hope I am lucky enough to have just 1 person who cares about me enough to be patient, loving, and tender with me.
 
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foofan said:
I don't like them, but i'm wondering now if she would benefit from using a stylus
Click to expand...

My mom uses a stylus. She says her fingers must be too dry or something so the touch doesn't always register when she taps with her fingers.
 
I think some videos or books may help my mother understand her iPad better. Anyone know of any good beginner tutorial videos online or a good book that explains the newest version, iPad air2?
 
Good video.

I’m used to helping out friends and neighbours with their tech, so it’s a familiar experience for me.

I have some sympathy for your mother. It must be very difficult for those who are completely new to the technology.

I’ve noticed that it’s not just novice users who seem to struggle, but also some people I regard as being computer literate!

The setup procedures get more complicated, the devices come with limited instructions and you can only access the manual once you have completed the setup.

I really think that Apple, and other tech companies, could learn a lot about improving the usability of their devices by watching novice users.

I would suggest you let your mother watch some youtube videos to get familiar with the basics. I came across the following, unfortunately it's only iOS5, but most of it should still be relevant and it seems to be well explained -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxhlknX2O-Q

Keep us updated on how your mother is adapting.
 
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My mother took a bit to train on the iPad and dad I remember "Bah! I don't understand how these things work" grrr etc. But now mom is looking to buy a new ipad mini because dad keeps hogging her ipad!

I helped with the cost of an iMac for dad because I got tired of being computer help force and maintenance for the PC. I haven't received but 2 phone calls asking for help in 2 years or so now. Bliss is!
 
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