So I’m reading about Apple overhauling their iOS design, to make it more modern, include widgets etc.
I understand that their OS seems a bit simple and outdated by now and they have to keep up with the new trends. Seems like everything is going in this direction. Dynamic this and dynamic that. So much information is displayed everywhere it’s almost giving me anxiety.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SMS. My TV and PVR displaying all sorts of information.
I know a lot of this is my own fault, but I suddenly felt the need to cut back a bit. I don’t know if I want to have all of this information formatted and presented to me all the time. I think sometimes I just want things to stay in place until I go there to find it.
Yes, the potential for overload is there. But I’m sure your iPhone will not force you to use widgets. Few people are obligated to use Twitter (I tried it and gave up on it for that reason). Facebook can be adjusted to notify you of nothing except birthdays and personal messages.
For news, you can still select the level of aggressiveness. Me, I can’t stand to watch news on CNN-type channels, with the text scrolling on the edges of the screen, etc. So I don’t. When I need news, I visit the channel’s Web site, which is less aggressive than the TV. And if that’s too colorful and blinking, there’s radio, or newspapers (paper or electronic). And I have a colleague at work who doesn’t even follow those.
Pull up a rocker next to me and we’ll take turns yelling at the kids to get off the lawn!
Sounds to me like simply another point at which you are questioning whether the existing tech/platform was “good enough” for your uses, and you are questinong the personal utility you will derive from this supposed “improvement.”
I have posted here many times of my belief that folk who design technology underestimate the negative impact of “noise” resulting from sophisticated features being as prominent as basic functions, and the considerable effort required of a more casual user to keep abreast of “updates.” Hell, I still can’t reliably get a question mark while texting on my Razr since the latest update!
I’m a long term computer person (I used to be a Computer Science prof. even). But what’s going on now is mind numbing.
Mrs. FtG recently got a touchscreen laptop. Cool. Windows 8. Ugh. First I had to get rid of the crapware the maker put on there. Each with nag/update screens running nonstop while I’m trying to uninstall them. Then the classic start button and killmetro apps to get a usable interface.
But that left me with about 200 startup apps and services. Holy moly. How do you go thru such a long list and get rid of the ones that you don’t need and are just sucking resources (and battery life)? The Sysinternals-style services info screen only helps a little bit. Way, way too many times the description of the process and what it does is incredibly generic and the click-to-look up stuff is unreliable.
This is going to take days to go thru and the chances of screwing something up is major. Non-tech people are hosed.
I have a Nook Simple Touch e-reader that I’ve rooted. Done some basic things to it. Would like to do more. But it is an incredible headache to figure out how to do basic changes. I’m not talking about techno-geeky stuff for the most part. Mainly getting an Android device to play nice. E.g., I want the screen orientation to be landscape all the time. Limit Internet access of apps. Etc.
What is worse, we are moving into a world where being able to completely manage your devices is going away.
