iPhone For Seniors For Dummies

Introduction

If you bought this book (or are even thinking about buying it), you’ve probably already made the decision to buy an iPhone. The iPhone is designed to be easy to use, but still you can spend hours exploring the preinstalled apps, finding out how to change settings, and figuring out how to sync the device to your computer or through iCloud. I’ve invested those hours so that you don’t have to — and I’ve added advice and tips for getting the most out of your iPhone.

This book helps you get going with the iPhone quickly and painlessly so that you can move directly to the fun part.

About This Book

This book is specifically written for mature people like you, folks who may be relatively new to using a smartphone and want to discover the basics of buying an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, making and receiving phone calls, working with its preinstalled apps, and getting on the Internet. In writing this book, I’ve tried to consider the types of activities that might interest someone who is 50 years old or older and picking up an iPhone for the first time.

Foolish Assumptions

This book is organized by sets of tasks. These tasks start from the beginning, assuming that you’ve never laid your hands on an iPhone, and guide you through basic steps using nontechnical language.

This book covers going online using either a Wi-Fi or 3G/4G connection. I’m also assuming that you’ll want to use the iBooks e-reader app, so I cover its features in Chapter 14. I also assume that you might be interested in the Health app, so I give you an overview of it in Chapter 20.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are tiny pictures in the margin of pages that call your attention to special advice or information, such as:

tip These brief pieces of advice help you to take a skill further or provide alternate ways of getting things done.

new New icons indicate a feature new with iOS 9 or new iPhone 6s phones.

Beyond the Book

Extra online content supplements this book to help you go further. Go online to take advantage of these features:

Cheat Sheet: To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for iPhone For Seniors For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box. This book’s Cheat Sheet offers a list of General settings, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar settings to be aware of, and the settings you can control for browsing in Safari.

Dummies.com online articles: The Parts Pages of this book provide links to helpful articles on Dummies.com. These articles are listed on the book’s Extras page at www.dummies.com/extras/iphonesforseniors. Topics include commands to use when talking to Siri, some News, Weather, and Stocks apps you might want to check out, and a rundown of Apple Music.

Where to Go from Here

You can work through this book from beginning to end or simply open a chapter to solve a problem or acquire a specific new skill whenever you need it. The steps in every task quickly get you to where you want to go, without a lot of technical explanation.

Note: At the time I wrote this book, all the information it contained was accurate for the iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, and 5c, 6 and 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus and version 9 of the iOS (operating system) used by the iPhone, and version 12/2/2 of iTunes. Apple is likely to introduce new iPhone models and new versions of iOS and iTunes between book editions. If you’ve bought a new iPhone and found that its hardware, user interface, or the version of iTunes on your computer looks a little different, be sure to check out what Apple has to say at www.apple.com/iphone. You’ll no doubt find updates there on the company’s latest releases.

Part 1

Making the iPhone Work for You

Chapter 1

Buying Your iPhone

You’ve read about it. You’ve seen on the news the lines at Apple Stores on the day a new version of the iPhone is released. You’re so intrigued that you’ve decided to get your own iPhone to have a smartphone that offers much more than the ability to make and receive calls. iPhone also offers lots of fun apps, such as games and exercise trackers; allows you to explore the online world; lets you read e-books, magazines, and other periodicals; allows you to take and organize photos; plays music and videos, and a lot more.

Trust me: You’ve made a good decision, because the iPhone redefines the mobile phone experience in an exciting way. It’s also an absolutely perfect fit for many seniors.

In this chapter, you learn about the advantages of the iPhone, as well as where to buy this little gem and associated data plans from providers. After you have one in your hands, I help you explore what’s in the box and get an overview of the little buttons and slots you’ll encounter — luckily, the iPhone has very few of them.

Discover What’s New in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and iOS 9

Apple’s iPhone gets its features from a combination of hardware and its software operating system (called iOS; the term is short for iPhone operating system). The most current operating system is iOS 9. It’s helpful to understand which new features the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus phones and iOS 9 bring to the table (all of which are covered in more detail in this book). New features in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus include

Improved display: Apple says that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have a stronger glass face, but also a better touch sensor to accommodate their new 3D Touch feature.

An A9 chip: This 64-bit chip is 70 percent faster handling basic processing functions and 90 percent faster handling graphics tasks.

An M9 coprocessor: This updated motion sensing coprocessor makes it possible for your iPhone to detect and monitor data that provides information about your motion even more efficiently than its predecessor does. This capability supports lots of interesting fitness apps, including the Health app from Apple.

The case and charging docks: Both new iPhones are offered in gold, silver, rose gold, and space gray with the new 2000 series aluminum case. Additionally, Apple has come out with new charging dock accessories for your phone.

A 12mp iSight camera: The camera in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus offers such features as a True Tone Flash sensor that knows when flash is needed for a shot and a new display chip that lights up three times brighter than previous flash features.

Camera frames per second: The camera offers 4K video quality with 8 million pixels in every frame (that means your photos are super clear). For FaceTime calls, you can take advantage of the SMP FaceTime HD camera.

3D Touch and Quick Actions: This new feature for iPhone 6s Plus allows you to use three levels of pressure on the iPhone screen to select, preview, or view an item such as an email or map. Additionally, Quick Actions allow you to press an app on the Home screen and get shortcut options for things like messaging a favorite contact or quickly opening the camera app for taking a selfie (a picture of yourself).

Apple Pay: This feature offers the ability to pay at selected retailers using the Apple Pay feature and Touch ID feature built into the Home button. With iOS 9, even more credit and store cards are compatible with Apple Pay. You can also double-tap the Home button from the lock screen to make a payment. Set up Apple Pay from the Wallet & Apple Pay settings on your iPhone, or visit Apple’s website for more about setting up and using Wallet.

Improved battery life: The iPhone 6s supports up to 24 hours of talk and up to 14 hours of video viewing. The 6s Plus can give you as many as 14 hours of talk and 11 hours of video. With iOS 9 comes a Lower Power mode, which stops power-draining features such as updating and downloading emails automatically to save power. Also, there’s a sensor that detects when you place your iPhone face down and goes to the lock screen to save power.

tip Throughout this book, I highlight features that are relevant only in using the iPhone 5s and/or iPhone 5c, as well as 6 and 6 Plus and 6s and 6s Plus, so you can use the majority of this book no matter which version of the iPhone you own as long as you have iOS 9 installed.

Any iPhone device from the iPhone 4s forward can make use of most features of iOS 9 if you update the operating system (discussed in detail in Chapter 2); this book is based on version 9 of iOS. This update to the operating system adds many new features, including

The News app: This new app is an intelligent news aggregator, which means that it gathers news stories from various sources in one place. It’s intelligent because it learns to present you with stories that are similar to other content you’ve viewed.

More integrated Notes: The Notes app gets a facelift with iOS 9, with the ability to add photos, maps, and URLs to notes. In addition, you can create instant checklists, and even sketch in your notes. You can also share items to Notes using the Share feature in apps such as Photos. See Chapter 23 for more about Notes.

Improvements to the Maps app: With iOS 9, Maps gets a Transit view for finding information about public transit in select cities around the world. Also, the Nearby feature provides suggestions of nearby businesses and services, such as restaurants, bank ATMs, and gas stations.

Improved Siri suggestions and search: Siri, iPhone’s personal assistant feature, can now offer suggestions of items you might be interested in even before you ask. For example, if you read a newspaper the same time every morning, Siri might suggest the publication to you. Siri can even search for a photo or video based on the date and location where you took the photo. See Chapter 8 for details about using Siri.

Move from Android to iOS: If you have an Android phone and are moving to iPhone, you can download the Move to iOS app and use it to transfer contacts, message history, photos, mail accounts, calendars, and more to iPhone easily.

Stronger passcodes and 2-factor authentication: With iOS 9, longer passcodes provide more security, while 2-factor authentication helps your iPhone make sure you’re you. With this feature, when you try to access any accounts or information from a new device, you’re asked to retrieve a code from an email to sign in, in addition to your account information.

Car Play: Car Play is a new feature that is largely still on the drawing board because car manufacturers are only now planning to build it into their car models. If you buy a car down the road with Car Play, it will allow you to control several features and use apps and play content from your iPhone from a graphical screen built into the dashboard.

Choose the Right iPhone for You

iPhone 6s, measuring 4.7″ diagonally and 7.1 mm thick, is bigger and thinner than some previous iPhones with their 4″ screen (see Figure 1-1). iPhone 6s Plus is even bigger at 5.5″ and only slightly thicker than iPhone 6s, at 7.3 mm thick. You can get iPhone 6s or 6s Plus in gold, silver, rose gold, or space gray. Other differences between iPhone models come primarily from the current iOS, iOS 9.

FIGURE 1-1

iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models have a few variations:

3G talk time of up to 24 hours on 6s Plus and 14 hours on 6s.

Amount of built-in storage, ranging from 16GB to 128GB.

Screen resolution (the higher the resolution, the crisper and brighter the phone display). The iPhone 6s provides 1334 x 750 resolution (more than 1 million pixels) and 6s Plus provides 1920 x 1080 (more than 2 million pixels).

Read on as I explain these variations in more detail in the following sections.

Table 1-1 gives you a quick comparison of iPhone 5s, 5c, 6, 6 Plus, and 6s and 6s Plus. All costs are as of the time this book was written. Note that a few carriers such as Verizon were also coming out with non-contract terms at the time of this writing.

TABLE 1-1 iPhone Model Comparison

tip One exciting new pricing option is the iPhone Upgrade Program. You choose your carrier, get an unlocked phone so you can change carriers, and receive Apple Care + to cover you in case your phone has problems, all at a cost of $32 a month. Data usage from your carrier will come on top of that.

Decide How Much Storage Is Enough

Storage is a measure of how much information — for example, movies, photos, and software applications (apps) — you can store on a computing device. Storage can also affect your iPhone’s performance when handling tasks such as streaming favorite TV shows from the World Wide Web or downloading music.

tip Streaming refers to playing video or music content from the web (or from other devices) rather than playing a file stored on your iPhone. You can enjoy a lot of material online without ever downloading its full content to your phone — and given that the most storage endowed iPhone model has a relatively small amount of storage, that’s not a bad idea. See Chapters 15 and 17 for more about getting your music and movies online.

Your storage options with an iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are 16, 64, or 128 gigabytes (GB). You must choose the right amount of storage because you can’t open the unit and add as you usually can with a desktop computer. However, Apple has thoughtfully provided iCloud, a service you can use to back up content to the Internet (you can read more about that in Chapter 3).

So how much storage is enough for your iPhone? Here’s a rule of thumb: If you like lots of media, such as movies or TV shows, you might need 128GB. For most people who manage a reasonable number of photos, download some music, and watch heavy-duty media such as movies online, 64GB is probably sufficient. If you simply want to check email, browse the web, and write short notes to yourself, 16GB might be enough.

tip Do you have a clue how big a gigabyte (GB) is? Consider this: Just about any computer you buy today comes with a minimum of 500GB of storage. Computers have to tackle larger tasks than iPhones do, so that number makes sense. The iPhone, which uses a technology called flash storage for data storage, is meant (to a great extent) to help you experience online media and email; it doesn’t have to store much and in fact pulls lots of content from online. In the world of storage, 16GB for any kind of storage is puny if you keep lots of content and graphics on the device.

What’s the price for larger storage? For the iPhone 6s, a 16GB unit costs $199 with a two-year contract; 64GB jumps the price to $299; and 128GB adds another $100, setting you back a pricey $399. iPhone 6s Plus tops out at $499 for a 128GB model. Note that prices may vary by carrier and by where you buy your phone.

Understand What You Need to Use Your iPhone

Before you head off to buy your iPhone, you should know what other connections and accounts you’ll need to work with it optimally.

At a bare minimum, to make standard cellular phone calls, you need to have a service plan with a cellular carrier such as AT&T, as well as a data plan that supports iPhone. The data plan allows you to exchange data over the Internet, such as emails and text messages and to download content. Try to verify the strength of coverage in your area, as well as how much data your plan provides each month before you sign up.

You also need to be able to update the iPhone operating system and share media such as music among Apple devices. Though these things can be done without a phone carrier service plan, you have to plug your phone into your computer to update the iOS or update wirelessly over a network. You need to use a local Wi-Fi network to go online and make calls using an Internet service such as Skype. Given the cost and hi-tech nature of the iPhone, having to jury-rig these basic functions doesn’t make much sense, so trust me: Get an account and data plan with your phone service provider.

You should open a free iCloud account, Apple’s online storage and syncing service, to store and share content online among your Apple devices. You can also use a computer to download photos, music, or applications from non-Apple online sources, such as stores or sharing sites like your local library, and transfer them to your iPhone through a process called syncing.

Apple has set up its iTunes software and the iCloud service to give you two ways to manage content for your iPhone — including apps, music, or photos you’ve downloaded — and specify how to sync your calendar and contact information.

There are a lot of tech terms to absorb here (iCloud, iTunes, syncing, and so on). Don’t worry: Chapter 3 covers those settings in more detail.

Know Where to Buy Your iPhone

You can’t buy an iPhone from every major retail store. You can buy an iPhone at the brick-and-mortar or online Apple Store and from the mobile phone providers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. You can also find an iPhone at major retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart, through which you have to buy a two-year service contract for the phone carrier of your choice. You can also find iPhones at several online retailers such as Amazon.com and Newegg.com, and through smaller, local service providers, which you can find by visiting https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204039.

tip Apple offers unlocked iPhones. Essentially, these phones aren’t tied into a particular provider, so you can use them with any of the four iPhone cellular service providers. Though you save a lot by avoiding a service commitment, these phones without accompanying phone plans can be pricey. That said, there’s a trend for providers offering cheaper plans and installment payments on the hardware.

Explore What’s in the Box

When you fork over your hard-earned money for your iPhone, you’ll be left holding one box about the size of a deck of tarot cards. Here’s a rundown of what you’ll find when you take off the shrink-wrap and open the box:

iPhone: Your iPhone is covered in a thick, plastic-sleeve thingy that you can take off and toss (unless you think there’s a chance you’ll return the phone, in which case you might want to keep all packaging for 14 days — Apple’s standard return period).

Apple EarPods with Remote and Mic: Plug the EarPods into your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus for a free headset experience.

Documentation (and I use the term loosely): Notice, under the iPhone itself, a small, white envelope about the size of a half-dozen index cards. Open it and you’ll find:

A tiny pamphlet: This pamphlet, named Important Product Information Guide, is essentially small print (that you mostly don’t need to read) from folks like the FCC.

A label sheet: This sheet has two white Apple logos on it. (I’m not sure what they’re for, but my husband and I use one sticker to differentiate my iPhone from his.)

A small foldout card: This card provides panels containing photos of the major features of iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and information about where to find out more.

Lightning to USB Cable: Use this cable (see Figure 1-2) to connect the iPhone to your computer, or use