TidBits: “It’s a truism that we’re all older than we’ve ever been. But some may feel age more keenly, like older friends and family members whose physical and cognitive capabilities have declined slightly or quite a lot. I remember giving my grandparents Bernie and Estelle an old-even-for-then Macintosh SE/30 back in the mid-90s and upgrading both them and my other Grandma Helen to gumdrop iMacs not long after. But after Bernie died, my Grandma Estelle, though sharp as a tack, couldn’t physically use a keyboard, and she was denied the pleasure of directing him in exactly how to use it, just as she’d been his navigator on car trips for decades. As Grandma Helen started to succumb to dementia, it became ever more difficult for her to remember how to use iMac, and we eventually took it away to reduce the distress it caused her (and us). Nowadays, the devices in question are less commonly Macs and more often iPhones and iPads. That evolution has prompted several valuable discussions in TidBITS Talk, one asking which iPhone model would be best for an 84-year-old who isn’t tech savvy, and another looking for recommendations to simplify the iPhone interface for an 81-year-old who is starting to find his iPhone overwhelming. I’m attempting to distill into this article the best advice from those discussions, with some added information from my experience helping older friends and family members with their iPhones. It’s important to note that older users may require more accommodation than younger users. They usually know what they want, but they’re more likely to have physical limitations (like low vision or arthritis in the hands), their level of technical experience can vary more widely, and they need good reasons to learn new things. What works for one person may be inappropriate for another. If you’re helping someone pick out or set up an iPhone, listen carefully to what they say they want and combine that with what you know about their strengths and weaknesses. Try to introduce new things—like Check In; see “Cloudy with a Chance of Insanity: Unsticking iCloud Drive” (12 October 2023)—by explaining how it will answer a desire they already have. That said, if they choose something you don’t know how to troubleshoot—like an Android tablet—you should clarify that you’ll be at sea, too…”