Gryzemuis on 16/7/2020 at 10:28
For me the keyword is flexibility. The freedom to use technology the way you, the individual, wants to use technology.
30 Or even 20 years ago, everything was configurable. You could chose what technology you wanted to use. And how to use it. There were options. And with everything new, more options became available. I agree, this can be confusing for a new user. But there are ways to tackle that problem. Chose default values that make sense (for newbies). Make GUIs so that they can present themselves in 3 styles: for new users, standard and for experienced users. Everybody gets what they want. Give your applications "skins" or "themes". Allow plugins.
This idea of flexibility and customization is slowly going away. Big companies don't want to sell you a product that you want. No, they want you to buy the product they want to sell. They want uniformity. And because the large majority of customers are idiots, they want to make products for idiots. And everybody else will have to adapt. The vendor decides how their product looks. They decide the color. They decide where the buttons are. They even decide what buttons there are. And the trend is to remove buttons, remove options, remove flexibility. Apple does that. Microsoft does that. Mozilla does that. Simple, less, streamlining the User eXperience, those are the keywords.
I don't like that.
I want customization. I want plugins. I want flexibility. I'm afraid all of that will go away.
faetal on 16/7/2020 at 12:44
As with a lot of things (politics anyone?), the mainstrem is determined by the lowest common denominator.
Smart phones come loadwed with useless, sexy features, because that's what works from a marketing & sales perspective.
Why are Apple or Samsung going to sacrifice their bottom line in the name of better functionality?
It's not necessarily based on idiocy either, just on which shared aspect of human psychology can be manipulated the most easily to influence sales.
Being smart doesn't make you immune to marketing.
Gryzemuis on 16/7/2020 at 15:32
Quote Posted by faetal
Why are Apple or Samsung going to sacrifice their bottom line in the name of better functionality?
But they don't need to sacrifice their bottom line, to give their users more flexibility. It doesn't cost them anything extra. Well, relatively speaking. Making GUIs with more options is a little extra work. But compared to building drivers and other internal hardcore stuff, it's nothing. If those options already exist in the registry, or somewhere else (config files, internal variables), the cost of just expanding the UI is peanuts. And more extreme: some companies are removing existing functionality and existing flexibility. Doing that requires an effort.
Quote:
Being smart doesn't make you immune to marketing.
I don't understand what you're saying exactly.
I understand that advertising does have some impact on me. But I am aware of that. I try to make my purchase-decisions so that they go against that. If there are 2 products that I don't know (never used before), and one is the "A brand", then I'll buy the other product. Just because.
Tony_Tarantula on 16/7/2020 at 18:34
The distraction...the humanity....when ones could enter an establishment, enjoy the aroma of the coffee, perhaps engage in some chat with fellow members of humanity, and seeing them as real people with feelings and not merely as the background of one's next instragram shot.
I miss flip phones. Old technology may be better but you simply can not isolate yourself when everyone else is using it around you for it changes us all.
heywood on 20/7/2020 at 16:18
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the answer is that we live in a market-driven economy where the winners and losers are determined by what things people want to make and what price they want to charge for them, and what things people want to buy and what they want to pay for them. Where they intersect, you have winners, and the best technology is not always the winner.
When it comes to Dvorak keyboards, there's simply not enough people who need or want to invest the time learning to touch type for maximum speed. And manufacturers, distributors, and retailers don't want to take on the cost of supplying a second keyboard type to the same market unless there is significant demand. So QWERTY carries on as the standard because there wasn't a justification to change the standard.
When it comes to mobile phones and laptops, I agree with Nameless Voice. Fashion is winning over function, and Apple started it. Apple has been responsible for a lot of the major advances in the industrial design of computing devices, but they kind of lost their way IMHO. I haven't see any significant new idea for a smart phone in a long time, so the only way they can keep the upgrade cycle going is through gimmicks that don't advance usability and sometimes hinder it. Samsung's beveled edge displays are a great example. Another example is the fad of curved TVs a few years ago.
I also agree about 3D positional audio. Audio in games has gone nowhere in 20 years because the market cares all about the visuals.
On the other hand, there has been something of a renaissance with desktop keyboards. After a couple of decades where they just got cheaper and crappier, an enthusiast market appeared.
Starker on 20/7/2020 at 20:23
Dvorak itself has been surpassed by the Colemak layout that's arguably more ergonomic, easier to learn, and preserves some important keyboard shortcuts. And even Colemak has now mods to improve on it as well as competing modern layouts like Workman. So, as far as the argument goes, it seems to be that it's actually everyone still clinging to Dvorak what's hindering "technological progress".
lowenz on 20/7/2020 at 21:39
About 3D positional audio, a software solution IS NOT necessarily a "fake dolby surround solution" :p
Problem is: real 3D positional audio requires SPACE volume. Or a compact stereo HRTF solution for a VR headset.
Starker on 21/7/2020 at 06:21
Completely and absolutely disagree on paper books. I have now used an e-reader for quite a while and it is far, far superior to paper books in my experience. And I can actually list the numerous ways in which it is superior:
It's more comfortable to hold in the hand and turn pages and takes up far less space.
You can fit it inside a pocket no matter how big the book you're reading is.
You can carry your entire library with you.
It keeps track of where you stopped reading without the need for a physical bookmark.
You can take it to the bath without worrying about water damage to the book.
If it gets dirty or smudged you can just wipe or wash it off and there is no worry about the spine cracking or the pages tearing or becoming dogeared.
It has built-in dictionaries.
You can use your own preferred fonts.
E-books are significantly cheaper to buy and easier to ship.
The only negatives I can think of are note-taking being less convenient and the reader being a bit too expensive to throw at people who annoy you.
Harvester on 21/7/2020 at 07:39
I agree, big fan of my Kobo H2O e-reader. Also has the added benefit of my limited bookshelf space filling up less fast.
I still buy physical books sometimes, mainly when it has color pictures (the H2O has a black and white screen like most e-readers), or when I'm at a second-hand book shop where they have very cheap books. And sometimes I buy a book where I think 'person X would really like this book' and then I also buy it on paper so I can lend it out. In other cases, it's an e-book purchase.