To think I might actually die trying to sort out DM's iPhone?

My m and d recently had some internet connectivity issues, after 30 minutes they declared they’d have to move (a house they’ve lived in for 40 years!) as it was unthinkable to live without it! how would they get Alexa to tell them the weather (they have a home pod with Siri- a fact I have to remind them every time they call to tell me Alexa isn’t working!)
Seems in the middle of the night they shout to her and ask her the time so they don’t have to turn a light on to look (despite having a phone/s on the bedside. Honestly. They are a nightmare.

We recently paid for my mum to have 'the internet' installed.

She has one of my old phones, an old tablet from my cousin, a kindle reader and a firestick.

In the last 12 months she has 'broken google', broken her kindle, locked herself out of the tablet, has 3 fb accounts and still can't send photos (which is a blessing).

She phoned me hysterically crying when her kindle broke. I had to go immediately and mend it because she was 3/4 of the way through Martina Coles newest book. Apparently me saying she knew how it ended, cos the bad brother always ends up dead, some gangsters mrs runs away and the rest of them get a long stretch while the hero walks away with the million quid of drug money wasn't helping.

It wasn't even broken, just had crashed halfway through doing an update because she turns the fucking broadband off when she goes to bed.

And don't even get me started on having it installed.

'Mum, someone is coming at 10am on Wednesday to put the internet on for you'

'Ok, lovely'

1pm
'I still don't have internet, I need to meet auntie sandra at 2pm, can you find out when he's coming?'

Me, after 45 mins contacting talktalk.

'Mum, they say someone's been already, at 9.30am'

'Yes, Darren came and left me a box thing and some cards and an information pack, but I got a text saying he would be here at 10am after he had gone, so I thought he was coming back'.

'Mum, did he plug a little box thing in with little lights?'

'Yes, and he did some stuff with my phone, and that ipad (its a Samsung tablet but we let her call it an ipad) and my kindle but he hasn't been back yet'.

'Mum, turn your ipad on, can you google stuff from your ipad?'

Can hear mum going 'hello google, google can you find cute kitten videos?'

'Oh it's working, does that mean I have internet now?'

And then the firestick broke, she had knocked it out a bit dusting. And a million other tech malfunctions that she is always hysterical abaout because she can't live without internet now, cos she can catch up on her soaps if she misses stuff. Sigh.

Oh I've loved reading this.
My mum is fairly technologically illiterate, but can't hold a candle to your folks!
I have come to the conclusion that she's deeply suspicious of anything that seems too easy. For example - why use the black mould killer that you spray on and five minutes later it's all clear when you can spend hours scrubbing and hefting washing up bowls of bleach about.
She's the same with tech. Because when you use it properly it really does make things quicker and easier. She's got there in the end and can actually use stuff, but us still deeply suspicious of most of it.
My dad, on the other hand, has no excuse. He's a retired software engineer. You'd think he'd get it. But he told me not to use his pc as the internet was very slow on it.
Yes dad, that's because you've got fifty three tabs trying to load!
Oh, but they're all interesting things.
Dad, seriously, use the bookmark function! Oh look, I've bookmarked your tabs, closed them down and now your pc doesn't take half an hour to load internet explorer!
Sheesh.
He once had internet security set sooo tight people couldn't email me back as my email address was blocked from view. I pointed out that if I'd emailed someone then that meant I didn't mind then knowing my email address and he did relent.
Then, a year later we had no internet security at all as he'd only got a year for free and "didn't see the point" of paying for an upgrade.
You see my dad is bad with tech in different ways despite having spent his whole career working with it.

DFIL gets confused between FB and Google so often updates FB with statuses like 'how to change your fb photo' and 'what time does co-op close'

Saying that we got DD an electronic diary when she was 7, she spent three whole days repeating her name in various intonations which shed set as the password and the fecker still wouldn't open. Took batteries out

Nothing tops the time my dm couldn’t get her phone to charge so brought it to me. And handed me the tv remote from her handbag.
She was so mad at me for pointing that out.

That made me laugh!

I have been called upon endless occasions by my DM to sort out her phone. Only she has a Samsung and I don’t so I have no idea how to work it, I just guess. And most of the time she has it turned off so getting hold of her is actually quite hard.

This thread is hilarious, def Classics fodder 😂

My DGrandma has an ‘iPad’ (it’s not, it’s a Samsung tablet). She uses it to send us emails ALL IN CAPS or where the whole email is written in the subject line, and she has the Daily Fail app on it.

I once went through her ‘ipad’ to sort something out for her and ended up deleting a few useless apps she had somehow downloaded. Anyway, this resulted in the Daily Fail app being shifted onto another page. Cue panicked phone call to say that the Daily Fail has disappeared and basically accusing me of deleting it which is actually very tempting The panic in her voice when she thought it had gone!

Accountant222 this is comedy gold.

There was the time my dad accidentally switched the keyboard settings to French. That was fun to work out.

Dear DS

I know you sometimes get frustrated when I ask you to do something IT related for me but tell me so to my face rather than venting on Mumsnet!!!And although I know this great thread is light hearted please remember you have surprising gaps in your everyday knowledge too

A vote for Classics!

I think I’m one of these mothers . I upgraded my IPhone but then had 6 weeks of complaining to all & sundry that I couldn’t hear people talking on phone calls & had to put it on speaker all the time. I finally went to the Apple store ready to tell them how rubbish my spanky new phone was- I was told very gently by a nice young man that I’d put my screen protector on upside down & was covering the microphone . Some youth behind me couldn’t disguise his sniggering.

I mean, this is going into classics, for sure. If I was a stand up comedian, this thread alone is evidence that there’s a rich seam of material here, grounded in some very common experience.

😂

God, reading this thread, I now feel guilty for losing patience with my poor mother and her iPhone. I now realise she’s pretty good with it actually: positively Zuckerbergian in comparison with some of the stories here!

Even if she does have her Apple ID and password (along with other software passwords) written down on the back of a rectangular piece of cardboard cut from a Cornflakes packet.

My DM is the same. Even the cat cat works the laptop better - she (DCat) can at least press the right keys to turn the screen display upside down and still have a paw left over.

As well as the laptop, DM has an old desktop computer in the spare bedroom. This is mostly used by DNiece to print off her homework, as SIL has clocked that this reduces her ink bill significantly. When the PC would not work and I couldn’t fix it, DM rang PC World to make an appointment to bring it in for repairing.
PC World Guy on Phone: What type of computer is it?
DM: An upstairs computer

Unfortunately, this is a hereditary condition. One day, DGM rang DM on her landline. DM was out, so DGM got the answer phone. Several times. DM returned home to find several messages consisting only of sets of clicks and sighs, followed by the last message, which was DGM saying, “Would you PLEASE tell my daughter that I wish to speak to her IMMEDIATELY?”

My DH's aunt is like this. It's painful. Every other week he pops round to visit her, she has a long list of things that need fixing around the house and also asks if he can help with [iPad/ phone/ tv].
When her husband passed away, it was a shock to find him commenting on things on Facebook after his death. Turned out she had gone onto his iPad and hadn't realised Facebook was logged into his account not hers. 🤦🏻‍♀️
Every so often we get a call saying her tv isn't working again or can we come round and retune it as she's lost her favourite channel.
I stay out of it now, it was painful enough when I had to set up her Facebook account in the first place.

Nothing tops the time my dm couldn’t get her phone to charge so brought it to me. And handed me the tv remote from her handbag.
She was so mad at me for pointing that out.

Oh God. My dad is currently driving me mad with his brick phone.

The fucking thing has a torch on it and every single time he goes out he manages to turn it on. I've shown him countless times how to turn it off but no, he just hands it over to me to fix. I'm at the point where I think he's doing it deliberately to wind me up 😂😂😂

Not to mention the 7 blank texts and 5 phonecalls I had when I looked at my phone after my last exam. I was convinced something bad had happened but no, he was just 'figuring out how to work it'

Don't even get me started on the saga of mam and her tablet.

DF was lent an old brick phone when he went away for a few days.
The second day he took it into a phone shop because it was ‘broken and no longer working’.
He’d forgotten he had to charge it and hadn’t taken the charge lead with him.

My mother has three FB accounts and I keep getting notifications she wants me to be her friend. I add her, then a new account pops up. I swear she does it to annoy me.

My parents never come to me for IT help though. They say my cousin sorts it all out from his computer. I hope to god it actually is my cousin.

Best thread ever 😂

@Whatishappenin how was you not tempted to email back " I don't have one" I would of just to see the confusion arise

Another one when my Nan first got a mobile I had to write down press top left for contacts etc go down until you find contact press green to call red to hang up..apparently this was too difficult so I had to draw the buttons onto the paper also. FUCK ME THERES ONLY ONE TOP LEFT BUTTON ITS NOT THAT HARD SYLVIE was my granddads reply after I'd came round 3 days in a row to show her how to make a call I still laugh now.

When my mum first got a smartphone, she emailed me to ask for my email address so she could send me an email.....

OMG my nans done the phoning a dead person thing too! She rang my granddads best friend by accident and didn't realise she'd dialled it, apparently they phoned her back upset and was going through the phone at the time looking at photos and nearly gave my Nan a heart attack when it said Alan on the screen bless her

I got my mum an alphabetised notebook entitled Internet passwords and Addresses. Made a lovely passive aggressive Xmas pressie.