My mom has an iPhone SE with a home button on Verizon, and it’s time to switch. At start, I thought I’d get her on a cheaper plan (any plan is cheaper than what Verizon offers, basically) and get a new device from Apple directly, but I understand that what I first thought is the “best” option doesn’t necessarily mean the best option for her.

It’s easy to get the size factor out of the way. There are no new iPhones that are the SE size she currently has, end of story. Whether she gets the iPhone 17 or the iPhone 17 Pro makes almost no difference; she will struggle either way and end up dropping the phone a couple of times before she holds it properly, which of course means a good case for it, which of course means even a bulkier device. I know that it’s only me and maybe 10 more people who care about small factor phones anymore, but I do think it’s becoming an accessibility problem (and bend over to tie your shoe problem, and a jogging problem, and a stretch-your-thumb to the top of the screen problem, and… Ok, you get the point)

So with that being what it is, the rest is mostly software. For most of us, swiping on our iPhone is already muscle memory. We don’t think of it. But for a person who comes from having a home button, this will take some time. I do think that in the end she will learn how to use it and it will be fine, but the transition won’t be easy.

Most of the other software updates to iOS 26 are not going to be an issue. These are all added features, built on top of the old ones. For example, I love that Notes now has an option to export to markdown, but if my mom doesn’t know what that is and doesn’t need it, she doesn’t need to worry about it. I have to change her screen arrangement, which is a cacophony of 5 (!) screens of icons, no order or organization. It hurts my eyes just to look at it. There are some widgets I will include (weather, world clock, maybe a news-related one), and I will have her trained (hopefully) to use only one screen, switching to the right-most one to search for the apps she needs. There’s also the connection to the Apple Watch, which she has, but doesn’t use to its full potential. I need to help her with directions through Apple Maps, which work great on the watch, go over the new fitness app (she’s a yoga instructor and in better shape than I am), and make sure the payment options work, among other helpful things.

Searching and language is another problem. My mom’s English is good enough, but she doesn’t know what the different apps are called or what to search for. For example, “Reminders” doesn’t make sense to her, since she still translates from Hebrew in her head, so she will end up searching for something like “memories,” and Apple might suggest something from the App store, which will confuse her further. Switching languages to Hebrew is even worse because the translation is not the best, and it makes it harder for me to help since I’m used to English. I also noted that Siri, while able to work in Hebrew, is pretty bad compared to the English version; three out of three times it missed the request for instructions in Hebrew, even though my mom is fluent and has no accent, but it caught up immediately in English, despite my mom’s thick accent and grammatical mistakes. Well then, English it is.

Then there’s the usual confusion of what to use for photos and files. Some of her photos are stored with the Photo app and in iCloud; some are on Google Drive, and we still have some documents on OneDrive since she’s using Word to write. All of those cost money, but cutting her off from one of them means sitting down for a long weekend and deciding what to migrate and to where.

This brings me to the issue of Verizon, which in my opinion is the worst company to be tied into (unless you work for someone who pays the bills, I guess). There are so many other options which offer basically the same converge where she is, for half and even less than half the price. But since she wants to go to a physical store and have someone transfer the information, I guess they’ll keep charging her for two more years until she moves closer to me (I’m already a remote tech support on the Mac, which works well, but a phone is a different story).

Meanwhile, I’m very happy with iOS 26. I will probably get the iPhone 18 when it comes out, since this is when my warranty will expire. I plan to get the Max version then (again, in terms of size, not much of a difference, so if I’m already suffering in that regard, might as well suffer and have more cameras, right?) and see if I can use in the built in Photos apps (also on the Mac) and finally ditch Adobe; I don’t use Photoshop enough to justify the price every month. I think they’ve had a couple of improvements lately, and I’m curious what other people use instead. I’m sure there are options (anything that doesn’t use the cloud, maybe? for Mac?).

Anyway, enough grumping from me for today. For now.