How I teach my Mother... Apps

My mum calls apps amps. Don’t ask me why; I couldn’t tell you.

But her inability to correctly pronounce the word is the least of my troubles.

Getting her to use applications, on her new phone, is becoming a struggle, but not for the reasons you’d think.

As I discussed last week, my mum is now a proud new owner of a Macbook Pro, and at the same time she decided to get an iPhone 4, because they had come down heaps in price.

I thought it was a great idea because for a smart phone, they are simple and don’t require loads of techy knowledge in order to benefit from the awesomeness that is an iPhone.

Plus, you’re heaps cooler if you have an iPhone. But then my mum decided she didn’t want any data on the phone, and asked me how to turn it off, so it doesn’t use her money (she is still on prepay).

She doesn’t want to use the internet at all on the phone – no Facebook, no email, no maps, no Google. No games (I know right). I actually just looked at her in astonishment. I couldn’t understand the point of the phone at all.

Just use an old crappy Nokia if all you want to do is text and make phone calls. At least they have sweet battery life. “But I wanted a good camera”, she says.

Really Mum???

I talked her through all the data packs and prepaid deals that are offered. Told her how she can get “free” data through one of these packs. And when you’re at home, just use the wifi.

“But why would I use my phone at home, I have my new computer.” I tried to show her some of the benefits of having certain apps on her phone. Like Viber.

“See mum, you can send photos to people, and it doesn’t use your money on your phone. Or you can text and call people overseas and it doesn’t use the money on your phone."

But they use data, so she doesn’t want to use them. “I can just plug my phone into my computer, download the photos, attach them to an email, and send them that way.”

How is that better? Please tell me! Maps.

“See Mum, when you’re out and about and you need directions, you can just use the maps app on your phone”.

She then told me how it’s much easier for her to look up the directions on Google and print it out at home. Sigh. Photos and Facebook.

I showed Mum Instagram, and how you can do cool things to photos, then upload those photos, or any other photo, from your phone directly to Facebook. She quite liked that feature. I’m pretty sure she called it ‘neat’.

But then she said how she doesn’t actually like putting any photos on Facebook because she doesn’t like that everyone can see them.

You feel my pain, right?

So while my dear mother is certainly underutilising her glorious iPhone, she does say she loves it. I guess from her point of view, it does all the things she needs.

The camera is pretty good, I guess, and she finds the keyboard much easier to use than her last phone.

Now, if only her cheek would stop hanging up on people while she was talking to them, her appless, no data, no wifi, NO FUN iPhone would be perfect.