iPhone One of the best phones for elders. It lasts for years, is private and secure, and is easy to navigate. Out of the box, however, it isn’t configured for seniors. Although Apple bundles a number of useful tools to make them easier to use for older users, they are disabled by default. But within minutes, you can set up and prepare an iPhone for your parent, grandparent or any other elderly person.
iPhone comes with a variety of accessibility options to provide a more comfortable experience for the elderly. In addition to basic changes like increasing the font size and calling emergency services, the iPhone can also sound doorbells and sirens to notify those who are hard of hearing and the camera LEDs flash when someone calls. . Here’s how to prepare an iPhone for an elderly user.
Actually use Siri as your personal assistant
Sir, I Called virtual personal assistants for a reason. It can help you perform tons of actions without ever picking up your phone. This is especially useful for a senior user who isn’t yet familiar with navigating iOS. It can text people for you, announce calls and notifications, search your emails; the list goes on.
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Before Siri can fully function as your personal assistant, though, you’ll need to enable three major options. First, go to Settings > Siri & Search. Set the command to “Listen to ‘Hey, Siri’” So that you can just call it by saying “Hey, Siri”. Two, Toggle “Allow Siri When Locked” Which lets you use it without having to unlock your iPhone every time. Ultimately, Turn on “Voice Dial” from Settings > Face ID & Passcode To allow Siri to call someone from the lockscreen.
Enlarge Your iPhone Contents
For those who struggle to read on smaller iPhone screens, enhancing software content is another change you should implement. Apple allows you to increase the size of everything from text to keyboard.
Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size To adjust text size in entire iPhone software. To improve readability even further, You can enable “Bold Text”.
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next, Scroll to the bottom of the “Display & Brightness” page and touch “Display Zoom.” Switch to “Large Text” To automatically enlarge each element of your iPhone, such as controls, icons, on-screen keyboard, and text.
Set up medical data and SOS
iPhone can be life saver in emergency, To take advantage of these features, you need to configure them before handing over the phone to your parents or any other aged user.
Go to Settings > Health > Medical ID and tap on “Create Medical ID”. Punch in the person’s medical details like emergency contacts and blood group so that anyone who likes first responders can access it right on the lockscreen. Make sure the “Show when locked” option is enabled And hit “Next” when you’re done.
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With the iPhone, you can sound an alarm, and send an SOS by pressing the side button repeatedly. When you do this, your iPhone not only contacts local emergency services, but will also notify your close contacts. To opt-in to the SOS tool, go to Settings > Emergency SOS >.
track phone from anywhere
Another way to keep your seniors and their iPhones safe is to set up the “Find My” app. It lets you track the device from anywhere and ring or lock it if you get lost. Plus, with Find My, you can indefinitely share your location with a friend or family member so they know where you are at all times.
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Open Find My app on iPhone, go through the onboarding process, and you’re all set. You can check the location of this device from the Find My website or from your other Apple computer. If you want someone else to always be informed of your elder’s location, Go into the “People” tab, and tap “Start Location Sharing.” search and Select the contact, touch “Send” and in the following menu, press “Share indefinitely.”
Flash LED for Alerts
The iPhone has a hidden feature for those who suffer from hearing disorders – it can flash the LED on the back of the phone when someone calls.
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you can Enable it from Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > LED Flash for Alerts. There are also a few more options for you to customize it for. You can choose whether the LED should blink when the phone is on silent or when it is unlocked.
Be aware of the sounds around you
Another useful tip for customizing iPhone for people with hearing loss is the iPhone’s voice recognition option.
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The iPhone can listen to certain audio cues continuously and tell you when a fire alarm or doorbell is ringing or you have left the water running. Activate it from Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition.
operate without looking at an iphone
Apart from helping people with hearing loss, iPhone can also meet the needs of people suffering from vision loss. Its VoiceOver accessibility tool enables a gesture-based screen reader on the software and lets you operate it without looking at it.
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Once you turn on VoiceOver, your phone says any menu, button, control, or text out loud. With gestures, you can jump to the next or previous element and select them whenever you need by tapping anywhere on the screen, in contrast to what you usually do right where an element is. is located.
However VoiceOver has a learning curve, as you’ll have to learn the gestures required for navigation. But it doesn’t take much time to start up and if the user finds it difficult to read or see, it’s a no brainer.
Bring Back the Home Button (Literally)
The iPhone’s navigational gestures help Apple deliver a more edge-to-edge screen experience. But at the same time, they turned off the home button—a true life saver for elderly owners who could hit it while stuck on the screen on their iPhone. Fortunately, you can virtually restore the Home key.
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Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Assistive Touch And toggle off the first option. You’ll find a new hovering button on your iPhone screen, which puts a number of shortcuts like going home, summoning Siri, and pulling down the notification shade on your fingerprints. From the Assistive Touch menu, you can personalize it, for example, go home with a single tap, and launch the camera with a double tap.
