I bought my mother in law a new 10” Android tablet, top of the line for her just recently from strict orders from my wife and other family members. Everyone jammed me for weeks… make sure it’s Android… no Apple, no Windows. My mother in law, although she does have a laptop and hence, has some knowledge of computers, this was essentially THE FIRST ever experience with any tablet (or touch screen for that matter). She still has an ancient cell phone. Anyhow, I can’t begin to recount the frustration on my end from days and days and weeks of questions from her, stuff I can’t even answer and have to search since I have never used an Android device. That certainly does not help. (funny how our parents simply cannot learn to “google something themselves… Christ).
My wife has a first Gen Ipad bought on day 1. I have a Windows 8.1 tablet.
Here’s what I did. Before I fully snapped and started to drink, I simply took her Android tablet away from her and gave her my wife’s dilapidated Ipad 1, which actually has Safari crash every 10 minutes or so, has a few scratches, has a couple of crap games my wife plays, has Kindle on it, Skydrive… a few news apps hum.. and all the other useless apps the average person thinks they cant live without. I told her, here, try this and let me know.
As Ravynmagi said in his points, with he big physical home button, the fact that it’s more natural for her to hold in portrait mode, the 4:3 “better for webpages” etc etc.. the fact there are simply less options on the Ipad (or at least ours), that she can by mistake find, hit, go to or change or even have to DECIDE of she needs to choose something, all these things, which I never thought of, for a person that simply has never used this tech before, all made her decide (read: demand) the Ipad 1. She said she tried for days to figure out how to get an app from the Google Play store and on the Ipad 1 she got it in 3 seconds, I am still trying to figure that one out.
I personally don’t use or have any Apple products, and there is no way I can tell or decide what is most intuitive for someone who has never used this tech before. I actually got humbled in trying to put myself in her shoes and understanding how daunting and scary this could be for someone in their late 70's that is not tech-savvy but honestly if this works for her… have at it! Merry Christmas, happy birthday… thank you Apple. Maybe this is only my mother in law's experience, who knows.
So now my wife has the new android tab, and my mother in law has the beaten and abused Ipad 1 and I can sleep at night.