Now’s the time to tackle your smartphone

Modern mobile phones (smartphones as they’re called) are amazing things. More powerful than those old mainframes that filled entire buildings – 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.

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. Or if they’re a young 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!

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.

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 the confusing jargon & gobbledygook”

As a small independent publisher, the books aren’t in the shops or available on Amazon, but 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 –