Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

My 75-year-old, retired construction worker dad’s fingers are nearly useless on capacitive screens; half a century of handling cement apparently has that effect. His deep East Texas accent was still only semi comprehensible to Siri the last time I had him try with my phone.

He recently missed several notifications from his truck’s dealership that the part they ordered was in and ready for installation, because they sent text messages that he didn’t read, instead of ever calling and leaving a message when no one responded to the texts. I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences.

He’s fine flying as long as one of us can buy the ticket for him and he just needs his ID at the airport; I dread the day airlines start requiring their stupid apps.

This happens to everyone's fingers to some extent because the fingertips dry out as you age. It's a huge source of frustration for elderly folks since it adds to the confusion around using touch interfaces. My family members have had some success moistening their fingers with a wet paper towel periodically as they use their devices, though of course that is impractical on the go.

Do iphones not have "increase touch sensitivity" as a setting? Thats all I had to do for my dad for him to be able to easily use it again, on a samsung though.

There are also phones with buttons again, the unihertz titan 2 elite looks good btw. Or Clicks addon keyboards.

> I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences.

they can send scheduling info, appt reminders, etc via SMS but (1) they must allow opt out, and (2) they cannot send medical info this way — that's where HIPAA requires encrypted "patient portal" messaging because SMS can be intercepted or accessed by others.

That's good to know - I'll tell him to check that with his current doctors' offices, and make sure that he makes it clear for any new practices he visits that he only does phone calls and postal mail.

you can buy finger sleves on eg Amazon and any other shop. They're super cheap and work well / entirely resolves that issue

He probably doesn't want it, because he probably just doesn't want to interface with the phone ... Which is fine, I'm just pointing out that the quoted issue has an easy solution.

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