My MIL is 81 & my Mom is 86 and not surprisingly they are having problems using recent cell phones. They (esp MIL) really need a SIMPLE cell phone, no camera, ringtones, music, text messages or internet, just a simple , B&W OK, phone with BIG buttons, probably not a flip phone. All we have found so far is the Jitterbug ( http://www.jitterbug.com/ ) anyone use these? Why don't the ususal folks (Cingular,T mobile, Verizon) offor a phone you could just drop a GSM chip into? All the Moms are going to call is probably three people; no, they can't scroll thru 3 screens to get the correct contacts.
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I looked at the jitterbug website awhile ago...and the part that stopped me was IIRC you have to send them the phone to have a number recorded for speed dial...and now I read that an operator will help with that. My impression was that you just couldn't program your phone yourself, they had to do it or help you with the process, or do it for you.
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,880
Re: How About A Simple Cell Phone?
My 91-year-old mom is now staying with sister #3, and I was visiting this week. At one point I was trying to figure out how sister's television system worked (not simple) and the phone rang. I was busy, and Mom could not figure out which button to push to answer the phone.
Couldn't help but think about the old days. The phone rang, you picked up the receiver and it worked. Every time, and with good sound quality. To watch TV, there were two knobs. On/Off/Volume and channel. You turned it on, and selected your channel.
I'm not saying that we should go back, just noticing the profound difference.
If jitterbug wants to make your MIL and Mom happy, they should create a cell phone that looks like this:
My impression was that you just couldn't program your phone yourself, they had to do it or help you with the process, or do it for you.
Gosh, imagine if there was a website utility that would format your speed-dial data entry and then let you download it like a ring tone. I wonder how much people would pay for that...
You tech enterpreneurs can take this one and run with it. Please send 0.01% of your gross revenues to Dory's server fund.
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Originally Posted by TromboneAl
Mom could not figure out which button to push to answer the phone.
In our house it's "Honey, where the #$%^& are my #$^ing reading glasses so that I can talk on the ^&*#ing phone!?!"
I have one of our Uniden handsets programmed to answer the call as soon as it's taken off the recharger base. I have the other handset programmed to keep ringing until the green receiver icon is pressed. (I feel this is my prerogative because I'm the only one who bothers to read the 40-page instruction manual written in 4-point-font JapanEnglish.) It's given me a lot of entertainment value watching my spouse & kid try to figure out what's happening...
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I've been voicing the same complaint to my poor DH for 2-3 years. My mom is 84 and there's no way she can use a cellphone. I had gotten her a dinosaur with fairly big numbers from Tracphone way back, but even it (multi-menus) was too confusing. I finally gave her a break last year and got rid of it.
She's now without a car/license so I guess it became somewhat of a moot point. However, I went to replace her home phone w/answering system and it's the same problem. They're of no use if they're too confusing to operate.
I suspect in a few years (when the market really begins to bulge) someone will make a fortune with 'senior' electronics.
One thing to watch out for on Cell Phones is being able to hear the damn things ring. I have about a 10 year old model my daughter gave me and it drives me nuts. The price is right ($10 a month on her Friends and Family plan). I have a high frequency hearing loss (from a few years of Army Artillery sounds) and cannot hear these things. I have mine set to vibrate but I still miss calls a lot (usually just check it every so often and return the "missed calls"). I wish they made them RING LOUD (like a "real" phone used to ring) and forget all of the high frequency noise they all seem to make.
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Vietnam Veteran, CW4 USA, Retired 1979
One thing to watch out for on Cell Phones is being able to hear the damn things ring. I have about a 10 year old model my daughter gave me and it drives me nuts. The price is right ($10 a month on her Friends and Family plan). I have a high frequency hearing loss (from a few years of Army Artillery sounds) and cannot hear these things. I have mine set to vibrate but I still miss calls a lot (usually just check it every so often and return the "missed calls"). I wish they made them RING LOUD (like a "real" phone used to ring) and forget all of the high frequency noise they all seem to make.
One of our kid's friends found a new cell phone ring tone. It sounds like the electric-clapper ringer of an old Bell desktop telephone. She's the novelty hit of the ninth grade.
I went to a military retiree seminar last fall where about 100 of us sat in a room for briefings. Admittedly the average age was about 70 but the vast majority of the males had high-freq hearing loss. They'd also neglect to turn off their phones. By the end of the hour ("Answer your damn phone, Fred!!") I was convinced that the only effective cell-phone ring would be a 120V alligator clip attached to the wearer's earlobe...
__________________ *
Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."
I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
yakers,
at the Cingular/AT&T store on the corner of Market and 3rd in SF, they have these phones and all their phones a Gaussian Shift-keyed Modulation with SIM cards. They will put in the SIM for her.
After that and maybe an initial set up, this phone is about as simple as I saw here. I went to T-Mobile (all tiny complicated), Verizon (same), Sprint (same) and SF Mobile and Radio Shack. All on the same couple of blocks.
Only Cingular had a phone with separated keys.
http://www.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-details/?q_list=true&q_phoneName=Sony+Ericsson+J220a+(Refu rb)+-+GoPhone+(Pay+As+You+Go)&q_sku=sku490009
OAP, thanks for the page, the Sony looked OK but the Firefly is more like what I am looking for, I will have to see if they have one at our local shop. Limited to 20 phone numbers, perfect.
__________________
T.S. Eliot:
Old men ought to be explorers
yakers,
you're welcome. It was kinda tempting to order one of those $19.99 phones online but that would give me 5 cell phones and 4 suppliers (yuck).
It's funny, I have a very nice friend who wanted to check out some phone choices and I noticed that out my window I can see every supplier except USCellular (her phone).
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