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.

This is all so funny and so true!

DF has an ancient Nokia 'for emergencies' but he usually can't find it or it's not charged.

DM has a newish Samsung. Every day I get blank texts, texts meant for somebody else, or the same text multiple times.

I can't ignore the messages though when I see it's DM just in case it is an emergency.

My MiL loves WhatsApp, but had no idea it used data. She thought it was a different way to text (and she needs this as if she doesn’t get a response to a random query within 15 minutes, a text, WhatsApp and email will be sent, and the same to the spouse who didn’t originally get the message, plus Messenger to me, and possibly even a FB wall post). So she went to stay with friends in an area with roaming charges and didn’t hook her phone up to wifi, only to be sent a bill for ££££s after a couple of days. So she then declared that she could never trust WhatsApp again, and refused to communicate through it for months, despite all our attempts to explain.

She’s back on the WhatsApp horse now. She got a new phone which makes it different. She can’t though put any apps on it as they’re all for Android and she’s got a Samsung.

My in-laws also have a router off at night household. Which is irritating at times for us but hilariously effective at getting the teenager to sleep early when we visit.

This is bringing back the saga of when someone else used my dad's email address to sign up for an apple account. I'd managed to forget about it.

Excuse me while I retreat to a darkened room and rock back and forwards

Also my in-laws have their Amazon account and bank account hacked more than anyone else I’ve met. I can only assume their security is not too-notch. My FiL gets very indignant when the hackers buy things he wouldn’t buy himself. Two motorbikes was the last one.

My FiL lives on his iPad by the way and has a stylus, to avoid finger issues. Doesn’t help with sign in of course but I don’t think his iPad can do that anyway.

Dear God, I could add many stories to this thread. After years of having a basic PAYG phone (switched off and kept in the drawer to save battery) my elderly mum decided she needed an upgrade. After a brief twenty minutes in Carphone Warehouse, she cheerfully came home with the new iPhone 7. Months of chaos ensued, trying to get it set up for her, and failed attempts to show her how to use the thing. I got several phone calls in the middle of the night, where she was apparently just trying to check the time on her phone, Facebook statuses used instead of just texting me, and her absolute insistence that she could only get email on her old laptop, not on her phone as well. She still can't use it to send a new text, she can only reply to people.
At Christmas, my DB in the States got her an Alexa dot. Thanks a fucking bunch . She thinks it's useless, as it won't "shut the curtains" or "switch the electric blanket on".

My PIL's aren't quite so bad, but do insist on rationing their internet use to half an hour a day - in case it uses the internet up.

I am tech support for DH, PIL and my best friend.

DH is banned from all Apple products due to locking himself out repeatedly, forgetting passwords, general ineptitude with tech, physically breaking an iPhone every 6 months or so and getting cross about me not being an Apple Genius. Gah. He now has an unbreakable Android phone made by Cat (as in construction trades).

PIL are hilarious. Fabulous family, bloody hard working in manual trades (FIL has been a tin miner, a farmer, a fisherman and an engineer in his life) but no clue about modern technology.

I took over 50 Trojans off the family laptop last year, and another 1000+ malware items from the memory. 😂

I get asked to look at phones, laptops, iPads, Firesticks, TVs, routers, the lot.

Especially for my BF who is a nightmare with technology too. Nothing is ever updated, passwords forgotten, programs not talking to each other, spam and malware everywhere... I fix her phone every time I see her I think! 😁

I get my adult daughter's cast-off iPhone every time a new one comes out.

I am tech-y enough to be a bit of a go-to for my friends, I wrangle my own laptop, have designed, set up and run a small website and usually had no issue with the iPhones.

Got a new phone [her old one] . I have an iPod as well as a phone and download BBC R4 programmes to it as I prefer the tiny ipod to a heavier phone in the gym.

The 'new' iPhone downloaded every single episode ever of Desert Island Discs, entirely filled its memory and I incurred extra data charges.

My son reset the podcast downloads to just the last half dozen of any given programme.

My daughter later admitted that she'd done exactly the same thing with her brand new latest model iPhone and stuffed it up in the same way, also incurring a charge for excess data

My mother was given a Google Home as a present. She’s visually impaired and her hearing is failing so it makes sense.

Nothing about her using it makes sense.

She’s too polite.

Instead of “Hello Google, what’s the weather?” we get “HELLO GOOGLE, HOW ARE YOU TODAY? CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME IF THE WEATHER IS GOING TO BE NICE TODAY?” bellowed at about 100 decibels at point-blank range.

Of course, poor Google only picks up the first bit so the exchange is basically.

Mum: HELLO GOOGLE HOW ARE YOU TODAY? CAN YOU PL...”

Google: I am very well thank you. What can I do for you today?

Mum: SORRY GOOGLE I JUST WANTED TO KNOW IF I YOU CAN PLEASE TELL ME...

Google: I’m sorry. I don’t understand.

Mum (to me): WHAT DID SHE SAY?

Mum (to Google): WHAT. IS. THE. WEATHER. TODAY.

Google: “ “

Mum (to me): WHY ISN'T SHE WORKING?

Me: You have to say “Hello Google” before every question. It’s how you wake it up.

Mum: HELLO GOOGLE. ARE YOU AWAKE? HELLO GOOGLE, DO YOU KNOW IF IT WILL RAIN TODAY?

Google: Would you like me to set an alarm to wake you?

Reminds me of when DMIL 81 was persuaded by Talk Talk to sign up to broadband by a telesales rep - she has never used a computer and has the most basic of mobiles that we bought for her. But he was such a nice young man.

@TalkinaboutManetManet in am crying 😁😁😁😁

I love this thread my Nan phoned me yesterday to say she's coming round in the week and can I look at her phone again as it's not working OH MY GOD

And the best one, 'Your father can't phone me it's broken.'
She'd blocked him

Oh you've just reminded me that my mum had me blocked for over a year. She would text me and then phone me 'because you never answer me'. If I wanted to text her I'd text my dad who would tell her then she would answer me by text. She has a phone from dark ages so none of us could work out how to unblock. Finally after a year, my nephew managed to unblock.

I'm moving into that territory though, I've asked DS to get me set up on the family pack on Spotify because I can't work it out

My old mum, who is no longer here, once phoned us to say her fire alarm was going off, dh quickly drove the 10 mile drive to her..... Turns out her mobile was low on battery and bleeping cos it needed charged...

I think I’m lucky. Ignoring the fact that my Brother gave my 82 year old Dad a Computer he didn’t want some years ago (as technology freaked him out at that point) that he wasn’t grateful enough for and my Brother stopped speaking to him as a result, Dad has moved on in the technology game.

Dad now has a technical support company. Currently his only client is Jack Fairfax who is 104 later this month and lives round the corner and calls him up to sort his Smart TV. Dad delegates by phone this to a member of staff (his Partner’s nephew) who has gets the TV sorted.

Jack is very grateful and making oblique hints that Dad and partner will be invited to birthday later this month as a result of their outstanding customer service, This is the only time I’m grateful I live some distance away and can not be on the company payroll (think payment is a ham roll and there’s no sick pay) as apparently Jack is somewhat hard of hearing and you have to shout.

My dad thinks he can only access emails on the laptop he first used to set it up. It’s so frustrating that after five years we still have the same conversation about it. He also signs up for text alerts for everything but doesn’t read his texts, so his inbox has around 1000 unread texts, including ones from family and friends.

My mum constantly complains that her emails are on her phone but not her iPad, even though they’re linked. They are there, she’s just in her sent items.

I have had to spend many, many hours trying to break into various apple, email and Facebook accounts trying to recover things, I don’t even know how I’ve done it half the time. It’s so frustrating.

My mum still believes that answering a mobile phone anywhere in the presence of another human is the height of rudeness and so switches her phone off outside the house, which is massively helpful. On the odd occasion she’s forgotten in but she’ll speak in one word answers in a weirdly whispery voice which makes the phone call take about half an hour longer than it should. She doesn’t realise that if she’s just in the street then it’s fine to speak normally and get on with it. Afterwards she’ll phone back and give me a lecture about phoning her when she’s out 😂.

I get cryptic messages from here which used to send me into a panic when she was looking after baby DS and I was at work. Things like “bbs crying”. I had no idea what that meant and could only assume that the baby was crying uncontrollably and needed medical attention or something (I’d built this up in my head, only a few days back from mat leave and there was about 90 minutes between her sending the text and me reading it). Turns out she was just telling me he was crying, but he was fine now. Of course, I couldn’t get hold of her for hours because she’d gone out... and oh the text speak. Surely this to harder to write like that now?

I’ve recently helped my dad get an iPhone upgrade, it’s currently in a sealed box at his house and I’m avoiding going round. I can’t stand the thought of having to break into all his accounts again, I wrote the passwords down but his text and email inboxes tell me he’s changed everything a million times since then.

Don’t get me started on the printer, my parents don’t understand that the computer has to have a default setting for their actual printer, they keep getting it confused and putting the default as their old one.

So happy to hear I’m not alone 😂.

I have NO CLUE what the problem is with WhatsApp
MY dad has an irrational dislike of it too, without ever using it obviously. Something to do with some bloke from the pub who was probably not even talking about Whatsapp.

Every single time I see my dad he hands me his phone and asks 'how do I...'. I'm an Apple slave and he has never had an iPhone so I've never a clue how to use his. He's constantly changing phones too because he can't get the phone to do what he wants it to do.

And don't even get me started on my mum. She has at least 2 FB accounts. She's banned from owning a smartphone as for my own sanity, I've had to tell her I refuse to do any more phone support! Then she gets ideas in her head about what her kindle fire can do and won't accept it when I tell her it can't do that.

RTFM!!

A friend, not remotely elderly, once told me she won’t use WhatsApp because it’s what ‘gangs’ use. I think she’s convinced that as soon as you create an account, someone messages you to demand a re-up round the back of Yates’ Wine Lodge.

Many years ago my Dad said to me “isn’t it amazing?” What’s that Dad? “How the cds get burned and there’s no smell, not even any smoke!!”

these are brilliant

I was always a bit smug about this sort of thing ( don't worry my fall is coming ) because df was very well educated in IT as part of his job ....litdrally working in the states in the 70's and 80's with big computer names. We had computers as kids before any of our friends etc.

Then some odd kind of insane monster decided to swap my df and dm brains with the Amish.

Some highlights were

Them deciding they could no longer use what's app for a somewhat indefinable reason vaguely connected to the change in CEO meaning some odd correlation about the introduction of adverts and possibly information stealing . I think they got confused with Facebook scandal and the change in owners....it was all a tad vague. However Dsis and were grimly warned that if we continued to use it terrible fates would befall us.

Couldn't help but think the most likely would be not getting the weather update from my mother from a place 2 hours away from me ...i was devastated

That disappeared when they suspected photos of the grandchildren would likely be sent less regularly as Dsis and I would probably take longer to email them.

No they don't have any form of dementia (seriously they really don't) and are generally bright and active.

Then there was the rigmarole about sending bank details ...which df would not send over electronic device nor would he say them over a mobile. I actually think when he finally told me them on the landline he actually shut the window.

My father can't work out how to answer my mother's mobile. So I ring her and he cuts it off , goes to find her and she calls me back , to then explain he couldn't answer it as it was sat on her sofa

This man was part of a Unix implementation team...the mind boggles.

This also escalated to complaining that Aunt and uncle were flying away on holiday and wasn't it unseemly to be flying at their time of life ? Errrm nope don't get that one either, they generally believe that using certain technology is not acceptable past a certain age.

No reason why....it just isn't.

In fairness I may have issues with them but they did teach me to walk and eat without pelting yoghurt over unsuspecting people so I owe them some understanding (plus last week my 6 year old had to show me how kidstube worked on something so there but for the grace of.......)

Here we go....

My mum bellows at Alexa. If I were Alexa I'd go on strike.

Love this thread, especially ManetManet's mum and her Google

My mum kept asking me to install 'The Messenger' but when I did kept complaining she didn't know how to open it. I patiently explained she just had to touch the app. 'What's an app?'

She still hasn't managed to work out how to use it.

My dad's texts were stuck on capitals for about a year. He kept sending me very shouty messages about the weather being very nice that day. Now he has a new phone he can't seem to work out how to delete mistakes so keeps sending me texts like this.

@PostNotInHaste 😀 brilliant corporate organisation if you speak loudly enough

I thought my late DF was reasonably good with what I showed him but refused to go to any classes or orientations. In his last months, he said out of the blue that he was never able to go to a beginners class because he had a standing in the community and couldn't be seen needing to learn something.

So he didn't really understand anything...

If DM is ever asked whether she has email address or anything , she says brightly, with a charming smile, no but I have a "FinallyHere" and gives them my mobile number.

I'm really enjoying these stories tinged with a touch of nostalgia: there came a time when my late father could no longer be bothered by technology and he asked me to do it all for him. I didn't realise but I think he did, that he was in the last month of his life.

Talking I can just imagine that. My dad inherited an Alexa from my brother, who had upgraded to Google Homes in every room but he didn't like it. It didn't do anything, it didn't even listen to him.

We turned it the right way up.

Then it could hear him, and vice versa. Now he uses it - only - as an oven timer as he still can't get the timer on the cooker to work.

This man took a degree in Computer Science back in the late 1960s - he's not daft at least on paper.