Am beginning to see why there are so many moans about needing a smartphone for everything on here.
We’ve just moved my elderly, slightly mad step mother back here from France after my dad passed away. Setting up the new flat has been a nightmare. She can’t do anything with tech and you need apps for everything now.
Long story short, the flat has no broadband so we phoned to get it connected. Because there’s an internal warning system in the flats the wired needs special permission but EE sent a 4g box to tide her over and also sold her an eSIM deal to make calls.
When the 4g turned up it became clear the Bluetooth and wireless on her phone were broken. She’d also left passwords all over her notes and not enabled Face ID so I got the phone restored to factory settings, getting her (I thought) to note a hint for the password.
Phone fixed easily and quickly, I returned yesterday afternoon to help her set it up. It connected in. That’s when we realised she had no idea what the password was and that her safe phone number was redundant.
No problem I thought, surely we can do MFA through her email instead. We passed that. Then it asked for an alternative number, and I used mine. We passed that too.
She’s just had an email to say her password can be reset in 2 weeks time by a message to my number.
So 2 weeks without a phone as she can’t download the eSIM without a working AppleID.
No problem you might think? No. She can’t authenticate banking transactions without her app. She can’t put her new card on her shopping delivery either. And I will have to traipse over there on the appointed day to help her get a sodding AppleID, work or no work.
She’s a vulnerable, housebound, easily confused old woman who now thinks she can’t shop because she hasn’t got a phone.
We’ve made life harder, not easier.
We’ve just moved my elderly, slightly mad step mother back here from France after my dad passed away. Setting up the new flat has been a nightmare. She can’t do anything with tech and you need apps for everything now.
Long story short, the flat has no broadband so we phoned to get it connected. Because there’s an internal warning system in the flats the wired needs special permission but EE sent a 4g box to tide her over and also sold her an eSIM deal to make calls.
When the 4g turned up it became clear the Bluetooth and wireless on her phone were broken. She’d also left passwords all over her notes and not enabled Face ID so I got the phone restored to factory settings, getting her (I thought) to note a hint for the password.
Phone fixed easily and quickly, I returned yesterday afternoon to help her set it up. It connected in. That’s when we realised she had no idea what the password was and that her safe phone number was redundant.
No problem I thought, surely we can do MFA through her email instead. We passed that. Then it asked for an alternative number, and I used mine. We passed that too.
She’s just had an email to say her password can be reset in 2 weeks time by a message to my number.
So 2 weeks without a phone as she can’t download the eSIM without a working AppleID.
No problem you might think? No. She can’t authenticate banking transactions without her app. She can’t put her new card on her shopping delivery either. And I will have to traipse over there on the appointed day to help her get a sodding AppleID, work or no work.
She’s a vulnerable, housebound, easily confused old woman who now thinks she can’t shop because she hasn’t got a phone.
We’ve made life harder, not easier.
