Grandparents often avoid the latest technology because they don’t think it applies to them. With these apps, though, you could show your grandparents that mobile technology offers something for everyone, regardless of age.
Yuck it up with Elderly Jokes
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Elderly Jokes
Cost: Free
With Elderly Jokes, your grandparents will always have a quick response when someone asks, “Heard any good jokes lately?” Plus, it’s good for a quick pick-me-up whenever you’re feeling bored. Elderly Jokes has one-liners, short jokes, and funny stories made specifically for older people.
Stay in Shape with Exercise Apps
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Getting older usually means accepting certain physical limitations, but it doesn’t have to mean slipping into an unhealthy lifestyle. There are plenty of exercise apps that offers tips for elderly people so they can stay in the best shape possible.
Here are some apps worth considering:
Elderly Exercise Tips by AppBuzz
Cost: Free
This app emphasizes moderate exercises for older people. It has nine categories that focus on issues like strength, flexibility, balance, and the benefits of staying active at any age. The app also includes information about nutrition, the benefits of drinking water, and living a healthier lifestyle.
Elderly Exercise Tips by Figspop
Cost: 99 cents
This exercise app offers many of the same benefits as the free Elderly Exercise Tips app by AppBuzz. For just under a dollar, it’s worth checking out to find an option that matches specific needs and preferences.
This app also addresses many common problems that the elderly (and everyone else, really) face when they start exercising. By confronting issues like frustration and motivation, this app could help grandparents stay in better shape even when they don’t feel like exercising.
Exercise Tips for the Elderly by Appnok
Cost: $1.30
This app addresses the exercise and nutritional needs of older people. It doesn’t offer step-by-step exercise instructions, but it does provide important information about why aging people need to eat a proper diet and remain physically active.
Exercise Tips for the Elderly by Appnok is best used in combination with other apps that offer more specific instruction. It’s more of a motivational resource than anything else. That’s definitely an important part of anyone’s exercise routine.
Keep Your Mind Sharp With Challenging Games
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Studies have shown that intellectual stimulation lowers a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Downloading game apps, therefore, could help your grandparents avoid a serious illness. Plus, playing games is fun! Why shouldn’t they have access to the same video games as everyone else?
There are literally hundreds of game apps that grandparents might enjoy. If the goal is intellectual stimulation, it makes sense to explore puzzle and logic games.
Here are some options worth exploring:
Cubles
Cost: Free
Cubles sounds like the easiest game you’ve ever played. You just have to rearrange blue, red, and yellow squares into like-colored rectangles. Couldn’t be easier, right?
It starts off easy, but the game gets more complicated and intense as you progress through the levels. Each level gives you less time to reach your goal. Eventually you even encounter bombs, water, and other obstacles that make your goals harder.
For people who find puzzles boring, Cubles offers a story mode that adds entertainment with a stimulating plot. It also has an arcade mode for competitive grannies who want to topple the high scores of players from all over the world.
Flow Free
Cost: Free
Flow Free also uses a basic concept that becomes more complicated as you progress through the game. The overall goal is simple: connect like-colored pipes so a liquid can flow along an intended path.
This type of game gives players an intellectual challenge while also letting them zone out while completing simple tasks.
With 750 levels, though, players could spend days absorbed in these tasks. Even at its upper levels, Flow Free isn’t as challenging as some puzzle games. For many people, that makes it much more fun. Intellectual stimulation, after all, isn’t the same as intellectual frustration.
Hill Climb Racing
Cost: Free
Realistically, this game isn’t much of a puzzler even though it will exercise the players sense of direction, speed, and basic physics. Hill Climb Racing is really meant for thrills. If your grandparent has reached the point where driving has become unsafe, then this game will give him or her the chance to drive recklessly without getting hurt.
Simplify Confusing Smartphones
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Your grandparents probably grew up with rotary phones that did absolutely nothing but connect them to other people. Actually, depending on your age, your grandparents might not have grown up with a phone at all. They might have even had a phone that automatically connected them to an operator without dialing any numbers at all.
The point here is that smartphones can look confusing and intimidating to older people who didn’t grow up with fancy devices and flashy screens.
Luckily, there are apps that make complicated smartphones easier for seniors to manage.
Phonotto
Cost: Free
Phonotto removes confusing icons from your grandparent’s phone, and replaces them with straightforward buttons that make it easier for them to place calls. Phonotto will turn the screens of used and refurbished cell phones into five-button or seven-button layouts.
With the Phonotto app, pressing the dial button opens a screen with large numbers. This lets the user dial easily, even if he or she doesn’t have the best eyesight. The app also puts the user’s top three contacts at the top of the screen. Press the contact, and it calls the person without any effort at all.
Best of all, Phonotto users can set the app as a boot loader that automatically takes over the phone when they turn it on, or a regular app that lets them use it when it feels convenient. Setting it up as a regular app means that your grandparent still gets to play games and use other apps. It’s the best of both worlds. Chances are, though, that you’ll have to set it up for them.
There are plenty of smartphone apps that grandparents could get a kick out of. What apps do your grandparents already enjoy?
About the Author:
DJ Miller is a graduate student at the University of Tampa. He is a gadget geek on a budget! He loves getting the latest and greatest smartphones but doesn’t like paying full price for them, so he is a huge fan of used and refurbished cell phones. You can follow him on twitter @MillerHeWrote
