3 ms·

I think that the slip in quality we are seeing is a result of increased complexity more than anything else.

ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
I think this is hard to recognize but almost certainly true. I have the Airpod Pro and was recently annoyed at how it wasn't quite doing the audio source switching like I wanted. Clearly some sort of software issue. Yet, if I honestly take a step back, the fact that I can put these in my ear and be using one of 3 devices that are right next to me and it seamlessly and correctly switches the audio based on what I am doing is quite magical. It's easy to be annoyed at the few times it doesn't when magic becomes the norm.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  This sort of story always reminds me from a bit in Seinfeld where Kramer's phone number is one digit off from the Movie Phone number. He would say something like "press 1 for Total Recall, Press 2 for...". Of course he would not be able to determine which button was pressed, and would say "why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see?" I feel like we are creating really unpredictable, and hard to implement UIs in the name of "magic". Would a button in the UI been better? I think it would have been, at least for me.
rch 5y ago
I'd expand your reasoning to include organizational complexity, which sometimes overrides technical factors.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  That's a good point. I've observed in my own work that complex organizations have a way of driving out expertise. I don't mean that experts quit, as that is an unavoidable fact of doing business. Rather the organization is structured in such a way it is difficult to build expertise in the first place, and many of the experts are the people that were around before the organizational complexity arose.
city41 5y ago
I'm not so sure, at least in the context of Apple because they have slipped far more than their competitors. Android is way more stable and has far fewer bugs than iOS as a simple example.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. Apple has slipped while competitors have improved. Android today (especially the Google-only flavor) is pretty impressively stable. Even worse is that iOS is supposedly more "simple" than Android. Mostly, my comment was projecting my own experiences with complexity on the projects I have been involved with. You are right, in this case other factors probably dominate.
rytcio 5y ago
Computers really are not doing much more today than they were in the early 2000s. Despite the massive increases in home computational power, the only thing that is really visibly improved is the graphical fidelity of video games. All other software is doing the same stuff it did 20 years ago...just worse. Bad software is more due to needing to ship stuff ASAP for marketing, the board of directors, and for the investors. This decline in software can really be matched up with the increase of startup culture. I would also argue that complexity is developers own doing, trying to strap every new fangled library, engine, tool, API ,buzzword of the day, etc. to their program...when there is zero reason to. Nothing about what modern software does is more complex than it was in the 2000s
- blep-arsh 5y ago
  I can Cmd-C on one device and Cmd-V on another. It works wirelessly and securely without explicit network configurarion and even without network access. The amount of complexity that enables this simple feature is staggering if you look into the implementation.

I think this is hard to recognize but almost certainly true. I have the Airpod Pro and was recently annoyed at how it wasn't quite doing the audio source switching like I wanted. Clearly some sort of software issue. Yet, if I honestly take a step back, the fact that I can put these in my ear and be using one of 3 devices that are right next to me and it seamlessly and correctly switches the audio based on what I am doing is quite magical. It's easy to be annoyed at the few times it doesn't when magic becomes the norm.

Skunkleton 5y ago
This sort of story always reminds me from a bit in Seinfeld where Kramer's phone number is one digit off from the Movie Phone number. He would say something like "press 1 for Total Recall, Press 2 for...". Of course he would not be able to determine which button was pressed, and would say "why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see?" I feel like we are creating really unpredictable, and hard to implement UIs in the name of "magic". Would a button in the UI been better? I think it would have been, at least for me.

rch 5y ago

I'd expand your reasoning to include organizational complexity, which sometimes overrides technical factors.

Skunkleton 5y ago
That's a good point. I've observed in my own work that complex organizations have a way of driving out expertise. I don't mean that experts quit, as that is an unavoidable fact of doing business. Rather the organization is structured in such a way it is difficult to build expertise in the first place, and many of the experts are the people that were around before the organizational complexity arose.

city41 5y ago

I'm not so sure, at least in the context of Apple because they have slipped far more than their competitors. Android is way more stable and has far fewer bugs than iOS as a simple example.

Skunkleton 5y ago
Yeah, I agree. Apple has slipped while competitors have improved. Android today (especially the Google-only flavor) is pretty impressively stable. Even worse is that iOS is supposedly more "simple" than Android. Mostly, my comment was projecting my own experiences with complexity on the projects I have been involved with. You are right, in this case other factors probably dominate.

rytcio 5y ago

Computers really are not doing much more today than they were in the early 2000s. Despite the massive increases in home computational power, the only thing that is really visibly improved is the graphical fidelity of video games. All other software is doing the same stuff it did 20 years ago...just worse. Bad software is more due to needing to ship stuff ASAP for marketing, the board of directors, and for the investors. This decline in software can really be matched up with the increase of startup culture. I would also argue that complexity is developers own doing, trying to strap every new fangled library, engine, tool, API ,buzzword of the day, etc. to their program...when there is zero reason to. Nothing about what modern software does is more complex than it was in the 2000s

blep-arsh 5y ago
I can Cmd-C on one device and Cmd-V on another. It works wirelessly and securely without explicit network configurarion and even without network access. The amount of complexity that enables this simple feature is staggering if you look into the implementation.