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

[TreacherousPissFlap]

DM has a new phone, she's very pleased with it.
The very nice man in the shop told her all her settings would "follow her over" to her new phone. Her settings have not followed her over
It now appears that DM has no less than three different FB accounts. I assumed she was changing profile pictures, turns out she was just logged into different accounts of the same name. This also explains her indignation that people have not replied to her messages.
She does not know her AppleID and appears to have locked it to DSDads fingerprint- sadly he died two years ago so is not really being much help.
Any requests for passwords are met with blank looks, as if it's an utterly outlandish thing to request.

What this is telling me is I need to take a cast of my parents fingerprints before I need it.

I am also de facto tech support although what pisses me off even more is that my husband is a software engineer by trade (I'm currently a SAHM) and they ask him to sort things out too, even though I also have a bloody degree in computing.

We spent months teaching my mum how to use my sisters old Samsung. She had got the hang of it, making calls, texting and taking photos. She then lost the bloody thing, went to the phone shop unaccompanied and came back with an iPhone.

We are now trying to unteach the Samsung instructions and replacing with iPhone. It’s painful.

Another devoted LastPass user

Oh lordy this is also my mother.

Who purchased a very expensive fairtrade smartphone (yes, they exist) with some weird operating system and no preinstalled apps at all (not even a messaging app FFS).

She then didn't want to get a gmail account so she could use the playstore to get any apps ("but I've got an email address, why would I want two?"), didn't want to download a messaging app ("I don't want any apps, I told you I just want to send text messages"), and refused to let anyone else hold the fucking phone to try and work out how it worked ("don't do it for me, you need to tell me how to do it for myself").

I refuse to touch the cunting thing now. She's bought it a special case handmade in Mongolia (this is 💯 true) and the sight of it makes my left eyelid start to twitch.

For those recommending LastPass - what is the actual full name? I've looked it up on the App Store and there seem to be several versions.

(Sorry OP to derail your thread!)

I recommend a doro smartphone. Specifically designed for people who can’t use smartphones. Replaced my parents iPhone and now they need my tech support significantly less.

Is there a little cross in the top right corner, no, a cross. Yes, in the corner. Touch that and see if it helps. Yes. Well? Is it still there? Yes, the cross. Like an x. In the corner. That's right. No, ignore the photo of the fungal toenail, yes, I know you have trouble with toe nail fungus but don't touch the...
Ok. Ok. Well, can you see a little cross....

And on and on. I'm swear, she'll be calling me from her coffin. Bless her.

See this is why you should all move to Watford.

we've got a great big shiny Apple store. There's queues of older people outside by 9am on Mondays on their way back from Morrison's. The lovely young people in Apple are sooo helpful and manage to fix just about everything. And they don't mind fixing the same issue the following week, and the next, and the next.

Isn't it silly how the same problem keeps occurring, you'd think Apple would have solved it by now.

My DF is on first name terms with each of them.

I've enlisted DS's help now, currently we're up to 4 Facebook accounts (none of which are her "actual" account)

DS is now of the opinion that far from being a serene grey haired old biddy, she's actually a Red Joan type double agent and we have inadvertently rumbled her cover.

I'm going to the pub...

@anitagreen is your Nan, Pam from Gavin & Stacey?!! In my head she is 😂😂😂😂

My Mum has two Facebook accounts. Imagine her mane is Jane Smith - she sometimes signs into the one called Jane Smith, and sometimes to the one called Smith Jane. She has no idea how that happened, and won't let me delete one, in case it's"the good one".

My ILs literally can't change a lightbulb, but buy v. expensive phones that neither of them can work. Every time I see them, I spend 2 hours sorting out their tech. (Or I would if they could remember passwords).

FIL even keeps all of his phone numbers on a post-it note instead of in the actual phone. If he doesn't recognise the number, he doesn't answer the phone. No amount of explaining that he could just put the numbers in the phone, then when that person rings, he'll know who it is, will persuade him to do it. I've given up.

Sounds like me , I am so fed up with people saying ‘it’s just intuitive, you’ll soon get the hang of it’, I paid for a special one-to-one lesson but unless you know what the iPhone is capable of you don’t really know what questions to ask ... at least I’ve worked out how to get on Mumsnet .

Yes mrsmiggins this is DM too, except the good account is (we suspect) the dead mans finger one.

The added complication is that there are photos of DSDad on the accounts, so technically they are all "good" accounts

My DM's passwords are all in my password manager now, I got so tired of resetting them. I think we've managed to stop my PILs clicking 'reset password' every time they can't remember it and then forgetting the new one but time will tell.

I have had this conversation about once a week for the past fourteen years: xkcd.com/627/

Parents and Apple........

My late Dad ran the IT show. He once stated loudly, at a family gathering, that my Mum didn’t need the internet. (I think she said quietly that she wouldn’t mind having it - but didn’t get it until he died)

We didn’t have the dead man’s finger problem. We’ve got all (well most) of the passwords in a little notebook - except my Dad coded them, anagrammed them, added other bits. He also redid passwords whenever he had computer problems, viruses, worries etc. Which was often. It’s a full notebook.

He was never a man to switch it off and on again. He had to fix it, get under the bonnet.

He’s still on Facebook as we can’t close it. No password and we can’t get a new one as his main email address is locked - he kept changing the password.

Can’t redo or add new apps as we don’t know his Apple ID or password.

His iPad is now my mum’s. Currently it’s fine but really we need to start from scratch.

I was going to give my mum my old iPhone - but she’s happy with her clamshell phone - ‘I’ll just keep it for emergencies’.

TreacherousPissFlap - I think your DS is onto something.

Imagine if we're all moaning away about our grandparents, parents and in-laws when they're actually all sitting in MI5/MI6, laughing about how we all think they're useless!

This is

DP’s mum has at least six profiles on FB as she is always forgetting the passwords on different devices. When it’s her birthday, I get a notification “Sandra and 5 other people are celebrating their birthday today.” So I click and see they’re all her with slightly different photos.

I usually wish them all happy birthday just to be on the safe side.

@HeadSpin5 omg I never noticed that before bloody love Gavin and Stacey she might as well be Pam she's hilarious lol

She's actually quite good at typing sometimes I get these random big shouts though they are funny she's 78 this year lol

@PuppyMonkey 😂😂😂😂😂

Not nearly on this level but my gran messes her apps up every time... They go everywhere! She created extra home screen pages and you will have 4 apps on one screen, have to swipe three times through blank ones to find the other apps... I sort it out and put them in place when I visit and next time it's all gone to shit again! She swears she doesn't move them

I wrote things down for my mum. How to access this that and the other. She wrote down her passwords herself.

Reported and please report for me I forgot to block out the number!!!

Here we go... this one can stay