Texting on android smartphone?

[Cornish Jack]

G'day all
Have recently bought a 'starter' smartphone for SWMBO - a HUAWEI
She has just started to use texting for family contacts and has difficulty in locating and modifying messages. I have a completely zero knowledge base. The manual assumes users are already competent. Can anyone advise a simple primer for her to get up to speed, please?

[OFSO]

Yeah, we've all been there and had to learn. Suggest you download on your PC/laptop a manual for the phone and start from there. I did this for my HTC phone. Incidently although there are different flavours of Android they are all similar, so you can buy a how to ? magazine in the shops.

Tip: download WhatsApp and use it. It's free unlike SMS.

Good luck !

[Cornish Jack]

Thank you, OFSO. We have the manual, but it is written on the assumption that everyone is totally au fait with texting and omits any basic info. SWMBO's major problem at the moment is moving within the text itself to amend the content - apparently there is no scroll up and scroll down as in Word , for instance. As a committed non-user, it's all magic to me!!

[Shack37]

Try writing a trial message of a few lines. make a deliberate error if necessary. To correct the mistake tap the screen just between the letter to be corrected and the next one. A curser should appear between the letters.
On or near the keypad there is a reverse arrow type symbol. Tap that and it will delete the offending letter then you can correct it.

I had the same problem with the manual......it assumes too much. Patience and trial and error is a must. Bottom of keyboard (on my Samsung)is the equivalent of the return key to go down a line.

Just play and practise, you won´t break anything.

[FullOppositeRudder]

I can empathise with you on this one. Most (if not all) of these devices expect the user to be familiar with the basic operations. I bought one for my wife twelve months ago. There was much frustration in the initial stages - and muttering of words which should not appear in print . These days she's more or less fully confident in at least the basics of text sending and receiving.

I don't text with my Androids, but my guess is that it's much like any other Andriod data input - tap on the screen where you want the cursor to be and type from there. Stretching the screen out to enlarge the print size may be helpful here. The usual Android keyboard uses a backward facing arrow to delete text behind the cursor when tapped. Dragging text up and down the screen with one finger replaces the scroll functions on keyboard devices.

The was always going to be a book called Android Phones for Dummies -

and there is

and there is

. Your library might have it; or it may be a worthwhile investment.

Persist, practise, explore, ask. Most of us blundered into becoming familiar and competent with these newer technologies.

Android is just one more of those.

[Cornish Jack]

Shack 37 and FOR, many thanks. I shall pass on those little gems to SWMBO ... I have no intention of getting involved myself. I have a Nexus on which one test phone call was made and which has since served as a quite useful camera

[OFSO]

Having tried a touchscreen smartphone on the wife - she hated it - I bought her a Nokia phone with a 'proper' QWERTY keyboard and cursor scrolling. This has proved quite a happy solution for writing messages and so on.

[MidlandDeltic]

My father also had issues with navigating text to edit (on an Android tablet, not a phone), as the stock keyboard appeared not to have arrow keys to mover the cursor. The (free) keyboard Swiftkey has four-way arrows, giving people more used to keyboards a familiar alternative (it is also easier for those of us with fatter fingers!)


MD

[Cornish Jack]

OFSO and MD, thank you both. Will bear the Nokia in mind if all else fails. Will have a look at Swiftkey - might be helpful.

[lomapaseo]

I love this stuff about to simply "tap" and a means will be provided to enter a command

Then you tap like hell all over the screen with anything handy like scarred finger tips, broken nails or a dirty stylus until nothing happens and then you hurl the phone into the nearest wall

[KBPsen]

If using your fingertip is such an issue, why not just use the voice recognition software the phone comes with. You can send a text without even touching the phone.