I think Assistive Access in iOS 17 would fit the bill for the simplified patient UI.

https://medium.com/the-useful-tech/apples-new-accessibility-...

This. Apps can declare support for Assistive Access by adding UISupportsFullScreenInAssistiveAccess = YES to their Info.plist:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/in...

There isn't any other way to further integrate into the feature though.

My father is 84 with cognitive degeneration. He’s used an iPhone for years but is stuck on an old one with the home button purely because we don’t think he’ll transition to swiping up. His short term memory is shot, learning new behaviors is tough, and his fine motor skills aren’t great. Some of the adaptive settings help, but the home button is so easy.

Could someone not build the case you mention (shock, spill proof, easy hold) with a big speaker in it?

> He’s used an iPhone for years but is stuck on an old one with the home button purely because we don’t think he’ll transition to swiping up.

Not sure if you know this, but the latest iPhone SE still uses the iPhone 8 body complete with home button. Depending on which phone he's on, it might be a good idea to upgrade; all of the rumors that I've heard are that Apple will make the next SE on a different body.

I switched my mother, who also has cognitive decline, from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone SE to keep the same shape and the home button. She was never able to master the upward swipe on her new iPad.

Changing to the newer iOS was challenging for her due to the significantly smaller and pushed to the top call answering buttons. Apple does a lot for accessibility, but I really wish they had an “old persons mode”.

iOS 17 is supposed to come with a new "Assistive Access" setting[0] which is intended to be an "old person's mode" with limited but pronounced functionality.

In the meantime, you should be able to solve the call banner issue through a relatively hidden setting; Settings > Phone > Incoming Calls > "Full Screen" should put things back to the way they were.

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-previews-live-s...

It’s coming in iOS 17: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-previews-live-s...

I believe that the "top call answering buttons" is the banner for incoming call?. You can change that to be a full-screen one in settings-> phone -> incoming calls. If that's what you mean?

I really dislike the little banner thing and much prefer a full-screen image of whoever's calling.

There is also an assistive mode available that you can use on all iPhones to put a software "home button" always on screen.

I know because one of my previous iPod Touch devices had a broken physical home button so I used the assistive mode sofware button instead.

This might also work for people who are too old to understand how to use the phone without the physical button.

Hopefully we’ll see home buttons on cases. In theory big speakers and a physical button could be put on the bottom of a case to achieve higher levels of accessibility.

I feel for you on this.

I kept a PC working for my Dad the hard way for years. Luckily when his previous email client became unworkable and confusing we managed to switch him to google mail (which I could more easily help with remotely) and he could be talked through the TeamViewer settings. He carried on using that for several years, delighted to be able to email people, until his interest in using the PC began to drift as he got to 90, mostly I think because it became more difficult for him to read (it is amazing how much the eye's transmission of/sensitivity to light changing over time makes interfaces more difficult or can even make them seem "new", and that is when the interfaces were not changing or doing unpredictable things).

But we never managed to really get him to use a mobile phone. He could do that only fitfully despite some great device designs, and he would reject them quickly. He would forget to charge them, lose the chargers etc., and sometimes would confuse charge and signal strength, or assume he had to switch off the phone to save money.

He would likely know how to use a mobile in an emergency, but of course the day he first wandered off and completely disappeared for hours, he didn't think that was an emergency at all!

As another poster says, I would take this opportunity to upgrade to the last SE with a button while you can. There's a very good chance his muscle-memory skills will translate just fine, but I suspect you are right about swiping up.

FWIW I think swipes starting "beyond the screen", as the Palm guys used to say, is a bad design. I think the number of top-down swipes in iPadOS is confusing and annoying, and I'm not that much more than half the age my dad reached.

I wish you the best in continuing to support this sort of stuff for as long as your father needs it -- keeping someone able to use technology is not just a "nice to have", it's a connection to the modern world that means a lot.

My son is semi-nonverbal and autistic and this is a real pain point for us. We use amazon fire tablets simply because they DO have a kids (simplified) mode. Google has a version for Android on tablets, but they don't support it well. iOS has exactly nothing.

iOS also sucks in that trying to load all his favorite shows for when we are out is near impossible (I have them loaded on an SD card on the fire). Ideal, no, but when he's stressed he throws a blanket over his head and tunes into a show he likes to control what he can. It gets us through the day.

This is coming in iOS 17 btw: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-previews-live-s...

Is it just not a question of the right app? If you install VLC or infuse you can easily side load videos.

Seconded, this is what I do.

Probably more annoying to do that rigamarole with iTunes than just copying videos onto a microSD card? Plus iPad storage is expensive while a 512GB microSD card will run you $30 these days.

You dont have to do it using itunes. Both infuse and VLC can be a webserver you can copy files to and other options. See https://support.firecore.com/hc/en-us/articles/215091017-Bro...

But certainly, a SD card is cheap storage.

We use VLC on the Fire, and I'm aware we can on the iPad. Control of the overall UI and the storage cost are the main issues.

Zero-visibility interfaces are a challenge even for me.

Often they overlap with other "swipe" features giving unexpected results

There is no manual to explain them (that I know of), one must stumble across them which often leads to frustrating results.

Yes. The fact that there are _two_ top-down swipes on the home screen that start within half an inch of each other is nutty.

One of those swipes (notifications) fights with every other top-down swipe in an app _and_ the window-dragging swipe in Stage Manager, which only works on the three dots.

I find these frustrating and I have no co-ordination issues.

This has always been my argument against people who claim iOS is "easier" to use for the average user. If basic functionality is hidden behind press and hold, multifinger gestures, or swiping hidden items and you're not going to teach a user how to use them, then they may as well not exist.

If you're going to tie fundamental behaviour to unintuitive behaviour, then you have to make sure it's both easy to perform once learnt, and that you actually teach people how to use it.

My iPhone 14 Pro Max speakers have surprisingly good volume, stereo separation, and audio quality

The audio quality is partially an outcome of Apple making the phone absurdly heavy.

Yes, and absurdly huge. If I could pay the exact same price for my phone, but have it the size oven, Apple, iPhone 4 I would do it in a heartbeat.

Thank you Siri. I meant “have it the size of an apple iPhone 4”