Smart Phone Apps for Senior Citizens

Smart Phone Apps for Senior Citizens

Game AppsAnd Travel SolutionsThe development of new smart phone apps has improved the quality of life for people everywhere. It seems as if our cell phone technology is moving at lightening speed. Teens, of course, love to stay in touch by texting their friends; people who are frequently lost love the navigation features; and those of us who like to stay up to date appreciate the ability to receive local and international news alerts. Some people actually use their smart phones as telephones, too!

Smart phones are particularly helpful for people who are aging or have health problems. Having your phone with you is a convenient way to keep phone numbers, addresses, and your calendar handy all the time. However, with the addition of a few free or inexpensive smart phone apps, your smart phone can almost become your personal assistant since it will answer questions and solve problems for you all day long. Baby Boomers and other older Americans are finding that it is easy to customize their cell phones to meet their specific needs.

Here are a few of my personal favorite apps for senior citizens: turns your smart phone into a mini recorder with the push of a button. Simply tap the screen and dictate a message. Afterwards, you can press the keyboard icon to pull up your phone keypad, which allows you to made corrections or additions. Once you feel that the message is correct, you can tap the arrow icon which will allow you to send your message out as a text message, email, Tweet, or Facebook comment. If you hate to text because of the tiny keyboard on your phone, this is the perfect solution!Have you ever been out shopping, or simply driving around doing errands, and you desperately needed to find a public restroom? Sit or Squat will show you on a map where you can find the nearest restroom that may be open to the public. Within a few seconds, the information will appear on the screen. This is helpful when you are listening to music with family or friends, and simply can remember who sang that song you are listening to!Hey Tell turns your phone into a walkie talkie. You can use it to leave a quick message on someone phone. This is so handy when you are wandering around Disneyland, wondering where everyone in your party has gone! Simply use this walkie talkie feature, and they can respond quicker than they can send a text!Do you love to listen to music, but you don always have anything other than your phone with you? With this app, you can create your own internet radio station. Enter the name of your favorite recording artist, and will create a play list for you. If you like a song when you hear it, give it thumbs up and they will play it more often. If you give it thumbs down, you will rarely, if ever, hear it again. I have set up several radio stations on my station: Quick Mix, Hubert Laws, Celine Dion and Simon Garfunkel. I love being able to hear exactly the music I like, when I want to hear it. This is a handy site for anyone in an emergency, or anyone who is simply curious about vague symptoms they may be having.

White Noise Lite

Staying in a hotel, and having trouble sleeping? This smart phone app will produce gentle sounds that are designed to help you relax and get to sleep. This can be very handy if your hotel turns out to be noisier than you expected!

Words With Friends Free

Words With Friends is a game similar to Scrabble. You play it on your phone, either with other people you know or with strangers. Word games are one way to keep our brains functioning at top capacity, and Words With Friends is one way to always have a game handy. Our family enjoys it as a way to stay in touch, too. It can do voice translations for you in 60 languages, which could make life much easier for you in an emergency!I don know how I would get by without having a on my iPhone. I enjoy having my e reader at home, and that is where I usually read my books. However, occasionally I find myself out running around and unexpectedly end up with dead time on my hands. Perhaps I have a longer than expected wait in a doctor office. Possibly a grandchild falls asleep while I babysitting, and I would love to take the time to relax and read. Whatever the reason, it is wonderful to be able to open the app on my phone. When I do, it will take me directly to the page I was reading on my home ! I can read on my iPhone as long as I want. When I get home, my normal will ask if I wish to go to the spot where I stopped reading on my other device. I can easily pick back up again, without having to search for the spot where I stopped. It like always having a paperback novel in my purse!

Adding Other Smart Phone Apps

There are literally hundreds of thousands of other smart phone apps that you might enjoy having on your phone. However, sometimes I discover that there is no app for the site I want to access daily. When that happens, the iPhone, as well as other smart phones, has a way to simply add an icon for any webpage you regularly view. All you need to do is look up the site on your phone browser and, when you open the webpage you want, pres the + sign at the bottom of the page and it will give you the option of saving it to your phone browser page or adding an icon on the screen. I have done this with sites like InfoBarrel, Google Adsense and my blog, which makes it so simple to return to those sites whenever I want.

If you own an iPhone or other type of smart phone, you will want to be sure you are using this new technology to make your life as easy as possible. A good place to start is with the apps listed here.