It’s my wedding anniversary this week, and because my wife has been bugging me to write this article for the past few months, I figured now was the time. Happy Anniversary, Babe! I love her to bits. She scares me a little, certainly when she has to deal with technology, but I love her all the same. This whole thing came up because after iPhones went to iOS 13, some of the buttons in iTunes moved around. Late one night, my lovely wife was getting more and more frustrated, and for whatever reason, I didn’t notice it until she screamed (Partially at her phone, but also partially at me) “WHERE DID THE BUTTONS GO???? WHY DID THEY CHANGE IT?????” She then told me that I was to write a post about how frustrating it is that the buttons change. Here’s the thing, I don’t find it that frustrating, so I figure I can be on the side of the programmers on this one, and explain WHY THE BUTTONS GO AWAY.
1) Programs change – Its a simple fact that all programs change. They always have, and they always will. The reasons for the changes are so that they can be made better. In the case of game apps maybe there is a contest that the game is putting out so the programmers need to change the configuration a bit, or perhaps there is a new feature that needs to be added, so the old features need to be moved around or discarded to make way for the new ones. Because of these changes, there will be times when the buttons that you know will have to be moved around. 99% of the time, the move is not a substantial one, but when it is a big move, some functions may need to change or get moved around.
2) Internet requirements change – This one is a bit rarer, but it does happen. You all may remember the stream of e-mails about the GDRP regulations (the European Union’s Information security act) that had to change how everyone doing anything on the internet was being done. These types of broad changes don’t happen, but they do happen every once and a while. Ever see updates from your apps about “general bug fixes”? Some of these bug fixes are the internet changing so that it can keep up with newer technology. Similarly, apps need to be able to do the same.
3) Programers get “brilliant” ideas – One thing that happens regularly is the way that programs work changes. We have all experienced this; there is a certain way that the programs we use work, and we know where the buttons for the functions we use are, and everything is fine. Muscle memory kicks in, and we don’t have to think about the actions we have to take. The problem is that when some programer on the back end of the program we are using finds a way to make things more efficient (or how they think it’s efficient) and so the configuration changes…Sigh. NOW we need to not only find wherever the button has gone, but we also need to reconfigure our muscle memory so that it seems natural again. I find my beautiful wife screaming at her technology every once and a while because “the buttons are gone!!!!”
I am, rather bizarrely, on both sides of the argument here. On the one hand, it bugs me that I update my programs (like I’m supposed to, and we all should) and then the thing that I know how to do is gone somewhere else. The moving of the button means I’ve got to find it, particularly because I am the I.T. department in my home, and my family relies on me to know where all the buttons are. When Stuff gets moved, I have to spend a few minutes figuring out the new functions so that my wife doesn’t attempt to use her smartphone like a clay shooting disk (PULL!!!!).
On the other hand, I get why it happens. I understand that software developers are looking for ways to innovate and improve their products. Maybe they can connect to a different service. Perhaps they have found a more efficient way for people to access the things that their focus groups discover that they are accessing. I don’t know. The point is that to update/change/make their programs better; they need to change the formatting. This means that the buttons change. The programmers and developers are doing everything that they can to make their programs better and easier to use. I promise that by nature, they are not evil and thinking of ways to trick us. I know a few programmers, and none of them have horns or cloven hooves.
What we all need to do is take a deep breath and recognize that the programs we use will change. It’s not bad; it’s usually better. I completely agree that it can ( in the short term) be a massive pain in the butt to figure the updates out. When you think about it, the programs we use now are far more efficient than they were before. It’s because of these updates that the programmers are doing. For now, I love you Babe and I will always be there to help with your I.T. woes. Happy Anniversary!
Do you have any issues with updates?
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