Smart phones have become very popular over the last several years and more and more seniors and non techies are starting to use them. There’s some easy tweaks that can be made to the settings of your iPhone and iPad that will make them so much easier to use.
Improve Readability By Increasing Text Size
After the age of 40 our eyesight starts to fail us. It’s harder for us to read smaller fonts. Apple has made it easy to increase the font size and here’s how to do it.
- Go to Settings
- Scroll and Tap Accessibility
- Open Display & Text Size
In this section you will find several features to help make it easier to read text.
- Tap on Larger Text
- Use the adjustment scale at the bottom of the screen to increase font size.
- If that’s not enough turn on Larger Accessibility Sizes and you can increase the font size even more.
Spoken Content
This is a really cool feature that once you enable, can do a couple of things. You can highlight text and your device will read it to you or you can have your iPhone or iPad read the entire Screen.
- Go to Settings
- Scroll and tap on Accessibility
- Open Spoken Content
Here you will find the features we need.
- Toggle on Speak Selection
- Toggle on Speak Screen
- You can adjust the speaking rate moving the slider right for faster, toward the bunny or left for slower toward the turtle.
Once these are activated all you need to do is select a portion of text, tap on speak and your iPhone or iPad will read the selection. If you want to have a whole page read swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers and you will begin to hear the page being read. Tap on the X to close Spoken word.
Turn up Ringer Volume
If you’re someone who’s a little hard of hearing go ahead and boost your ringer volume to the max.
By default, the volume buttons on the side of the phone don’t adjust the ringer. To adjust:
- Open Settings
- Scroll and tap Sound and Haptics
- Adjust the slider to increase you ringer volume
Enable LED Alert Flashes
For a visual cue it can help to turn on the LED Alert Flashes.
- Open Settings
- Tap Accessibility
- Scroll and tap on Audio/Visual
- Toggle on LED Flash
Now When your phone rings the LED light will Flash.
Enable Find My
The Find My feature can be a life-saver if you misplace your phone or if it’s stolen.
The Send Last Location is also very handy, as it will ping you the location of the device before the battery dies.
Here’s how to enable Find My Phone and Last Location:
- Open the Settings app
- Select your Name at the top of the menu
- Tap Find My
- Select and Open Find My iPhone or iPad
- Turn on all the toggle switches on this menu
Configure Favorites For Fast and Easy Dialing
Favorites in the Phone app allows you to call someone in just a few taps. This saves the time and trouble of searching through you Contacts.
To add all your important Contacts to your Favorites:
- Open the Phone app
- Select Favorites at the bottom of the screen
- Tap on the + icon at the top left corner to bring up your Contact List.
- Search or Scroll for the Contact you want to add
- Select what type of contact to add ( calling, messaging, or FaceTime)
So, next time you go to make a call it will be quick and easy.
Enable Siri
Siri helps cut down on the physical interactions with your iPhone and iPad. And You can give Siri access even on your lock screen. S0, you can place calls with just your voice.
- Open Settings
- Tap Face ID and Passcode
- Put in Passcode if requested
- Scroll to the section “Allow Access When Locked”
- Toggle on Siri
- Tap on Settings in the upper left hand corner
- Select Siri and Search
- Toggle on “Hey Siri”
- Make sure Allow Siri when locked is toggled on
Now to make a call just say: “Hey Siri” call and then either a Name in your Contacts or a number will suffice.
Conclusion
We should enjoy all the functionality that the iPhone and iPad offer. Even if we’re over 40. This guide should get you started.
If you have any questions post them in the comment section below or reach out to me via email. I read and reply to every comment and email I receive.
You can check out my video walk through over on YouTube:
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