Gang,
I recently and the opportunity to visit Apple Park (which was fun). While there, I purchased an Apple Park tote to give away to a listener. So here’s the thread. Share a story about how you helped someone out using your Apple hardware and we’ll pick one as the winner.
I’ll go first! I have used my iPad(s) and iPhone to make lots of Workflow workflows for people - this has been for everything from adding international calling numbers to semi automated journal entries. It’s really been eye opening to see what things people would like to streamline and automate and has been very fun to be a part of that!
David - you should have bought two tote bags – one for Rose (just because) and one for the give-away to a listener. Just sayin’.
I was able to visit myself and bought an awesome tshirt! 
I have always been the go to guy for family and friends IT support (for better or worse sometimes 
). While I have always used my apple hardware to remote in and fix something that has gone wrong for people in there moment of dread, I would have to say the best help I have been to family and friends is teaching them how to use the devices as well to prepare for these moments of failure (I.e. A Time Machine Backup and how to restore).
I always prefer to get the story, “oh by the way XYZ happened but I did what you told me and I was able to figure it out!”
Teach a person to fish I suppose.
I teach this stuff for my business. Part of my work is with Seniors, who people often ignore and don’t have the patience for. I donate one day a week to the local senior center (5+ years) and teach classes as well as give my time to those you don’t have help.
I use my MacBook and sometimes iPad to create financial reports, programs, plays, basically anything needed, for my church. With my Mac products, it does not take a long time to create, and I’m glad to be doing this for my church.
Oh, this is a fun one. I’ve spent much of my adult life working with non-profits. Once as a staff-member but usually as a volunteer.
I’ve got two fun stories, both from awhile ago.
Story one, a church in Memphis had recently bought a building that was far too big for it’s needs so was soliciting community projects to use parts of the building. We had a group of people interested in digital media. This was 2002ish when iMovie and Final Cut were new on the scene. As it happened the church had a sort of theater space in the basement and we applied to use that. They gave it to us. For 2 years we had a collaborative workshop based on teaching and learning video editing with iMovie and FCP. We worked with kids, adult’s community groups, etc. It was a blast. Movies were made, scripts written and even two little movie festivals.
Another story, during the same time period I worked for the Memphis Literacy Council. I was hired just to do general office stuff. I’d previously been a volunteer in the computer lab and helped out in there too. Our proprietary database for tracking student progress and volunteer pairings was showing it’s age and the volunteer that had created it was no longer available. This was a fairly large system with many I hundreds of students and many hundreds of volunteers that met weekly one-on-one and also in classes. A new volunteer came along but after 5 months of attempting to create a new system using Microsoft Access he hit a wall and could not complete it. I’d been playing with FileMaker for a couple years, just as a hobby. I offered to try it with the understanding that I was something of a newbie doing my best but learning as I went. It was a bit daunting but in a month I had a basic working system. In two months it was ready for a trial run. At about three months I had transferred all the data over. I spent the next 2 years improving it and adding in new features. It far surpassed anything I’d initially thought I’d do. I left in 2004 but had heard around 2008 that they were still using it! Oh, an added detail, when I began working there it was Windows only. Partly as a result of setting up the FileMaker database which happened around the time that we were in need of 2 new computers, well, we ended up with two new G3 iMacs. Of course FMP runs on Windows too but I made the case for why having a couple Macs in the office would be beneficial and the director agreed.
Truth is, I love this stuff. The reason I started spending more time with computers was so that I could build websites for community groups I was working with… back around 1998. It ended up being a life-changing experience that led me to learning Quark and InDesign for publishing community newspapers. Keynote for presentations. So many things. Using Macs for community not-profits literally became the basis of my life and I’ve loved every minute of it.
Sorry, that’s probably way, way way more detail than anyone wanted. But when we tap into passions sometimes our fingers just go. 
Actually, would there be interest in having an ongoing thread or category about how people are using Apple tech to make the world a better place? I guess it could just be stories of how people use the tech in general but having larger context might be neat and inspiring.
I knew Rose had visited a few days before me and I figured she was fully stocked.
Great idea. That was my thinking with the contest but I think they should be bigger. After the contest let’s make it a dedicated thread.
Gave my daughter’s iMac to our neighbor when their twins were getting ready to enter kindergarten as she was upgraded to a MacBook Air. Gave my 9.7 iPad to my wife’s coworker who had a daughter entering high school when I upgraded to an iPad Pro.
Thank you for this forum!
I help a non-profit church ministry with all of their tech needs. After years of struggling with old, slow PC’s. I slowly transitioned them to Apple products. It began with iPhones, then iPads, and finally Macbook Pros. They now are being exceptionally productive. I have their contacts and data backed up with iCloud. Their data is also syncing across devices. And although iCloud is not a true backup, they have a safety net to protect these non-technical uses from data loss. And while they are based in Boston MA, I can support them from Hawaii.
Always been the Apple guy within family and friends that fixing or providing assistance is a normal occurrence in my day-to-day. One of my sisters now lives in the US (I live in the Philippines) and whenever she encountered a problem with her Mac or iPhone, she would call me on facetime. The Mac has a built-in way to easily screen-share even if we are a thousand miles apart and I’m able to show and tell her how to handle or fix certain stuff on her Mac. On the side, I show her cool things that she can do with her Mac. It such a fun way to connect and bond with my family even if we are few time zones apart.
Now, a brilliant part of a story from my family is that my mom, after teaching her the basic stuff on using her iPhone and iPad is much more knowledgeable than my sister when it comes with her devices. Sometimes, she’ll message me and tell me that there’s already a new iOS update and she was able to update by herself.
This was actually a simple task but it helped my friend out as he is always dealing with lots of paperwork for his business. First off know that being in Mexico one does not always have easy access to the best electronic gadgets. Also, I must say that the first time my friend heard of and saw my fujitsu scanner he was begging to buy it from me.
So, the simple solution was to scan the documents to my newest MacBook Pro, airdrop the pdf to my older laptop and drop the pdf into a usb flash drive. I am not too fond of plugging other people’s devices into my computer so using the secondary laptop was fine.
A bonus funny story to share. A friend is always asking for help with her iPad. She was having battery problems so I was checking to see if she had apps running in the background, helped her reign in email so it wasn’t loading thousands of email all of the time. So the crazy thing that happened is that her iPad was overheating as she had it charging continuously. I noticed that her iPad cover had basically melted to her iPad. With permission I peeled it off (like wax) and discovered the glass screen had separated from the iPad body. Because the glass was buckling up it was seldom turned off all the way. I had never seen anything like this. The temporary solution was putting the cover back on. She will be going to an Apple store when she returns to the states.
Lots of great stories, thanks for sharing everyone.
This Christmas we got our 19 year a new iPod Touch as a kind of practice device for her. It’s her first step into the world of Apple smart devices and I want to help build good habits early before it gets to be too hard to do later. It’s been a learning experience for her as it has been for us as well. One of the most fun things recently was getting her and her 8-year-old sister set up with a budget using ynab.com. We’ve been talking with them about budgeting for some time but this was really the next step. We set aside some time to work on my 2017 macbook pro to set up her budget with three main categories: giving, saving, and spending. And then within each she got to create line items for things she wants to spend money on (clothes, shoes, fashionable backpack, etc), give towards, and save for. It occurred to me that we could download the YNAB app on her iPod can set it up so the default budget that pops up on her device is her budget (rather than mine since we’re using the same account). Now she can see her progress and what she’s saving towards and check it when she’s out with her mom shopping. She is really excited about learning about how to budget and having it on her iPod makes it even more fun for her.
On several occasions, deep in the past, coworkers (many of whom sneered at my Mac as a mere toy) would find their files corrupted on their Windows boxes. I would off-handedly ask them to give me their files to see if I could salvage anything. They usually humored me.
Often I could retrieve the unformatted text, but a small but significant portion of the time, I could restore their files with full formatting intact.
I’m not sure if this really helped them or just ramped up their cognitive dissonance to harmful levels, but it sure seemed like a good turn at the time.
I am the pastor of a church in the Bay Area. I was a computer programmer for 20 years before becoming a pastor, so I am all about using tech in the church. People have learned that if they give me their old iPhones, we will give then a tax receipt. Then we will give the phone to the less fortunate in the church. I am also the go-to guy in the church to help with computer problems, and I always encourage people to change to the Mac if they are upgrading from windows.
For years and years, I’ve been the go-to-guy for family and friends when their tech, gadgets, and so on need tech support, and for the past 7 or 8 years I’ve transitioned them into the Apple eco-system.
And as a natural evolution of this, I’ve increasingly used either my iPhone or iPad to log in remotely to fix whatever issue they’re having.
However, my greatest achievement in this regard is that I’ve managed to transition my grandmother from being a non-computer as well as a non-smartphone user, into being a MacBook Air wielding iPhone SE user, with a minimum of issues other than the occasional “How-to” support.
And this is where I love the Apple eco-system’s integration across devices, and OS’es, since I’m able to, whenever my grandmother calls with one of her typical “How do I…?” questions, log into her MacBook Air from my iPad, while talking to her on my iPhone, and physically show her on-screen while talking her through it, how to do whatever it is she wants to do, and then watch her repeat the action, making sure that she has it covered for future reference 
The only thing I really miss about my Apple devices being more than up to the task is, that I rarely get to go “onsite” for coffee and tech support anymore, but again, I guess that would classify as a 1st world problem 
Well, I can’t compete with some of the others who have posted, but I’m the Apple support guru (I won’t claim “genius” status) for my neighborhood community. I build websites (gratis, of course) for those who have small businesses or other needs, as well as for the Homeowners Association using Rapidweaver. I practically force everybody to use 1Password, Time Machine, and SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner. Several people have had their butts saved by TM or SD. Keeps me busy in retirement (I’m almost 70!). There’s always an infinite demand for free tech support.