How to Customize and Modify an iPad for Grandparents and Seniors — Staying Connected with Family
About this Guide
This guide provides a series of 17 helpful tips for configuring an iPad to make it easier to use for an elderly person who is not familiar with new technology.
After our family purchased an iPad for our grandmother, she was having trouble using it due to some of the default settings of a new iPad. I spent a few hours configuring it to make it easier to use, and then she was able to comfortably use it.
She asked me to write this guide so she could share it with her friends, and I figured that it might be helpful to post this online in case anyone else would find this helpful. I’m writing this during the middle of the COVID-19 crisis when staying connected is more important than ever. Hopefully, this guide might help you stay better connected with loved ones.
Note: This guide is written for a person comfortable with technology who can figure out how to adjust all of the settings of the iPad. If you are trying to help a family member, I would strongly suggest that either the family member gives you the iPad to configure, you configure it, and then return it to them. (Make sure to disinfect it as well!)
Turn off Siri — Make it Easier to Open the iPad
One thing that makes an iPad difficult to use is that it’s really easy to accidentally start Siri by pressing on the home button. By default, tapping on the home button opens the iPad, but pressing on the button opens Siri. The dexterity required to tap rather than press can be challenging to learn, and rather than opening the iPad, your family member may inadvertently keep opening Siri.
If your family member is having issues opening the iPad, I would recommend just turning it off to make it easier to open the iPad. In the settings, you can disable “open Siri from lock screen,” and that way the button will just be used for opening the iPad.
Make Sure You Know or can Reset the Apple ID Password
This is the most critical item of all of the items on this list. Your family member may not have or know their Apple ID password, which can be a real problem. Without your Apple ID, you cannot install apps, and the iPad will keep pestering you constantly to sign in.
One or multiple family members should be set as backups on the account, where their email and phone numbers can be used to reset the Apple ID, and that password should be written down and stored safely. Make sure your family member is signed in with their Apple ID.
Install Email / Sync Account
If your family member has a Yahoo, Google, or AOL account, you can sign in with that account on the iPad to sync it with the email app. Sign in, and then test the email app to make sure that it is receiving new emails.
Test FaceTime to Make Sure it Works with the Family Member’s Email Address (their Apple ID).
If your family member doesn’t have an iPhone, you can’t call them using their cell phone number. I would suggest trying a FaceTime using both your family member’s iPad and your own phone or computer to make sure it is set up and working fine.
Help your Family Member bt Adding Contacts
If the iPad doesn’t have any contacts, you might want to consider importing contacts to make it easier for your family member to make FaceTime calls. Most phones have some type of contact export feature to get the contact info to import. If this isn’t available, I would recommend sitting down with your family member, asking them who they want to FaceTime with, and then plugging in that contact info for them.
Use Shortcuts to Trigger FaceTime Calls
There is a feature on iPads called Shortcuts where you can create an icon that launches a FaceTime call with a specific person. Go to shortcuts to program these FaceTime launches with family members. Once you create the shortcut, there is another step where you can then add the shortcut to the home screen. It’s a bit of a pain to figure this out initially, and you may need to click on a bunch of menus to find this option.
When you create the home screen button, you can select a photo of someone as the icon. In the photos app, find the family members you want to set up the FaceTime shortcuts, and then duplicate the images. You can then crop those images (using Apple Photos) to have a headshot you can use for the person’s face.
Set up a Shortcut for their Favorite Podcast
Shortcuts don’t have that many useful features, but one of them is that you can launch a podcast from the iPad. I’d suggest setting up the New York Times Daily Podcast to make it easy to instantly listen to the most recent episode.
Turn off the Pin Code
Disable the Pin code in the settings page, so that you don’t need to enter a four-digit number each time you want to use the iPad. This makes it much easier to use.
Note: it is a security risk to turn off the Pin code. You should tell your family member that to be safe, they shouldn’t turn off the Pin code if there is a risk of the iPad being stolen or if they plan to take the iPad out of the house. Also, they should use a Pin code if the plan to have any credit card info stored on the . It could be okay to disable the Pin though if you are just using the iPad for FaceTime calls.
Set the Default Lock Screen Time Out to 15 minutes
By default, the iPad will lock after 2 minutes of inactivity. This can be a pain if it locks constantly. I would recommend setting the default time out to 15 minutes.
Change the Background to the Blank Black Image
The default iPad background is a colorful image, and almost all of the other background screen options are also colorful. These images are not very good, as the app titles are rendered in a white font, which makes it difficult to read the app’s name on a colorful background. However, the iPad has one built-in image that is just a blank black background image. Change the default background to this black background to make it easy to read the names of the apps without the extra color.
Set the Default Lock Screen Image to a Fun Family photo
While the background when the iPad is unlocked should be black to make it easy to read the app names, the lock screen image can be a fun family photo. When you set the photo, take note that the clock will take up the top third of the screen, so when you choose the dimensions of the photo, center the photo on the bottom of the screen.
Increase the Home Screen Apps Size
There are two sizes for displaying apps on the home screen — medium and large. Medium is the default. You can set the apps to be larger to make them easier to read. Do this.
Increase the Default Font Size
In the accessibility menu, you can bump up the default font size. I would recommend setting this to large or extra large.
Move all of the Junk Apple Apps into a Folder or Off the Main Page
The iPad contains a lot of junk pre-installed apps. I would suggest moving all of the apps that your family member will never use into a random other folder and move this to the 3rd page of apps. On the second page, I would have the Apple apps that the person might use, but probably won’t use. On the home screen, try to keep it to just the apps that the person will really use, and the fewer apps the better in making those apps stand out. Ideally, you only have say 16 apps, a 4 x 4 grid, which makes it easy to see your apps.
Change the iPad Default Dock Apps to just Mail and possibly iMessages
There are about 6–8 default apps in the dock of the iPad. This can be a lot. I would recommend removing most of them so that it is just the email app, or email and iMessage. That makes it simpler and easy to use. I would also recommend going into settings and turning of “Show Recommended Apps” so that only shows the preset ones.
Install Netflix and Amazon Prime
Your family member might be interested in watching say The Crown or Mrs. Maisel. Download those apps, sign in to them (create a Netflix profile if you have a free slot). For Netflix, find the shows that that person would like, and save them as “My List” so that they come up easily when the person opens the app.
For Amazon Prime, it’s much harder to use as Prime doesn’t support different profiles (so your saved stuff will be mixed in with their stuff), and the interface is much harder to use because Prime shows you every season of a show as a separate search result. However, with Prime, you can download all of the episodes of a show, and the downloads button is much easier to find and use. I would suggest downloading the shows that the person wants to use, and then recommending that they just use the Download button.
Install Zoom or other Video Call Apps
While FaceTime is great for individual family members, you may want a more heavy-duty video calling app for a group video call. If so, download Zoom or whatever else you’d like to use now. Make sure to test it out — you might want to say register a Zoom account for your family member now, so that they are all set up and don’t need to set that up later. With Zoom, you can email people links, which makes it easy to use.
Practice with Them
Once you do all of this set up, your family member will likely still need some practice to get comfortable using the iPad. I would suggest setting up a phone call where they practice calling you over FaceTime so that they learn how to do this. Once you’ve practiced a few times with them, they should hopefully be all set! It’s all worth it when they start FaceTiming you out of the blue to chat.
