Phones for Older Folks

For Who?

Well, I’m definitely “older folks”. But I want to address a group that is just a tiny bit ahead of me on the road to mental decay. These are those of our friends and relatives who are just on the cusp of cognitive decline, or who have perhaps traveled a tiny bit down Alzheimer’s Lane.

These are those we love, and whom we, one day soon, will be. Those for whom a phone is shield against loneliness… in those days when hearing and memory begin to fail. Those for whom the presence of dear friends is not as frequent as they wish.

At this point in our journey from helplessness to adulthood, competence, and then slowly, inexorably back to helplessness, being able to reach out and touch base with an old friend becomes more important than ever, as does receiving calls from dear ones.

So here’s what brings me to this topic today. I tried to call an aging friend in an assisted living home, and got sent directly (upon first ring) to voicemail on each and every one of the dozen or so calls I attempted. I suspected tinkering on his part or someone else’s had brought things to this point. Either his phone was off, or my number had been inadvertently blocked due to tinkering on his or some helper’s part, or his phone was broken or lost. Or possibly it was that his new phone wasn’t configured to provide for the common accessiblity feature, Tap to Answer, that was stymying his attempts to “pick up”. Swipe to Answer seems to be the norm on Android phones, but this can really throw those who expect that icons are (sensibly enough) meant to be touched or tapped, not swiped.

So, concerned about his frustration and loneliness, I soon headed for the assisted living home that he now called home. Things turned out about as I suspected. Not only had my number, and the two others most important to him been blocked somehow. He had also forgotten the swipe to answer technique required by his new phone – something confirmed by some same room practice answering phone calls. Although I had already spent probably a good hour digging through the excellent PDF manual from AT&T for his new phone – an entry level AT&T Motivate Pro 2 5G – and through internet advice, I could not find how to enable Tap to Answer. This feature is enabled on one of my phones as I too am an oldster and find swipe to answer needless, and needlessly finicky.

I do understand and appreciate the need for Swipe to Answer on Android phones – it avoids accidental pick ups of calls, as spurious contact is not likely to be misinterpreted as a swipe. But it can be finicky, and it’s not needed for old folks, or folks with the beginnings of tremor, or even just the ordinary slowness of movement that comes with age.

Tap to Answer needs to be on every entry level phone. These phones are often sold to newbies, and to those buying a simple phone for relatives who are getting “up there” in age. The Android operating system provides for it. Please AT&T! Provide it going forward.

So admitting defeat in my attempts to enable Tap to Answer, which I still harbored a suspicion might be hidden somewhere deep in a menu on this otherwise very nice phone from AT&T, I steeled myself and headed for the AT&T outlet where it was purchased.

I steeled myself because I’m getting to the age where the answer to most questions of a tech sort boil down to, find someone under 25 (down to about 10 is probably a useful lower limit) and then wait to be shown in 20-seconds… or less, just how glaringly obvious and simple the answer is. Of course this makes one feel the opposite of bright… humiliatingly so. After which, I of course slink off, after obseqious thank yous, with my already dented ego feeling even punier than it did before.

So I arrived at the AT&T store determined to be polite and thankful even as my ego got demolished. A nice 40-ish young fellow there named K asked me about my problem and dove right in to finding a solution. After 8-10 minutes, I made some inane comment or another, to which he replied in the shortest (but polite) answer possible. To say K was laconic is to say Cormac McCarthy novels tend to be violent. The man was as taciturn as a dusty Texas drifter from a formulaic western novel. But he was genuine, focused and persistent in his attempts to help. After about 30-minutes of exploring the phone, its PDF manual, and the internet, he came to the conclusion that the phone did not provide Tap to Answer functionality. He came as close to expressing surprise as a stoic can come.

So yippee! I was gonna get out of there without feeling dumb. But then, I decided to mention to him that my friend seemed to have forgotten or somehow screwed up the pin number for his voicemail. I asked if he could set it up again, or somehow fix it. “Don’t waste a lot of time on it,” I said. “I’m not sure that he’ll be all that successful accessing his voicemail.”

He looked at the phone about 20-seconds, and said, “It’s already set up. You don’t need a pin for voicemail on this phone. See, you just tap (notice that word) the phone icon and then you tap this little red keypad icon, and you’re good. See?” Yeah, I saw, and immediately launched into my obsequious thank yous, which he accepted with his, by now expected, laconic grace. I slunk out of the store, well at least inner me, feeling about as dumb as usual after his kind help. Outwardly, though, I think I managed a dignified exit.

Anyway, AT&T, and other Android phone makers, please give us oldsters simple options. Don’t make it dumb. Make it easy to make it dumb if need be. We don’t need a special phone, because we don’t even know for sure what we are or are not capable of. Just a phone that can be made easy to answer, easy to find the speaker icon on (make it big!) and generally easy for those helping us to customize it to our needs, or the needs of our loved ones who may be a bit further down Fading Memories Lane than your phone designers are.