has technology jumped the shark, or is it just me getting old
 

or both?

I'm increasingly frustrated by the tech devices in our lives. Without doubt they have brought massive convenience, and productivity over the last decade or 2. However, my observation is we have reached a point where the purveyors of this tech are constantly "improving" and releasing "updates" in their zeal to stay "current" but most of the time they are "fixing" things that weren't broken in the first place. Furthermore, the constant updating seems to be accelerating and that also means the expensive hardware is becoming obsolete at a faster pace.

It used to be easy for me to turn off automatic updates and run older versions of software for years, and keep hardware for years. I think this is getting more and more difficult. My iPhone is trying to install iOS updates almost everyday. My windows 10 PC seems to ask for an update weekly, and everytime I update the OS, or am forced to update an app, or other piece of software, something stops working.

Feels like we are now on the downhill side of the productivity curve.

Looking forward to someone posting the pic of the grumpy old man in this thread in 3...2...1:D

I agree but won't give up on tech. The other extreme is this. My bil in the UK says show me your cell phone(he does not have one). I ask him for his internet address and password so I can show him how it works(he has a laptop which he never uses). He refuses so I refuse to show him my cell phone.

A tech friend here says eventually you won't be able to get the updates on my apple iphone 4s forcing me to get a newer phone iphone. Yes updates are frequent but I am hooked on my iphone so I am beyond help.:)

planned/forced obsolescence.

Noticed this last fall, as christmas season was approaching. Our older Ipad, as well as our phones, were constantly alerting us to update OS. Once updated, the devices began to function erratically.

My bet is that the reasoning was made that a certain percentage of consumers would just simply give in and reason that they needed or deserved the newest/latest device anyway, and go out and splurge on that latest gadget.

I just did an OS update on my ipone whatever S. It is now all glitchy. Am I going to go ahead and get the new iphone 10 or whatever !?!?

hell no.

A large portion of updates consist of patches to security vulnerabilities. Threat actors are constantly finding new holes in our technology that need to be closed.

I think it's like the Maytag repairman syndrome. Make something to last and folks won't need anything for so long you go bankrupt.

Take my 944, it's thirty years old, everything works on it. A little DIY with upkeep and I'm happy. I've only had it a year now but in my head its a lost car sale to every new car on the market. Best 3K I ever spent. It also robs every mechanic that might have had my business if I got something I couldn't DIY.

My phone is a GZone Commando, I needed a tough smart phone that fit in my pocket. I liked it so much I bought another off Amazon for cheap and put it in my safe for the future.

All these frugal things I've done have cost somebody business and money. In order to stay in business you have to build stuff to only last a few years and you need bigger and better to keep the bills paid. Sad but true.-WW

Something recent that has happened is device control over HDMI.

Say your home theatre set up is off, you open the disc tray on your Blu-Ray which turns it on, it then signals your receiver to turn on and switch to the correct HDMI input which in turn tries to fire up your projector.

Sounds great in theory.

In my home, it's a fikken nightmare as certain devices prefer to come and go offline in a specific order so everything syncs up and it causes the audio signal to drop requiring me to switch inputs to get it to sync again.

It's not helpful.

I'm definitely of the getting older category. Wife has a Galaxy S ? phone and uses it constantly.
Myself? I was in What-a-Burger yesterday and when I ordered the girl behind the counter asked if I had the What-a-burger App? I pulled out my 7 YO flip phone and said I don't do Apps... she died laughing and told me my phone looked just like her grandfathers.

I use my flip for phone calls and my texting is pretty limited to: Y N and OK.. about covers it all for me.

I spent 35+ years in the software/hardware business so I'm not really a Luddite technology wise, I just chose to ignore some of it.

The ability to update devices over the air has caused a change in QA cycles in software development.

As the software is no longer distributed on disc based media you don't have to "get it right" out of the gate.

You can do rolling updates all day.

We recently put a product into retail, to save on the gory details of working with SONY and Xbox in order to hit our worldwide launch date on 3 platforms simultaneously one of them ended up going out requiring a 4gb first day patch.

Less than ideal and the last thing we wanted to do but the only other choice was delay that one platform by 6-8 weeks and by that time it would been so late it would not have sold.

Sometimes, far too often in fact, our business decisions come down to a choice between bad and worse.

I think there are a few things going on.

Apple, IMO, when they release an update, they intentionally make it beat up the older gear so folks want to buy new stuff that's a bad thing, at least for most of us. Also, just recently, 11.0 came out. They quickly found issues and released a patch to fix them... twice. So we got 11.0.1, then 11.0.2 and then 11.0.3 all within days. That's actually a good thing.

I don't know that Microsoft is doing the same to nearly the same extent. They don't have much stake in the hardware game, so they don't benefit from the planned obsolescence. You probably do get weekly updates to Windows, many/most of those are security updates to patch issues that have been found. Some are not as desirable. I'm still running Win 7 just fine. I have no intention of going to 10 any time soon or possibly ever (Will probably go Mac).

I don't think it's jumped the shark, it's just advancing at a rapid pace with new ideas popping up all of the time. Some of the new ideas may not be mature, but may in a few years be a most have thing. Is all of this stuff really helping? It's probably helping us and hurting us at the same time.

I'm sure people have been thinking the same thing for many years. Heck, just think back to the first "computer" managed ignitions and carbs from the 80s. We all knew they were the a step back and horrible (and they were), but they led the way for our current super efficient and more powerful cars based on computerized fuel and spark which is UFO tech by comparison.

Sorry but the days of getting a computer and software and just chugging along without keeping it updated are gone. Unless you do one major thing with your computer. Never plug it into or connect it to the internet. If the computer will never be on-line you don't NEED them updates. Thank you Hackers and Scammers.

Despite all the new features and capabilities I kind of agree with the downhill side of the productivity curve though. People seem to be so into personal communications and social networking they forget about the core functionality of the things that make them productive. I used databases back in the 90's that had more functionality than the database apps available today. Have also used illustration apps from that era that were much easier and faster to create artwork with. It's like they got drag and drop, touch screen friendly, and feature happy But forgot about core functionality the apps were originally made to accomplish.

I get the need to update for security, adding features or to make things fresher, but the way they take and move areas you click on or add information drives me nuts- doing stuff intuitively saves so much time.

Seems like every time apple sends an update for my iPad they just swap the stuff at the top from side to side!

I'm in the same boat as Jack. I have a flip phone to use for making calls when I'm out somewhere and have to ask my wife a question. We don't even have a cell signal where we live. My wife has a fancy smart phone she uses via wifi at home. But the rate of advance & change encompasses everything. I was at a guys shop yesterday. He does rods, rat rods, & restorations. It was great to see cars that weren't stuffed with electronic wizardry.

SmileWavy

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1508512108.jpg

Now, Get Off My LAWN!

We we talking about buggy OS's the other day... I commented "there is such a marketing push to have the newest, shinyest, fastest, bestest, system for sale ASAP they don't have the time to do any testing for QC."

I can accept security as a reason for updates, but these updates are like pieces of congressional legislation: loaded with pork.

Recent windows updates have made it so I can't use sound recording software to directly record the output from the PC audio system. I did that very thing 6 months ago without issue, now it no longer is an option. Why? PCs are sold and marketed as multimedia devices that allow us to make music, movies, blah, blah, blah. The ability to record the output of the soundcard is a pretty critical thing for a multimedia device I'd say.

I have Sonos in my home (love it). I have repurposed a couple older iPhones into Sonos remotes to leave in various rooms around the house. Otherwise you have to carry your primary phone all around and I don't want to live with my phone in my hand 24/7. This was a new lease on life for these perfectly good older pieces of tech. Its not possible to further upgrade the OS on these phones, and now the entire Sonos system has suddenly stopped working with the older versions of their app so I can't use these old phones as remote controls any longer. Why? Is security a big issue for a stereo system? The app allowed you to choose the music source, play and stop music, select which room to play the music, increase and decrease the volume and adjust tone controls. Not sure what else it needs to do that is so important to kill off compatibility with older devices?

we were promised jet packs and moon colonies.

we got freemium apps.




we need to take a step backwards to fix a few things. apple needs to mke the phone one sixteenth thicker and double the battery life. and make it water resistant. then move forward again.

^there he is!!! Thanks Mr. Gogar, I feel better now:D

I don't use half the capabilities of my electronic stuff. I don't have the patience to learn all the buttons and switches and secret handshakes of my stuff (not that anything has an actual button or switch anymore). I get it working well enough to do what I need done and move on. As a result I'm afraid of my stuff, afraid I'll brush my hand over the wrong part of the screen and it will lock up, blow up, or just stop working. The biggest offenders are my entertainment system, my iPhone&iPad, and a robot vacuum cleaner.
I am in awe of Scott. He not only understands all this stuff, he understands it in a way that he can talk to us mortals.

The "updates" are really NSA downloads of your device; pics, emails, texts, contacts, etc...
Yup, I actually believe that!

Cars have jumped shark... The rot began with OBD2. They are just way too complicated to be viable long term. The display LCD failing is already a common problem. Sure they're a lot more efficient but they're not built to last. So whatever you saved on gas you you'll spend on the real cost of the stupid thing. Maybe the high end stuff will be around for a while but only with some decent after-market support. Gone are the days of buying a car and keeping it long term.

Imagine trying to fix an electrical issue with a Porsche 918 in about 20 years!

I'd bet there will still be plenty of air cooled 911s around in 20 years.

Oh yeah. Biggly. My 2017 Volt has an icon on the dashboard that tells you there is a car in front of you. I kid you not.

Have Microsoft ever made a reliable operating system out of the box?

I like technology for the most part but it's gotten seriously obnoxious in the last few years - total "over-feature-ization" of EVERYTHING. Case in point, I went down to look at a flat-screen TV since mine has been acting up lately. I specifically DO NOT want a so-called "smart TV". I watch maybe one show a week, maybe two at most and the kids might watch an hour of cartoons / kid programs in a week - all 100% on-demand through my Apple TV box and / or Netflix. That's how I want it. I don't need or want anything else other than a nice, big, high-quality screen that will display those occasional programs. Holy hell - the grief and effort it takes to find that! EVERYTHING now has integrated "smart TV" nonsense (that only duplicates what the Apple TV does anyway, only better) and wants to connect to the Internet to track and profile everything I do with the device right down to the length of my bathroom breaks. Forget that! Another case-in-point, I recently bought a basic underwater digital camera for scuba diving snapshots and basic low-depth (up to 30') video recordings... Good lord - trying to find something that had less than 50 pages of sub-menus, configuration presets and options was difficult... Like I really want to be dicking around with what the white balance setting is while I'm underwater trying to get a snapshot of a barracuda. Don't even get me started on cars... For crying out loud, why can't a car just be a car rather than car, beverage dispenser, entertainment center, web browser and advertisement-and-spam dispenser? Why oh why can't things simply do what they're designed to do and do that ONE THING well? I don't want my TV to be a computer. I don't want my computer to be a TV. Some crossover functionality is occasionally fine / convenient but it's gotten absolutely crazy - everything is trying to be... well... everything. The lines are so blurry now between devices as to be virtually non-existent.

hahah, wow, and no green text there.

Yeah, I just don't think that's remotely the case.

The car industry in Australia has been devastated by cheap Korean imports. The local GM factory close down today... 900 people laid off. Our Gumbit idiots helped it happen by allowing foreign import with minimal tariffs. I will never own or drive a car made in Korea, India or China. (At some point I may not have a choice.)

My preference has always been old world European car manufacturers but they aren't what they used to be. I've owned both Fiats and Alfa Romeos but their current cars are a complete joke. Right now I'll only look at an older Mercedes-Benz as a daily. I've become really proficient at reading blink codes. :D

Haha we are getting old and grumpy. I too work in IT (25 years) and IMO the industry is rushing capability to market quicker than many of us can absorb it enough to use properly. Also agree that many products are shipped with major bugs only to be first to market. The first Samsung Galaxy series offered from AT&T had big issues with GPS. I was hoping a software update would fix it but that didn't happen. We are a Mac household these days and everyone has either a iphone 5s or 6. If you don't keep the OS versions compatible between devices things get problematic. Example I downloaded OS updates for the MacBook Pro and now it will no longer sync with the iPhone correctly or perform backups until the iOS is also updated.

I guess the IT folks payed attention to the virus upload scene from Independence day where Goldbloom took out the invading aliens with a WiFi connection...:)

Yes, XP and Win7 have been very stable for me. As already beaten to death in other conversations the issue with the Microsoft model is they do not control the hardware like Apple does. Folks skip over to Fry's Electronics and buy a POS peripheral card/device and wonder why the computer is having issues. Like I said I jumped to MacOS ~ 6 years ago for home use but use Win7/10 and Linux at work daily. My MacBook pro has not been without headache either. More frequent endless beach balls then in the past for sure.

I have been a computer geek since the early 1980s.

I resisted getting a smart phone mostly because they were expensive. I finally took a sip of the Kool-Aide and no way could I go back to a flip phone. My brother resisted even longer. I got my first text ever from him just a couple of years ago. The constant updates are annoying.

We have a member in our local PCA region that is total analog. He does not have any cell phone, computer or electronic device more than a TV. He has a 356, Boxster, 993 and daily driver appliance car so he is not a charity case. Recently at a meeting he wanted information on some upcoming event. I had to write down the address for him on a napkin. Anyone else I could have sent a text or email to them with the information.

My 87 year old MIL loves her iPad and would fight you for it. She started off not texting at all on her phone. She has two grand kids, 5 great grand kids with cell phones. Now she texts more than I do. It is the only way to keep in touch with the great grand kids. They all think it is cool that great grandma uses an iPad and iPhone.

Hey, at least you're boosting the economy by buying all this stuff. I'm using an old style desktop. Windows 7. Our phone is a burner phone, buy $100 of minutes on an annual basis from Trac phone. Used to make calls, never use all the minutes. Wouldn't have bought it except for no pay phones. Since my '09 Mustang did have a line input, I did buy an Ipod, loaded all my CD's on it, around 2,000 songs. When driving, set it to shuffle play & go.

I guess what I'm saying is that I figure the tech stuff is there for me to use or reject and I'm not here to serve it.

Yep, I'm a COB...Crusty Old Bastid.

I work in tech and I think it jumped the shark...

For example my xbox took 4 hours before letting me play a game I bought on DVD - really, all thos edownlaods are required on a game I physically bought ? The next day the servers were down so my game would not work (unless you went offline, if you guessed that might be the issue, not obvious). Most folks won't know how to deal with the above and give up...

Apple is no better. It seems my ipad or phone or OS wants to update every other day, and it reminds me of it every other day. "do it now" " later today" - how about a "**** off" button ? You have no choice but to comply or be nagged to death....

In my job I deploy a lot of software updates, patches, OS, etc... To my eyes 3/4 of new software is a coat of paint and scrambling the interface around at random to make it look new and just results in pissing people off... Not everyone loves relearning tech every other week.... I can't think of that many new features that made me think "how did I live without that". PLanned obsolesncence is the game.

I can't wait for the first major domotics hack, where all your fridges, smart TVs and nest thermostats conspire to set the house on fire...

I work on the design of an a very advanced electric car that is pushing the boundaries of technology but drive a mid 90's turbo diesel truck with a mechanical fuel pump.

Very comforting to know no one can hack it, disable it with a dirty sonic electric bomb or risk myself being attacked by zombies while waiting for the batteries to charge :D

I love gadgets, and am a professed nerd.

I see zero value, none nada zip zilch in have an appliance connected to the internet. A fridge, or washing machine on line, really why?

If we were in an out of the house a lot a smart thermostat might makes some little bit of sense. I do have a programmable thermostat, but it is a basic model. The expensive Nest version, nope no way.

I have a security system and a DVR with cameras that are all outdoors. If someone hacks into it they can watch the yard and be real bored to sleep real fast.

You answered your own question.
While a timer can work, internet is just next level control.

Put a casserole in the over and use your phone to tell it when to start cooking.
What, got stuck late at work? Just adjust the time. Timer can't do that.

Manufacturers can also diagnose the problem remotely, saving you a ton of money.
Just like getting your car's OBD-2 codes read over the internet. Save people a trip to the mechanic.

Some people may like to get a text from my laundry machine telling them when it's done, instead of checking it every 5 mins.

Heck, if you catalog what is inside your fridge, you can have it automatically place an order for grocery deliveries.

Yea, well not in this house hold. My wife is retired. I work at home. Heavy traffic is the two dachshunds in the hall between the bedroom and my home office.
I will pick out my own fruit and veggies, and meat over having them delivered as long as I can get to a store.

My robot vacuum cleaner is connected to the internet so when I'm about to turn out of the driveway it can tell me it's stuck under the dresser again and if I want the floor vacuumed I'd better come home and rescue it. I think it gets lonely.

At $200 a pop? Including the GUI.

Contrast with the cost of a real OS.

5 years ago got ill and was stuck having to stay in bed. One of my few entertainments was TV and Movies. Got a smart TV, AppleTV, and Digital Cable and set up my laptop to use the TV. There were LOTs of options for attaining content including Sony and Amazon, Hulu, Netflicks, even Yahoo and Youtube. Before I rented a movie I had to check ALL of them because most times one was $2.00 cheaper than the others.

In all of that I decided the funniest thing available anywhere period was cats being startled and jumping. And that was before the cat cucumber vids on youtube.

Now 5 years later NONE of the Sony SmartTV services work. None of them. So all the things that made it a smart TV went stupid. All it is now is a nice large screen display for everything else.

Pretty sure it costs them less than $25 to add the smart TV stuff to a TV.

Well shucks. What if I wanted to push Hanks old Ford Fiesta down the street to the corner repair shop. Would it let me do that? It's my car and I can do what I want with it. The car is a tool. Suppose if I bend the handle of the monkey wrench, is the thing going to automatically lock up in 'safe mode', never to be used again?

Pretend a semi is sliding down a hill of ice towards your car. You both are halfway into an unavoidable accident. You the driver should be able to decide where the hit takes place (ie a safer perimeter corner instead of into a passenger door). Getting closer or even bumping other vehicles or obstacles might be necessary for that to occur. If the car software over-rules the driver, it might actually be forcing the humans into a deadly situation.

Just two scenarios where technology becomes regressive thanks to the Auto Alliance and Hollywood IP laws applied to automotive systems.

Skipping ahead to the distant future, our Michigan governor is pushing ahead with self-driven cars:
Snyder signs laws to make Michigan a leader self-driving car testing

Problems with that distant future are going to be:
1). In maximum population-density areas, trains and mass transit allow many more passengers and more freight to move cheaper in the long haul.
2). Trains are more efficient. Look at New York, Tokyo, and Beijing which once had a 10 day traffic jam. These cities just wouldn't function with 100% cars and ten times the population.
3). Individual cars cost far more than mass transit and require parking/repair/time/hassle/etc. That digs into a workers wallet and discretionary spending which would have gone into so many other ventures and venues and progress.
4). Population density is equal to economic potential density. When sitting inside a metal box in traffic for half the day finally gets arduous, people move.
5). Pushing a society into adopting an inefficient system eventually catches up and haunts us. There's only so many bandaid designs out there. Designing redundant systems from the ground up is the only way to plan for tomorrow.

I work in IT. I'm younger than most on this forum.

I haven't connected my new car to my smartphone. I don't see any benefit. I don't answer calls while driving, so trading that for my car using my cell data to tell the manufacturer (which is then sold to my insurer) how I drive doesn't seem like a fair trade.

I hate that I can't uninstall apps on my phoned that I don't use. I can disable them, but it makes the small handful of apps that I do use unstable (ask me how I know). Features that I turn off are turned back on with updates. It records everything I say, all background noise, and everywhere I am--despite turning off all of the relevant "features". And despite turning off all of these "features", everything I do is reported to Google (and the NSA, FBI, DEA, etc.) I'm sure nothing bad will ever come of that.

I can at least hack Windows to turn off the reporting back to Microsoft. I can kill Cortana with some effort.

I have zero interest in the "Internet of things", "smart appliances", etc. Once again, they promise a mild gain in convenience for a total loss of privacy, and a huge security risk. Most of these devices have no security, or at best stuff that was hacked five years ago. If you want a hacker to turn off your heat in the dead of winter so that your pipes burst or set your oven to self clean until your house catches fire when you are in Miami, then by all means, use this stuff.