I ordered some takeout via the McDonald’s app. I initially chose Drive-Thru but it was a very long line and decided to take my chances by going inside which was empty. On the app there’s a button you can click if you want to change from Drive -Thru to Counter Pickup. I clicked Counter Pickup and it instantly said SORRY THIS LOCATION IS NOT ACCEPTING PICKUP ORDERS WE HAVE CANCELED THE ORDER AND REFUNDED THE MONEY. There was literally no option to switch back to Drive-Thru it just instantly cancelled my order. And also it was a lie as pickup orders were a cepted since I just ordered from the kiosk right inside and was able to pickup that new order.
So even if all you see is the first few seconds of the cold open or the title sequence, the app acts like you saw the whole episode? That’s how I’m understanding this.
Yep, that’s exactly how the app was behaving at the time I posted that, though it seems to have been fixed now. (So I suppose that wasn’t so much a stupid software design as just a straight up bug).
Happy to hear that-- I wouldn’t want an app that acted like I saw an episode in full, when I didn’t even get into the story.
Today I misplaced my phone. After a few minutes of searching for it, I decided to use Google’s Find My Phone website to make it ring. So I go to the site and enter my Google account and password. Then it says
2-Step Verification
Check your phone.
Google sent a notification to your phone. Tap Yes on the notification to verify it’s you.
Seriously?
That’s one way to make you find your phone!
they call it motivation …
Online Order Apps not having an easy to find PREVIOUS ORDER screen in case anything goes wrong during pickup (which it occasionally does) and you need exact details of orders.
It’s actually easier to dig into your email folder and use that order confirmation email as proof of purchase than actually using the very same app you just bought the food on.
On the topic of streaming apps: STOP OFFERING ME OTHER STREAMING APPS inside your app. We’re on a trial of AppleTV and while scrolling I saw that John Wick: Chapter 4 was available to watch. Cool!
FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK no it’s not available to watch, but you can add a Starz (or whatever) subscription to your AppleTV account and THEN you can watch it.
Bastards.
Yes, that’s very annoying.
1000% that. It’s extra-annoying when some subscriptions are “channels” inside Apple TV, while some are standalone apps, and it’s possible to have both at the same time. If you subscribe to (say) Paramount inside Apple, you get a channel, but then if you accidentally open the standalone app, then it’s another subscription altogether. Took me a while to figure out why I had double subscriptions for some services, sigh.
It’s the worst streaming setup I’d ever encountered =/ (It’s much simpler on Google TV, for what it’s worth)
I also hate when movies I’ve watched recently, and especially a movie I just finished watching, show up in my “Recommended” list. WTF?
I take that back, Max is still behaving this way:
- If I stop watching before the “next episode” countdown starts, it acts as if I haven’t watched the episode at all. When I come back to it in my Continue Watching list it starts playing to the last episode I watched from the beginning. I have to manually skip to the next episode.
- If I wait a little bit too long and even just one second of the next episode plays, it acts like I’ve seen that episode in its entirety and skips to the following episode in my Continue Watching list (And as I write this I realize that pretty much contradicts the last thing I wrote, but I swear it does that). I have to manually go back to the previous episode, assuming I remember I haven’t seen the previous episode.
- The only way it seems to work properly is if I watch all the way to the point where the “next episode” countdown appears (Which in Curb Your Enthusiasm means watching the credits in their entirety, and the preview of the next episode), but don’t let it play the next episode. I think that’s why I assumed it was fixed before; I just happened to stop the episode at the right time for it to work.
But I do consider this to be an actual bug, not merely bad design.
Awhile back I was trying to rewatch Rick and Morty on HBO Max, and since I had watched it before, every episode started at the vanity cards. I’d have to hurry up and pause and click Play From Beginning or whatever the button is. It would get to the end of an episode, start the next one, and start playing from the vanity cards again. I could NOT get it to start at S1E1 and just play every episode from the start on its own.
Cars where you hook your phone to charge and they IMMEDIATELY want you to hook it up to the entertainment system and make your phone impossible to use without connecting them.
Disney+ was like this for a while, though it seems to be fixed now. My little kids would be infuriated when trying to rewatch Bluey, and they would only get the end credits of an episode skipping to the next end credits, to the next end credits, and so on. Doubly infuriating for mom and dad who would have to manually restart/rewind with the remote every time.
Which is why if available I connect only to an adaptor to the 12V power socket (aka lighter plug) and not directly to the in-car USB ports.
I was reminded of one again today: Windows laptops that automatically go to “sleep”, that they can’t be woken from by any means other than rebooting. This has been an issue for, what, two decades, and they still haven’t figured out how to fix it?
My wife’s car has separate ports. One has infotainment connectivity, the other is just a dumb charging port. I don’t know if this setup is common, but I’d also try another port if there is one. (In my wife’s car, the smart one is under the infotainment unit, the dumb one is inside the center console.) But, yeah, the 12V solution works if that is not an option.
On Android you can set it to only charge (and ignore the data connection). They also make charge-only USB cables with no data lines, and data blocking “USB condoms” as a last resort.
But yes, it’s annoying when the car doesn’t give you the option.