Pointless and/or Tablet-centric Appearance Changes

[Aggie]

Stinking browser....  my startup screen (already geared for touchscreens) has morphed on me.  Nothing difficult to adjust to; but the little page-jump items have gone from a 3 x 3 grid to 2 x 8, and from square-cornered to round-cornered tablet-shaped lozenges.

I wish these almighty tech gods would figure out that there are multiple viewing platforms still out there, and also realize that some users like appearances to keep static; it'd be nice to be able to download a little add-on that would allow one to skin a current browser version with previous versions. In this case, I don't have a real preference between the two layouts, but am irked by the fact that it just suddenly changed, and that it's just assumed that my brain will re-wire in a couple of days (which it will).

Ditto for webmail platforms, and social media platforms.  I suppose it's a lot of needless programming, but I hate the forced-change aspect of continual upgrades.

[The Meromorph]

A-yuh...

[Griffin NoName]

So do I. Especially when it adds nothing new from the user perspective.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Hear! Hear!

My dad's aging PC died-- the one he has connected to the living room TV.   So he wanted a new one-- alas-- the only ones available have Windoze 8. 

I thought-- "how bad could it be, really?"

..... Oh.

..my...

..... effing ... GOD! 

... "bad" cannot possibly describe the user-hell I went through to get the damn thing back to what Dad was used to (XP).

What the EFF, Microsquish?   Taking your cues from CrApple, now?  Where you change stuff just because?   No regards at **all** to the end-users? 

Idiots. 

[Griffin NoName]

I need a new laptop. I could get one with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - there are still quite a few to choose from here. But I don't really want to invest in an old system and then have to upgrade (op.sys. = lazy re-installing everything) )so I'm waiting til Wonders 10 comes out next year (dunno when, but later than 1st quarter apparently). I just hope my laptop doesn't burn out before then.

No way would I ever ever have Winoze 8.

I'm beginning to see people who need laptop/desktop functionality as completely different from people who just need a tablet. One's a toy.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Windows 8 follows M$ proud tradition* of idiotic changes requested by marketing implemented in products that really don't work, which is why you have to use the next version when reality bites them in the @$$.

Windows 8.1 may still have the idiotic tiles but it goes directly to the desktop now and you can install a classic start menu making it a usable computer once again. The only problem with 8.1 is that to get the [free] update you must sign in with a M$ account and the system will log you in as that from that point on. Perhaps a new computer will come with 8.1 already installed and you can still use a local account but it is a problem moving from 8 to 8.1.

Once with the classic shell the system is quite usable even if it still has the hot areas showing up from time to time (and if you take the time you can configure the stupid tiles for the submormal low tech users provided they have a touchscreen**).

*you know 3.0, 95, Me, Vista and now 8

**not that you can't use them with a mouse, but really, what is the bloody point of the tiles if you can actually use a mouse? 

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, that all sounds as bad as I thought it was. Mind you, although Windoze 10 is supposed to be better, until it is out, who knows. I may be waiting for something equally bad.

[Aggie]

10? Was 9 so dismal they declined to release it?

It seems like Windows is bearable about every other release...  i.e. XP and 7 vs Vista and 8.  Does going straight from 8.x to 10 mean another stinker in the making?

I'm beginning to see people who need laptop/desktop functionality as completely different from people who just need a tablet. One's a toy.

I suppose tablets will move into mainstream computing functionality soon enough, at least in terms of raw power, but the interface isn't set up IMHO for serious work.  Touchscreens are fun to play with (I assume, I am still completely inept in actually handling them), but for precision entry and ergonomics the old keyboard and peripheral pointer device still seems better to me. A decent neural interface would make a screen-only device a little better, but that will be a couple of years still, I think.

It says something about discretionary spending and the availability of consumer credit that the main driver for the advance of personal technology is no longer business (the traditional foundation for OS and hardware) but personal entertainment and distracting toddlers.  One hears a lot about people being deep in debt and having much less time for what's important (family, meals, etc) these days, but I'm curious to know what the actual numbers (dollars spent and hours available) would be if the current crop of communication/entertainment technology was subtracted from the picture.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

It's easy to demonize technology, before gadgets it was TV and before radio. Besides you can't remove that tech without removing it's brothers and sisters everywhere else.

Money spent goes to the same discretionary spending that goes to everything, be it a margaritaville machine, alloy wheels or a car stereo, fashion clothing, etc.

If you are advocating going back to an agrarian society I recommend Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature for a reality check.

[Griffin NoName]

...........One hears a lot about people being deep in debt and having much less time for what's important (family, meals, etc) these days, but I'm curious to know what the actual numbers (dollars spent and hours available) would be if the current crop of communication/entertainment technology was subtracted from the picture.

It deeply irritates me that my sister has time to hang out on FB (every day) when she tells me she is too busy to phone me (by email of about two sentences). We never speak, she just "likes" some of the stuff I post like pictures of my grandchildren. My other sister is too busy with the church (? she is Jewish....) and morris dancing to ever phone me either. Basically I've had to give up having sisters. I cannot work out what is actually wrong with them, but something clearly is.

I don't think virtual keyboards can ever be equal to real keyboards. How can anyone touch type on a virtual one? I have to use a few (smartphone etc), and the number of times I get the wrong letter because my fingers are too big for the size of the letters displayed drives me nuts. Similarly touch screens quite often don't respond to my touch. It's not that I'm new to it, some of them I've used for quite a while, they just seem to be very fussy about what features one's touch actually embodies. I think this "new" technology has quite some distance to go before I will consider it as an improvement because using it is slow compared to the old interface.

[Aggie]

It's easy to demonize technology, before gadgets it was TV and before radio. Besides you can't remove that tech without removing it's brothers and sisters everywhere else.

Money spent goes to the same discretionary spending that goes to everything, be it a margaritaville machine, alloy wheels or a car stereo, fashion clothing, etc.

If you are advocating going back to an agrarian society I recommend Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature for a reality check.

I suppose that I'm not so much demonizing the technology as wondering why it seems to get an automatic free pass as a good thing, and ever more as taken for granted (if there's any real criticism of the system to be leveled, it would be at the credit aspects, and also the widespread move from purchase-oriented consumption to ongoing fee-for-service platforms). Conspicuous consumption has been with us for a very long time, and is unlikely to stop soon, so the financial side can't really be blamed on the devices, as you say. Television has been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with innovations, lately. We have moved to more of an individual-consumption pattern though; the image of the family clustered around the radio for entertainment looks pretty quaint and old-fashioned at this point.  We've become a society of individualists, although interestingly enough much of the time we spend alone seems to be in effort to connect with the other individualists around us.

However, I don't advocate a dialing-back of progress in a large way; society can do its own damned thing, and I'll do mine. 

[Griffin NoName]

Agreed. I'm not demonizing it. It's just arrived before it is a polished product(s). I'm not moving to something that is half as good as it should be, and which I don't need. I expect to purchase a tablet when it does more than show films better than laptops. I have a perfectly good TV, in fact 3, and 4 PVR's (I could upgrade dvd to blue ray I suppose) with On Demand etc., and I never go anywhere.

Purchase orientated? Don't get an iPad LoL. Always consider Open Source. My smart phone is becoming over-loaded with free apps I've downloaded. Paying is for suckers!! Mind, I am wondering whether to use M%S Word or OpenOffice when I buy a new laptop.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I've had some sort of Android tablet for going on 3 years now.  All were 9" or bigger.  If you go back to 7" size?  It's been even longer-- I got one of the ill fated Dell Streaks-- but I loved it nonetheless.

I've had an Android smart phone for even longer-- I was an early adopter with the G1.   I now have a venerable Samsung S3, which is about 2 or 3 iterations less than cutting edge--but it Just Works for what I use it for, so I haven't replaced it.  It's at least running the latest Android, so there's that.

I do some serious work with each device (phone/tablet).   My current tablet is another Samsung, 10.1 2014 Note, which is amazing.  The screen is superior in quality and resolution than a color page from National Geographic.  Seriously, it is that good (far better than the ipads).  I forget how many processors it sports-- it's not important to me.   It's battery life is good-- lasts me all day 9.5 of 10 times, good enough.  For the rare times it konks out?  I have a monster recharger:  a LiIon battery pack that re-ups either my phone or my tab in about 20 mins or so-- at least twice in a deliberate run-it-down test.   And since the battery pack is portable?  I can keep going, if I need to.

I also have a more modest Samsung tab, the Tab 3 7".   It's as modest a Samsung tab as I could find, and pretty much all I use it for is to host music, either blue tooth or via earphone cable.  It does sport very modest speakers, but they are too quiet for what I need, so I either bluetooth to the vehicle's radio, or cable to a worksite speaker set (a little Milwakee radio that shares my tool's LiIon batteries.  Nice.  Sounds quite good for what it is too).

I was going to just get an android, phone-sized music player to replace my now useless iPod Classic, but when I went shopping?  The 7" tablet was actually cheaper than phone-sized player-only devices, and it sports a micro SD slot too (most of the phone sized players did not).  I now have a lovely 64gig card in there, which holds all my music and as many audio books and podcasts as I want.  With room to spare (my music is only a modest 30gigs). 

I love not having to choose which music to bring with, ahead of time.

Same goes for my big 10" tablet-- I have all my ebooks on it too-- in a massive 128g micro card (music too, but that's mostly as a backup).

I love not having to choose beforehand.

But-- I do serious work with this beast too-- I have a Heat Load calculator in there.  Let's me do heating and cooling analysis on a building, to properly select the correct size.  Instead of guessing as so many do (and usually guess *wrong*... meh). 

I had purchased a bluetooth physical keyboard, but I find the 10" with it's stylus, the virtual keyboard is nearly as fast, and a darn sight more handy.  I've gotten quite good at click-clicking my way around that virtual 'board.  And at 10", there's plenty of room.  The stylus makes for pin-point accuracy--even backspacing or middle-of-word edits (really really hard to do with just your finger...)

I'll never go back, willingly, to a Traditional Laptop for portable work.   My desktop?  Is a box-- again?  I'll not willingly trade the repairability/expandability of a box over a fixed-in-place laptop. 

Yes-- I have an aging Windoze laptop-- but I seldom use the thing. It's running XP, I think-- not worth bothering with to either upgrade, or even update.  I just don't use it.   I really should have sold it, when it still had modest value.  Oh well.

[Aggie]

I was thinking office work in particular (data entry, report writing, etc), but you have a point that 'work' does not always mean sitting at a desk when it comes to requiring technological solutions.  

Back in the mid-2000s, the company I was with could have used a tablet for the high-volume environmental audits we routinely performed.  I managed to put together a report generator on Microsoft Access that allowed us to produce dozens of reports automatically once the data was entered, but to record it in the field we actually had to write it on dead trees and take photos with a camera.  Smartphones were becoming mandatory as I left that line of work, and had they been a little more technologically advanced (especially with regards to camera resolution, GPS and accelerometer/gyroscope technology) I probably would have bought one circa 2008 for field work. A tablet would have probably worked just fine instead of a laptop for common field duties (viewing documents, etc).

I use a laptop full time, as I only need / can afford one PC at the moment, but would switch back to a desktop if I was doing full-time desk work and needed a work machine.  The laptop's good for music and around-the-house use.

IMHO, the convenience factor of smartphones and tablets is exactly what makes them dangerous as a cultural force.  Much too easy to carry with you, although I still protest the size of smartphones in the context of having to carry the thing around in one's front jean pocket (actually a big reason why I stick to a crappy flip phone).

[Griffin NoName]

My smartphone is not much bigger than my old flip phone. In reviews it was said to have a screen that was too small, but for the things I use it for that isn't an issue.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I suppose that I'm not so much demonizing the technology as wondering why it seems to get an automatic free pass as a good thing

I guess the reason I like mobile tech is because I've been wishing it since I started working with computers and later as the internet showed up. I don't miss buying a map and try to read it when I'm lost, for instance, or going on the road without having a clue on the traffic ahead, or do a quick query on X subject while away from my computer, or having to maintain backups of stuff and moving it around, etc, etc, etc.

See, I don't like the stupid magazines in a waiting room, and hauling big books not knowing if you will be able to read them isn't that much fun either. Yes, there are low tech alternatives and probably mobile tech makes us more rude to each other in a number of scenarios, but for the most part in my case they allow me to use dead time in a more pleasant ways than before.

Now, the ability of a boss to f*ck your holiday isn't so much a fault of the device as a fault with your boss and the society that thinks that that is acceptable.
--
As for credit and the consumer ethos, I bet education and common sense have more to do with it's problems -both from the lenders and the borrowers- than anything else. Of course, common sensical regulations would go far on that respect (and many others, like say, fossil fuels, or sugar in your food, etc, etc), but then again the problem is on how our society is structured more than the [in this case, financial] tools used.

[Griffin NoName]

I'm used to staring vacantly into space in waiting rooms, never read the magazines which are of no interest to me.

I had a hospital day procedure recently and took my Kindle and used when waiting a couple of times. First time I've ever done this having had it already for ~2 years. It was nice to be able to read my book; I did this to keep up with my book club list as I was falling behind.  I would have been just as happy staring into space.

Zono, it sounds like you fill every moment with input/output from/to mobile devices. I don't want to do this. I find the way young people are forever on their cell phones quite annoying. I want a quieter world.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I love watching a sunset, but staring to the ceiling by itself isn't particularly fulfilling for me, then again that's me, heck if a ceiling has some random patterns I can try to look for them but the proverbial 'watch paint dry' isn't really my thing, then again leaving time for introspection is rewarding, but for me its a bit difficult in a noisy environment where a TV hanging from the ceiling has FOX/CNN.

My point was that I do like the choices provided by a mobile device and I'm perfectly happy if someone doesn't like them/use them, nor do I criticize their choices.

I do agree with some of Aggie's criticisms, like the culture of purchasing something for the sake of it (and with planned obsolescence that is indeed a problem), I'm not the kind of person who spends $700 on a device to change it after 10-12 months because a new one is out, the same way I don't lease cars but keep them for years after I paid them. And in both those cases I gave both phones and cars to family members because they were in good shape. My point was that the culture of consumption is the problem not the devices themselves.

[Griffin NoName]

I don't change my laptop until it more or less falls to pieces. Something like the mother board going where cost of repairs is too high compared to the fact of the thing being ancient anyway. This usually means about 5 or 6 years. I use my Kindle every day but it has a dim sort of dirty sage coloured background and even with larger letters it strains my eyes. I have to read it right under a spotlight. I've wanted the paper-white-with-a light version for over a year, so my decision to purchase the latest has taken at least a year. I don't rush to buy new stuff until it is bedded down, or very specific reason to do so. Tv/PVR both several years old althoughh BT forced me to have a new BT Vision box, but it was free. So I agree with Aggie too.

I would have felt like you Zono about staring at ceilings before I got ill. But I am often forced to lie in bed doing just that because I have no energy to use any device, or read a  book, or anything. So it has become a normal part of life, in fact a necessary part of life. Doing it while waiting conserves energy I can't afford to use up by any other activity. I cannot really describe what total lack of energy, or indeed very low, is like. It's technically like a car running out of petrol. The thing comes to a stop, which is what happens to people with CFS. So every minute of the day is geared to using as little energy aas possible because we are always running on empty.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I'm with Zono.  I like having my choice of reading material with me everywhere I go, so I can make productive use of time I'd otherwise waste.

I also like having my choice of music; I really don't like radio these days, it's either depressing, or the music too repetitive. 

I also keep my devices as long as possible; I don't much care for change.  Alas, I've discovered these latest gadgets have a memory issue; after about 2-3 years of daily use, they begin to lose memory function.  It's because of destructive memory (the so-called FLASH memory); after so many writes, it's destroyed.  There is some forethought in this arena, and extra memory is bolted in, as it wears out, the extra is parceled in to the pool.  But, as I've discovered, after about 2-3 years or so?  The extra is used up too.

If I were in charge of these?  All FLASH would be user-replaceable.  It'd be quite simple, too-- an internal slot for a microSD would do the trick just peachy.  Another trick?  Only utilize 1/2 of the inserted micro card, slowly working from one 1/2 to the other over time. 

Memory is cheap enough, and so are slots.  This could keep these devices functional for many years; simply replace the worn micro card with a new one.  The OS would be copied from read-only memory, or FLASH that is *only* written to when the OS needs updating.  Rare enough to keep that part going for decades.

I hate that the makers of these things deliberately make them so that they wear out and become expensive paperweights.   There's nothing wrong with the *other* parts at the end of their life:  the screen is still bright, the touchscreen still sensitive, the CPU humming along, and so forth. 

Uggg....

[Aggie]

I do agree with some of Aggie's criticisms, like the culture of purchasing something for the sake of it (and with planned obsolescence that is indeed a problem), I'm not the kind of person who spends $700 on a device to change it after 10-12 months because a new one is out, the same way I don't lease cars but keep them for years after I paid them. And in both those cases I gave both phones and cars to family members because they were in good shape. My point was that the culture of consumption is the problem not the devices themselves.

Automobiles are a good analogy, and one that has drawn plenty of similar criticisms over the decades. I agree with you that it's the underlying culture, and possibly even human nature, that causes the issues (guns are a great example of this, which has been well-discussed here).

What I balk at is the way that these (wonderful, and seemingly indispensable) technologies become automatic-use devices, to the point where many people, in good health, on a beautiful day, will now hop in the car to go pick up a snack on a whim from a location less than a 10 minute walk from their house.  I'm not even criticizing that behavior here, just the fact that it's automatic and in some cases deeply ingrained in our image of what a 'real person' is.  At my last job, I nearly always walked to work (10 min) unless I was very late or the weather was very bad, and it confused my co-workers, especially when I refused a ride home. I think many of them suspected I had an impaired driving charge that prevented me from driving; many expressed surprise when they saw that I actually had a vehicle. I do, I just prefer for a number of reasons to leave it in the driveway when possible.

It may sound paradoxical, but I dislike information technology because I LOVE information technology; around the house I too frequently drop everything and rush to the internet when someone says "I wonder....?".  The loss of personal time and headspace would be too high of a price to pay for me.  I can quite happily listen to my own thoughts for hours, and having time to do so tends to help organize my scattered brain.  Constant access to new ideas and information can be disorienting and have the opposite effect. Perhaps this is my problem only, but there seems to be lots of scattered and disoriented tech users about....

Zono, it sounds like you fill every moment with input/output from/to mobile devices. I don't want to do this. I find the way young people are forever on their cell phones quite annoying. I want a quieter world.

I agree with Griffin here, although I'm not annoyed by other people's i/o habits.  It's the impact on the larger culture (especially developing minds) that concerns me.  I agree also that I'm being a bit of a codger on the surface and apparently opposing change for the sake of change; however, in my own mind it's the trajectory of cultural change (over the past few decades that I've been around and what seems likely in the near future), rather than the current state of affairs, that bothers me.  I see it very much as a top-down phenomenon of profiting from the underlying culture and human nature with little to no concern for the end results at that same human and cultural level.

[Griffin NoName]

I agree with Griffin here, although I'm not annoyed by other people's i/o habits.  It's the impact on the larger culture (especially developing minds) that concerns me.  

This is great - actually something the Siblings disagree on. Generating a discussion. 

The reason I am irritated by young people constantly on their phones is that they barely take in their surroundings - developing minds need to witness life as it happens so their brains can develop in a healthy way. So that's like Aggie is saying. It's not hard to see a distopian world where all humans spend 24 hours every day staring at their phones. tapping stuff in, or zoning in watching videos/tv or filling their head with whatever the latest top tunes are etc. There would need to be an underclass that shoved food and drink (or they could have a tube fitted from their bladder to their mouth so they could recycle their urine) in their mouths occasionally and swept away their waste matter.