Now’s the time to tackle your smartphone

Mbuildings – and yet so small you can fit them in

your pocket.

And possibly the best thing phones can do for

you is help you keep in touch with family and

friends. I don’t just mean ordinary phone calls –

any old phone could do that.

But with a smartphone, in just a few taps of the

screen you could be sharing a video call – talking

to them as if they were sat right there beside

you. Not only that, they can do everything from

browsing the web to emails, taking photos to

watching TV and lots more. Oh and you can still

use them for ordinary phone calls too, of course!

All that whether you’re at home on the sofa, at a

cafe, in a hotel, waiting for a train or even sitting

on the bus.

But (there’s always a “but” with modern

technology, it seems), it’s not always as simple

as that.

odern mobile phones (smartphones

as they’re called) are amazing

things. More powerful than those

old mainframes that filled entire

Sometimes it’s simply not obvious how to do

the things you want to do. Or you might not be

aware of the things your phone could do for you.

Not all of them would be things you’re interested

in, but some of them almost certainly would be

handy.

Sometimes it can drive you mad trying to do the

simple stuff, because it just isn’t obvious until

someone shows you.

You can ask a friend, of course. But if they

have a slightly different model of phone

they might not know.

technological whizz, they just do it for you,

leaving you none the wiser for next time. Or say

“You just do this”... and seconds later it’s done

and you still don’t know how!

The obvious thing would be for the

manufacturers to include a decent manual with

each phone - but they never seem to. At best you

get a couple of small pieces of paper telling you

how to charge it. As if that was all you need to

know!

Or if they’re a young

Maybe it’s because manuals – paper books

– are seen as too “old fashioned”. Some

manufacturers put a manual on the device itself

as an ebook – great if you already know how to

use it... in which case you don’t need the manual!

That’s where a set of books from The Helpful

Book Company come in. They’re a small,

employee-owned company based in Cumbria and

lots of their customers say they certainly live up to their name! They’ve published iPhones One Step at a Time and Android smartphones One Step at a Time – and these books have proved hugely popular with all sorts of people who have a

smartphone – but who aren’t experts at using it.

Whether you’re frustrated with the very basics,

want to know what else it can do for you or wish

you knew how to do some of the slightly fancier

things, this book might be just what you need.

gobbledygook”

It explains everything nice and simply, in

plain English, without all the confusing jargon

and gobbledegook. And it has lots of pictures

showing exactly what to do - where to tap the

screen and so on.

The company have already published books

about computers and tablets that have helped

thousands of people. But they actually started

much smaller - the author wrote some notes

to help his Mum and Dad on their PC and

realised that other people might find them useful

too. Several thousand happy people later, they

decided to bring out a book on smartphones as

well - and if you’ve ever been frustrated with

your smartphone, it’s worth finding out more.

“Plain English without

As a small independent publisher, the books

aren’t in the shops or available on Amazon, but

the confusing jargon &

you can get a free information pack telling you

about what’s covered in the books, who they’re

suitable for and how to get hold of them from the

just ring 01229 777606 company –