Mobiwire Oneida PAYG upgrade -How can I remove Facebook and other icons from display

[mark-ellis]

Updating elderly relative from Nokia 3310 to Mobiwire Oneida, purely because they're now in a care home and can send me photos of any letters received by WhatsApp. The idea being to let it become a Classic PAYG phone, rather than a £10 a month bundle PAYG - but that might be scuppered if I can't find a way to stop it accessing internet and updating apps.
Relative is IT illiterate, and so a simple push button phone with camera and WhatsApp should solve many issues. But the settings and options on this Oneida are so limited that I can't see any way to delete or remove a number of icons off the display.
Any solid suggestions from previous experience most welcome

[BandOfBrothers]

Sometimes long holding the app icon in question makes it jiggle or bring up a sub menu to remove them.

Sometimes also in settings and then apps if available brings an option to remove apps.

Some apps however are not removable but can have their preference settings to not use mobile data.

You can stop mobile data usage in most phones by turning off mobile data in the phone but then that means it'll only access the Internet via a Wi-Fi connection unless mobile data is turned back on.

Most phone's nowadays are designed to use the Internet more and more and to update themselves in the background which is why it's best to have a data allowance of some sort.

[AnnS]

Hi @mark-ellis 

The easiest way to achieve this is to go into the phone settings, applications and uninstall what you can.  For anything not possible to uninstall, change the permissions.  For example, Google Play Store, files and media access for the phone, change this to deny, you can also disable the application.  I would also suggest turning off anything possible not needed in notification settings apart from WhatsApp.

Apart from this turn off mobile data or simply enter incorrect APN settings into phone the connection settings.

If your elderly relative is going to be using the device as a phone, it would be worth mentioning that without a BVB, this is going to work out on the expensive side on with the £1.00 daily PAYG 1 charges. 

The manual for the device is here: Manual There are two versions of the phone, with or without a camera.

[mark-ellis]

Relative at most will be using it one day a week.

As I understand it, the user can make calls all day and use (I think 54) Mb data and be charged £1 for all of that. So at most it's £4 a month, and less if people phone them.

The concern is that there appears to be very limited Settings on this phone's operating system, and do you really want an IT illiterate person to have a phone where they can accidentally access to the internet, messenger, etc. 

It's not a touch screen

[BandOfBrothers]

The beauty of Payg is that you can change from one tariff to another so perhaps go ahead with Payg1 and see how it pans out @mark-ellis 

As I mentioned in the first reply to your opening post “ Sometimes also in settings and then apps if available brings an option to remove apps. ”

To add in the Playstore there are package disablers that allow a person to remove apps that are baked in i.e installed out of the box but one has to be careful what you do with them.

[mark-ellis]

Only, Band of brothers if it's an android or smart phone. This isn't a touch screen smart phone

[AnnS]

Yes @mark-ellis 

The benefit of PAYG 1 is only being charged for outgoing, it's free to receive.  To prevent your relative running out of credit, It would be worth setting up an online account, this will give an indication of the amount of credit remaining and enable you to top up through the account.

With your relative not understanding about APN settings, as suggested just enter an incorrect APN in the connection settings. When you insert the SIM Vodafone usually send a text to download the settings, to prevent being constantly reminded it may be worth installing these and changing them afterwards.

[mark-ellis]

Only wanted a phone that had camera and able to do WhatsApp. As I can't remove or uninstall Facebook, internet icon, etc then it can go back 

[BandOfBrothers]

Totally understand this @mark-ellis 

In my opinion app's such as Facebook shouldn't be baked into the phone and non removable via the usual way.

Some people either remove it via a package disabler or force stop the app as they either don't want the app or prefer to use their Url Browser to access the page instead.

I wish you all the best with this.