Learning to Use Your Future Computer

Your future supercomputer is a smartphone.

Once a you recognize that the smartphone is certainly nothing like the crude earlier cell phones and is, in fact the slick voice-operated computer of the future, seniors warily turn to it.

I always have three or four seniors just starting to learn to use one.  I have found no really good presentation to help them get past the very steep but thankfully short learning curve.

So here goes:

So how do we turn it on?   

Unplug it after it has been charged. Look for a short push button on the side. Hold that push button in for a time. Give it a minute or so to start up.   You may need to swipe up on the screen to get to the home (so-called) desktop.

The desktop is home base. It can be identified on the most widely used Android phones by the tiny circle at the bottom of the screen.   Tapping on the square at the right shows past screens  where you can tap to go back to them.  Tapping on the left goes back to the last screen.

Tapping is not jabbing. You need to hold the tap for a moment.

Swipes to the left to the right and up and down will take you to different places.  Explore.

At the top of the screen is the all-important search bar. Tap on the microphone and speak out what you were looking for,  such as “Play NPR one”  for the latest news.

Elsewhere on the home screen are icons for the many things that you can do, to which many more can be added.  

These apps can be added from the Play Store icon. You do need to set up an account.   

Almost all apps are free. You just need the account so that the cloud will know what apps are yours...since most of the work of the phone is being done elsewhere in the cloud on another computer.

You need to be very very very very careful about recalling your passwords.  This is the biggest problem most seniors seem to have.

Otherwise, tap away. You are off and running.

For more Tap or click to read a free Google Book on Android. READ IT THROUGH to become an instant expert.