Setting Carol up

What Carol is

Carol is an iPhone app for an older parent. At times the family chooses, she asks something like “Have you had your morning tablets?”. Your parent presses one large green button, and the family can see which days they answered. Carol only ever says what the family has typed.

Carol isn’t a real person. Her face is a painting and her voice is the iPhone’s own. It’s worth telling your parent that when you set her up.

Before the visit

• Make sure you or your parent know their Apple ID password. Installing Carol or redeeming the code may ask for it, and it’s the most common thing to get stuck on.
• Your code is an Apple code. Redeem it on your parent’s iPhone, not yours. Apple codes expire, so use it within a few months. If it ever says it has expired, email us and we’ll send another.
• Check their iPhone can run Carol. It needs iOS 17 or later: Settings › General › About.
• Bring your own phone. At the end you scan a QR code with it to start Sunday’s note.
• Have a few photos ready to send to their phone (see step 6).
• Allow about 15 minutes, with your parent beside you.

The setup steps

1. Download Carol on your parent’s iPhone

   On your parent’s phone, not yours. Open the App Store, search for Carol Says and tap Get. On the home screen she’s simply called Carol. Open her. She walks you through every step below.

2. Select who Carol is for

   Select Mum, Dad or Someone else, then type the name Carol should use. Ask them what they’d like to be called. Carol says it in every line, so it’s worth getting right. (You can change it later in This week > Family setup.)

3. What Carol says, and when

   Have your code ready. You enter it on this step.

   Two things go here: reminders, which you set now on the phone, and messages, which you write later from your browser.

   Reminders. Ask your parent which times suit, then add each one. There are four kinds:

   • Medicine. Type only the end of the question. Carol asks “Have you had your morning tablets?”, so you type your morning tablets. Never a medicine name or a dose.
   • Reminder. Anything else: the bins go out tonight, Tom’s ringing at four.
   • Birthday. Type whose it is, like Tom’s birthday, and pick the date. Carol says “It’s Tom’s birthday today”, or “Tom’s birthday is tomorrow” if you choose the day before.
   • Hello. A friendly hello with the day and date, and nothing to remember. The first reminder of the day opens with this hello anyway, so you don’t need both.

   How often: choose Every day, Some days (tap the days of the week, for example bins on Tuesday) or One date (an appointment, or a birthday every year, with the option to tell them the day before). Birthdays and one-off dates are part of the family account. Nothing can be set between 10pm and 6am. As you type, the screen shows exactly what Carol will say.

   Messages: once your family account is set up, you can write a message in the family console in your browser. Carol reads it out the next time she’s on screen.

   How many: the free version has one reminder. The family account allows up to eight.

   Your code: on this step, tap Have a Carol code? Redeem it and enter the code from your purchase email or gift card. Apple confirms it, and the family account is added.

4. Add some photos

   Photos are a lovely part of the gift. They play after your parent answers Carol, and they never leave the phone.

   • We suggest at least two, and preferably four or more. The family account shows up to twenty; the free version shows one.
   • Send them to your parent’s phone now by AirDrop, text message or email, or choose ones already on it.
   • Ideas: the grandchildren, special moments, pets, holidays, a funny moment everyone still talks about.

5. Phone settings: Carol checks them for you

   After the photos, Carol shows “Now, a few settings on this iPhone”. Each line turns green by itself once it’s right, and the button at the bottom only works when they’re all done. Leave Carol open, go to the iPhone’s Settings app (the grey gear), do the step, then come back to Carol.

   1. Carol’s notifications. Easiest: tap “Open Carol’s notification settings” on Carol’s screen, which jumps straight there. Or: Settings > Notifications, scroll the app list, tap Carol. Then:

   1. Allow Notifications: switch it on (green).
   2. Under Alerts there are three pictures (Lock Screen, Notification Centre, Banners). Make sure Lock Screen and Banners both have a tick under them. Tap a picture to tick it.
   3. Banner Style: tap it and choose Persistent, not Temporary. Persistent keeps Carol’s note on screen until it’s seen.
   4. Sounds: switch it on.
   5. Time Sensitive Notifications: switch it on, so Carol gets through when the phone is on Do Not Disturb.
   6. Announce Notifications, if you see it: leave it off. It has Siri read the note aloud over headphones, on top of Carol’s own voice.

   Back in Carol, the notification lines should now be green.

   2. Volume. With Carol open, press the volume-up button (the top button on the left side) several times, until the bar on screen is nearly full. “Volume is up” turns green. This is how loud Carol’s voice is.

   3. The silent switch. On the left side of the iPhone, above the volume buttons:

   • iPhone 14 and earlier: a small switch. If you can see orange, the phone is on silent. Flick it so the orange disappears.
   • iPhone 15 Pro, 16 and later: an Action button instead. If the top of the screen shows a bell with a line through it, swipe down from the top-right corner to open Control Centre and tap the bell to turn silent mode off.

   Then in Carol tap “I’ve checked: The silent switch is off”. With the phone on silent, Carol’s alert makes no sound at all.

   4. Ringtone and Alerts. Settings > Sounds & Haptics:

   1. Drag the Ringtone and Alerts slider all the way to the right.
   2. Turn Change with Buttons off, so it can’t be turned down by accident.

   Then in Carol tap “I’ve checked: Ringtone and Alerts is turned right up”.

   5. Carol’s best voice (recommended). Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content (on newer iPhones it may be called Read & Speak) > Voices > English > Matilda, then tap the download cloud next to Matilda (Premium).

   Matilda not in the list? Wait a minute and go back in. The first time, the iPhone fetches the voices from Apple, so at first you may only see Karen. It’s a large download, so use Wi-Fi. Carol uses Matilda automatically once she’s downloaded.

   6. Auto-Lock (recommended). Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock: choose 2 or 3 minutes, so there’s time to hear Carol and see the photos.

   When every required line is green, the button at the bottom says “All done — next”. If something won’t go green, “Skip for now” is there, and Carol will remind you under This week.

6. The live test

   Carol introduces herself. You press the green button first. Then hand the phone over, and they press it too. Don’t leave until it has worked for them.

   Optional, and worth it: tap Send a test reminder in a minute, lock the phone, and wait. You’ll hear Carol’s real alert, exactly as they will.

7. Their agreement, and Sunday’s note

   Carol asks your parent whether the family may see which days they answered. They can say yes, or not now; Carol works the same either way.

   If they agree, the last screen shows a QR code. Scan it with your own phone’s camera, tap the link, and sign in with your email. That’s what starts the note each Sunday.

   Missed it? It’s always at This week > Family setup > Family account on their phone.

8. Put Carol in the Dock

   The Dock is the row of apps along the bottom of the home screen, so Carol is always in the same place.

   1. Go to the home screen and find Carol’s icon (her face).
   2. Touch and hold her face until the icons start to jiggle. If a menu appears first, tap Edit Home Screen.
   3. If the Dock already has four apps, drag one of them up out of the Dock first.
   4. Drag Carol down into the Dock and let go.
   5. Tap Done at the top right (or swipe up on older iPhones, press the Home button).

Changing a reminder later

On your parent’s phone, open Carol, tap This week, then Family setup.

Why only on the phone? The family console shows exactly what’s set, but it can’t change it. That’s deliberate, for two reasons:

• Safety. If someone ever got into a family member’s email, they couldn’t put words in Carol’s mouth. To change what Carol says, you have to be holding your parent’s phone.
• Reliability. Reminders live on the phone and work without the internet. A change made from a distance that quietly failed to reach the phone would be the worst kind of fault.

If Carol can’t be heard

• The volume may be down. Press the volume-up button while Carol is on screen.
• Notifications may be off: Settings > Notifications > Carol.
• Carol shows a short note on her screen when she can tell something is in the way.

Deleting the family account

What it is. The family account is the part we hold on our server: the household, your email address, the family’s messages, and the record of which days were answered. It’s what makes the weekly email and the console work.

Why you might delete it. You no longer want the weekly email, your parent has asked you to stop, or you’d simply like us to hold nothing about your family.

What happens. Everything we hold about the household is removed, permanently, and the weekly email stops. Carol keeps working on the phone: her reminders and photos stay exactly as they are. Deleting the account doesn’t switch off anything on their phone.

How. On your parent’s phone: Carol > This week > Family setup > Delete the family account. Or email us and we’ll do it for you.

To stop just the weekly email, use the stop link at the bottom of any weekly email. To remove Carol completely, touch and hold her icon, tap Remove App, then Delete App.

Contact

[email protected]. A person reads every email.