How to Make Any Smartphone Easier to Use for a Senior Citizen

March 02, 2026 | Source: Popular Science | by David Nield

If you didn’t grow up with smartphones and tablets, then the touchscreen inputs, busy interfaces, and multiple apps can quickly become overwhelming. If you have parents or grandparents who struggle with the default, out-of-the-box experience offered by iOS or Android, then that’s understandable.

It’s something that Apple and Google understand too, and modern day phones come with a variety of settings and features to make these smartphones easier to use for senior citizens.

On a basic level, you can adjust the legibility of text in iOS by opening Settings and choosing Display & Brightness: Use Text Size to make the text larger, and Bold Text to make it even more visible on display. To make other on-screen elements larger, choose Display Zoom and Larger Text from the Display & Brightness menu.