Helping My Dad Troubleshoot Tech Over the Phone Was Crazy-Making. This Hidden Apple Trick Spared Us Both.
There’s a feature that lets you take over another person’s Apple computer, iPhone, or iPad — with their permission, of course — and fix whatever is causing problems. (You also have ways to do this between Windows devices and between Chromebooks, but I haven’t tried it on either of those platforms.)
These days, I use this screen-takeover feature a ton to quickly help my dad troubleshoot whatever bugaboo has crept up on his laptop, be it lost logins, HP’s latest printer foibles, or whatever his hand-waving means this time (sorry, Dad — I love you!), all from the comfort of my laptop at home.
Now, even though it is possible to use this feature to take over an iPhone or iPad, I’ve stuck with using our laptops, because they’re easier to type on. Also, I tend to get vertigo during iPhone or iPad video chats with my parents, what with all the device waving going on.
But first, a few important prerequisites, which are presumably the norm for most Apple-device owners already.
In my experience, you and the person you’re helping both need to have the following:
- Apple laptop or desktop computers (the oldest operating system that will work is Mac OS X, though it’s ideal if you’re running as new a version as possible)
- stable and reliable internet access
- each other saved in your Contacts
- Messages set up (if you already have a chat going, that’s ideal, but if not you’ll need to register for a free Apple Account and set up Messages)
- usernames and passwords at the ready before you try anything, or it’ll just be a waste of time (again, time is everything)
Otherwise, you can try to help all you like, but you may find that your time would be better spent banging your head against a hard surface of your choosing.
Apple offers a couple of different ways to do this, but here is the method I use:
