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Comment by JSR_FDED | Hacker News Reader

My father is 84. On average once a week he calls me in a state of confusion and despair that he can’t do something on the computer. 100% of the time it involves logging in to a website or paying for something. This is when I’m so happy he has a Mac - I open Messages, find the last message from him and click on the Share Screen icon. We then complete the activity together, as if I’m sitting next to him. I’m always surprised how few people know this is built into macOS.

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This sounds so good. My father is using windows. He has teamviewer installed - and half the time when I wanna connect with him it turns into a nightmare of new version update. I only have most recent version. He doesn’t know, which version he has. I can’t connect to him, then I need to guide him how to update his version. It’d probably be easier for me to run older version in a VM, but then I don’t want him to run potentially insecure old version of screensharing app.

If you're both on Windows 10+ you can use Quick Assist which is built in and seems to work pretty well.

Almost this same exact thing happened with my parents last week. The only thing is that MacOS' remote desktop seems to work inconsistently. Sometimes it sends the permissions request immediately and sometimes it takes a while. Or the person on the other end says OK but the approval never goes through.

When it works it's fantastic though. Ditto for FaceTime screen sharing.

I find that doing a FaceTime audio call and having them answer on the device.. the requesting screen sharing makes it work every time.

If you do a FaceTime video call they can screen share from inside the call.. but it’s more steps for them.

I do this easily but with anydesk. It's always on on his Linux Mint laptop and I just start the session, he clicks accept on his popup and we're off.

I help so many friends AnyDesk has decided I'm a company so I can't use that any more. Now I use RustDesk.

I know nothing about the Apple world so take my question in that context. Is there something equivalent for iPads ?

If my wife could take control of her Father's iPad then both parties would be happier, as far as I have been able to discover this is something that isn't able to be done, by Apple software or third-party. If I found I out I was wrong that would be good.

If your wife is in the Apple world this MacWorld article gives a good overview of the options.

https://www.macworld.com/article/672451/how-to-share-screens...

Well, AnyDesk allows screen sharing from i-Devices, not sure about remote control though.

You could start a FaceTime call, have him share his screen, and lead him through whatever he needs to do. You don't have direct control, but if he can follow directions, it'll work.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109365

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