My 76 year old mum got her first iPhone today!

Congrats to your mom for stepping outside her comfort zone. Wait till she discovers social media.

My 93yo mom has an iPhone and uses it, but sometimes it befuddles her. But she has a bunch of kids and grandkids around to help her.

Sometimes if I text her, she responds right away. Sometimes she never responds, and then I don’t know if she saw it and didn’t bother to respond, or never noticed that she had a text waiting.

oh well, it’s better than nothing.

And she does use a computer, but that’s starting to befuddle her, too.

BIG difference between 93 (almost 94) and 76, though.

Ha. I totally get it. But, from the other side. I’ve had a iPhone and iPad for years. I generally get a new one every 2 years or so and definitely need help with the new one. I am always asking my dd 45, for help with both. All. The. Time. She is quite used to it. I have 3 adult children, but she’s the one with the most patience. I’m 72.

My mom had a flip phone at 94 y/o but did use an iPad. She loved Facebook and seeing everyone's photos. We were contemplating upgrading her to an iPhone, but her health took a turn for the worse (she died this past July).

I have a great many friends in their 80s and 90s who successfully use iPhones. Good luck to your mom!

Let her know to charge it more often and keep a charger in her car.

My mom is 80 and we talked her into getting rid of her landline and getting a cell phone about 4 years ago. She doesn’t have internet or use a computer so the cell phone was a big learning curve for her. She’s totally fine with it until she accidentally changes something and then she needs help. She’s at my house regularly and always needs help with the phone. 

Congratulations to your mom! Hope she has fun with it!

My mom has never been tech savvy. She can do basic things but don’t ask her to program a VCR/DVR, change the temperature on the heater, etc. She had a cell phone before but she didn’t like to use it. She always had it turned off or she would leave it at home when she went out. She said she has a hard time hearing on a cellphone (she has hearing aids). She doesn’t have a cell phone anymore. I wish she did. She uses my old iPad to play games and sometimes browse the internet. I made sure the iPad doesn’t have any credit card information on it. Lol!

My mom is 83 and has had an iPhone and iPad for years. She does great with them. She plays games, FaceTimes with us, emails, texts, looks at things online, and googles everything in sight. She’s been having some dexterity issues with her hands, so she keeps hitting the wrong things and that frustrates her, but otherwise she uses her phone exactly as I do.

My folks are both in their eighties and have been using iPhones for about five years. Mum has just upgraded to an iPhone SE. They are amazing with them and their iPads. During Covid we set up shared shopping lists so they could add things they needed and I could get them for them. We still use the shared Costco shopping list. They WhatsApp the family and a few of their more tech-able friends all the time, adding photos to their posts and emails. This tech has enhanced their lives no end. Occasionally they need a wee bit of help. Mum panics if she sees anything new coming up on screen and needs to be encouraged to take a deep breath and read what the message says and see if she can work out how to handle it. I sometimes get a little impatient and have to remind myself how brilliant they are with these gadgets compared to many their age. There is a scene in Modern Family where the young ones are trying to teach the old dad to tap tap not taaaaap taaaaap and we have laughed at that so many times because it is exactly like the conversations we have.

Their latest skill has been to read newspapers and magazines on line. They’ve had digital copies of their newspapers for years, but I’ve set them up with Pressreader so they can use their library membership to read for free any of the 10,000 or so publications on there and they quite like looking at the Chicago Tribune or a French newspaper or Good Housekeeping. It’s amazing how much content they can access.

I had to remind my mom to read her texts before pressing send because there was usually half a dozen autocorrects in each one and I nearly always had to guess at what she was saying. I could print a book from the hilarious autocorrected texts she has sent me. I’ve gotten very good at using context clues.

Before my mom got dementia she was a wiz at technology. Now my MIL is VERY technology challenged. Always has been and always will be.

Okay, so you're the same age as my mum. You come across as younger because you're so up with technology and all the travel and fun stuff you do.  My mum has one of the newer Samsung smart phones, a Samsung tablet, and all the social media, and knows how to use them as well as I do. I plan to remain technologically current until the day I die.

My dad, on the other hand, has only just started answering his mobile phone when I ring it..... it's only taken 20 years. He still doesn't ever reply to a text, and claims he can't see them. 

My 77 yo mom got an iPhone a couple months ago too - it's great and I hope your mom loves it!!