Android for Seniors

Mr E

Has anyone weaned their parents off aging Symbian Nokia phones onto a smart phone? My mum got dad a Moto E for his birthday, and I'm setting it up. He has a gmail account, etc.

From looking around at launchers last night, I like the look of Necta Launcher. I installed it on my own phone to try it out and it has nice big fonts and a simplified interface.

I'm open to trying alternatives though!

Any other tips?

jimgoose

My mother uses an Android tablet - she's 78 - and loves it. She finds the Google voice activation thing particularly handy, just being able to say e.g. "OK Google, send email to Jim!" :cool:

Oh, another useful thing is to configure commonly-used phone numbers as little icons of the person in question on the home screen, so they can be dialled with one tap.

BionicRasher

74 Yr old mum uses Fontrillo (on a crappy Sony E which is an appalling piece of junk)
However the launcher seems good and is mostly trouble free except when the phone crashes and she gets freaked out with pop ups and stuff but thats down to the phone

Dad has a Sony E1 (which is also junk BTW) and we have kept the Sony launcher but he is finding it hard to click things as its pretty small and especially the keyboard when texting as its tiny. I would think we will move him on to Fontrillo soon

Mr E

Fontrillo looks great actually. A bit more colourful than Necta. Not sure I like the A-Z keyboard though - Dad is used to a regular keyboard.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fontrillo

BionicRasher

Mr E wrote: »

Fontrillo looks great actually. A bit more colourful than Necta. Not sure I like the A-Z keyboard though - Dad is used to a regular keyboard.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fontrillo

Ya the AZ keyboard is the only downside. I emailed the Dev to see if they would change it to qwerty but no reply.
I seem to remember something about the camera also not saving files to the proper location of the regular camera but I will check with my mum and see what the story is

Mantis Toboggan

I managed to get both parents away from standard phones. Keys for me was to set up both phones exactly the same to provide some uniformity, similar to my own phone so I could talk them through making adjustments. Also some apps were crucial like power toggles in the notification panel, mx player, SwiftKey which is the best keyboard imo. Google is the best launcher imo. They got well accustomed to just saying "ok Google" anytime they wanted search the net.

projectgtr

Try the google now launcher the icons are a lot bigger plus the google now integration is great.