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IMO and in my direct experience, all of my favorite tech has gotten objectively worse over the last few years. - My phone cannot play music through headphones
by cryptoz 7y ago
IMO and in my direct experience, all of my favorite tech has gotten objectively worse over the last few years.
- My phone cannot play music through headphones and charge at the same time. Nor can I use any old pair of headphones with it, and most pairs have to spend time charging before I can use them. My phones 5+ years ago did not have these major usability problems.
- I ordered food while in NYC recently using an app. Out of 5 attempted orders, 4 were stolen by the driver and only 1 order arrived in reasonable condition. The other orders took ~3 hours to sort out. Ordering a pizza 5-10 years ago? No way is that gonna get stolen 4/5 times.
- Google Search on Android (voice) has gotten way worse. It used to offer functions like always offering to search the web (it's Google!), or letting me quickly review past audio search results. Now I cannot see any more past results without redoing the search and waiting for the response. I also cannot find any way to perform a web search on ~50% of my queries. Typing on a desktop computer is way better than voice searching on Android, but I used to have a stellar experience voice searching on Android. It's gone. Will it ever come back?
- Many websites are nearly impossible to use now. I barely use the web because there are so many intrusive ads.
Maybe my point is made. In many many cases, the last few years have seen a sharp drop in technology utility for many regular younger. None of this stuff needs to be getting worse, but it is.
- Noumenon72 7y agoThe inconsistency in voice search is annoying. About 1/3 of the time I get the old, good weather report with the next 3-10 days' forecast and hourly precipitation. Then 1/3 I get only temperature and a link to weather.com. I don't know what I get the other 1/3. All I know is the good results are out there but they don't offer them every time.
- malvosenior 7y agoThis has happened at other times in the past as well. Video games stagnated in the 80s pre-Nintendo, Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" killed a lot of innovation in the 90s. Macs died a slow an horrible death before Jobs' revival... Technology cycles and we're at the end of a large one. Consolidation, regulatory capture and gaps between generations cause this IMO.
- c22 7y agoI agree. The last time I felt like my tech was working "better than ever" was around 2007.