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Style over substanceYou know who were going to pick on here. The 2010s were the decade when Apples designers ruled the school at the expense of practicality, when 'it just works' became 'it doesnt work, but it looks brilliant'.Remember the MacBook Pro keyboard that couldnt handle people typing on it? The Mac Pro that didnt so much put form over function as throw function in the bin, set the bin on fire and push the bin off a cliff? The MacBook with a single USB port that meant you couldnt charge it and use an external device at the same time?And dont get us started on the iPhone headphone jack, the location of the charging point on the second-generation Magic Mouse or the clown car of remotes that ships with the Apple TV.The good news is that Apple appears to have belatedly realised this, so for example the new 16-inch MacBook Pro has a proper keyboard again.Heres to more slightly duller but more user-friendly design decisions this decade.(Image credit: Adobe)Subscriptions for everythingYoure in a cafe. You ask for a coffee, but the barista wont take your money. They want your bank details, because you cant just buy coffee any more. You need to sign up to the Vibrate My Eyeballs Mega Super Deal Member Plan. You get seven days free and you can cancel at any time but if you forget its $79.99 a month.Thats pretty much where tech is now.The slow march of subscriptions didnt stop with TV and movies. Today you dont just need six different streaming subs to cover the programmes you want to watch and the songs you want to stream. You need your photo storage sub and your online gaming sub and your Creative Cloud sub and the Patreons you support and the sub that unlocks the filters in your photo app and your wireless security camera sub and the eighty-six different subs youve had to take out because nobody lets you just buy an app any more and you look at the graph in your online banking app and you ask yourself, hey! How did I get here?And the short answer is: cheapskates, mainly. Cheapskates who wouldnt pay for stuff even when it was reasonably priced, so the people who make stuff started to see too many ribs poking through their T-shirts and decided the only way theyd actually get to eat was to make the entrance fee zero and then hit everybody with a sub to actually make things work.And thats fine, and its fair, and its OK until the day when that check doesnt clear or the client doesnt pay and your bank account is full of cobwebs and your email app has 17 messages telling you there appears to be a problem with your payment method and nothing works anymore.(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)Launches for tech that doesnt workEver since everyone discovered that the original iPhone demo featured a phone held together with duct tape and sheer force of will weve had to sit through tech launches where execs will quite happily burble on about products that dont work.Take Samsung, for example: in their rush to market a folding phone, they forgot to make sure that the folding bit of the Samsung Galaxy Fold could handle being folded and unfolded. This is rather like a parachute company forgetting to put the parachutes into its backpacks, or a shark repellent manufacturer not checking that its product actually repels sharks. And before the Apple fans get too smug here, one word: AirPower. A charger so advanced, so beyond what anybody else is capable of doing that, er, Apple wasnt capable of doing it either.So heres our request to the tech industry. If youre going to make shit up, if youre going to announce products you know you cant make and that you might never be able to make properly, go crazy! Show us holographic heli-trousers! AR glasses that reveal our enemies most shameful thoughts! An affordable, rock-solid triple-A streaming games platform with minimal hardware, 4K resolution and zero lag!OK, maybe not that last one. Too far-fetched.(Image credit: Bird)Dockless electric scootersIts not much of a stretch for dockless electric scooters to get in the sea when so many of them get in the rivers, in the canals, in the storm drains and anywhere else where drunk and/or lazy people can throw them. Theyre still illegal in the UK but in many parts of the US theyve become a curse: blocking sidewalks, being dumped all over the place and causing all kinds of problems for pedestrians and local authorities.The problem with dockless scooters isnt the tech, or even the fact that some critics would say many riders are awful. Its that the companies behind them are 'disruptive', which is tech-speak for 'irresponsible and of dubious legality'. The same story repeats: operator appears from nowhere, doesnt apply for a licence, floods the streets and expects the council to pay for clearing up their mess. Its Facebooks 'move fast and break things' strategy taken far too literally.Itd be a shame if bad business practices spoiled the scooter party, though: if theyre not being thrown into bits of the environment, they can be better for the environment than cars.(Image credit: Facebook)Facebook PortalWhat could go wrong with a Facebook-connected camera in your home, apart from absolutely everything?All personal digital assistants are potentially sinister, of course. But Facebooks rivals havent spent most of the last decade demonstrating their complete disregard for peoples privacy. How many times have we heard senior FB execs apologise, say they havent lived up to their usual high standards and promise to do better after yetanotherprivacyscandal?You know how Portal will pan out: Facebook will promise not to listen to or look at anyone without permission, and then an accident or a leak will make it clear that Facebook has been listening to and looking at a whole bunch of people without permission just like its continuing to record and monetise your location data even when youve said no to location sharing with the Facebook app. Facebook will then apologise, say that it hasnt lived up to its usual high standards and promise to do better.Expecting Facebook not to try and analyse and monetise Portal video and audio is like expecting your dog to ignore a plate of sausages youve left on the worktop. Oh sure, theyll give you those big sad eyes when you come home, but theyve still eaten your dinner.x5Pm4L4sVvtkhjjaUn5CMH.jpg?# ){kind=spacer}
Over the last decade weve seen things people wouldnt believe.
Samsungs on fire over our shoulder.
We watched Windows Phones glitter in the dark near Bill Gates.Many of those moments are already lost in time, like tears in the rain.
But some other awful things endure, and its time they got in the sea.When it comes to naming the tech trends wed like to see the back of, were spoilt for choice: hardware you cant upgrade, surveillance tech you cant evade, streaming service exclusives and Windows Flipping Updates.
But despite their obvious irritations, they arent the worst.
Far from it.
These are the ones we love to hate, the tech trends wed like to see the back of in the 2020s.(Image credit: Future)Style over substanceYou know who were going to pick on here.
The 2010s were the decade when Apples designers ruled the school at the expense of practicality, when 'it just works' became 'it doesnt work, but it looks brilliant'.Remember the MacBook Pro keyboard that couldnt handle people typing on it? The Mac Pro that didnt so much put form over function as throw function in the bin, set the bin on fire and push the bin off a cliff? The MacBook with a single USB port that meant you couldnt charge it and use an external device at the same time?And dont get us started on the iPhone headphone jack, the location of the charging point on the second-generation Magic Mouse or the clown car of remotes that ships with the Apple TV.The good news is that Apple appears to have belatedly realised this, so for example the new 16-inch MacBook Pro has a proper keyboard again.Heres to more slightly duller but more user-friendly design decisions this decade.(Image credit: Adobe)Subscriptions for everythingYoure in a cafe.
You ask for a coffee, but the barista wont take your money.
They want your bank details, because you cant just buy coffee any more.
You need to sign up to the Vibrate My Eyeballs Mega Super Deal Member Plan.
You get seven days free and you can cancel at any time but if you forget its $79.99 a month.Thats pretty much where tech is now.The slow march of subscriptions didnt stop with TV and movies.
Today you dont just need six different streaming subs to cover the programmes you want to watch and the songs you want to stream.
You need your photo storage sub and your online gaming sub and your Creative Cloud sub and the Patreons you support and the sub that unlocks the filters in your photo app and your wireless security camera sub and the eighty-six different subs youve had to take out because nobody lets you just buy an app any more and you look at the graph in your online banking app and you ask yourself, hey! How did I get here?And the short answer is: cheapskates, mainly.
Cheapskates who wouldnt pay for stuff even when it was reasonably priced, so the people who make stuff started to see too many ribs poking through their T-shirts and decided the only way theyd actually get to eat was to make the entrance fee zero and then hit everybody with a sub to actually make things work.And thats fine, and its fair, and its OK until the day when that check doesnt clear or the client doesnt pay and your bank account is full of cobwebs and your email app has 17 messages telling you there appears to be a problem with your payment method and nothing works anymore.(Image credit: TheIndianSubcontinent)Launches for tech that doesnt workEver since everyone discovered that the original iPhone demo featured a phone held together with duct tape and sheer force of will weve had to sit through tech launches where execs will quite happily burble on about products that dont work.Take Samsung, for example: in their rush to market a folding phone, they forgot to make sure that the folding bit of the Samsung Galaxy Fold could handle being folded and unfolded.
This is rather like a parachute company forgetting to put the parachutes into its backpacks, or a shark repellent manufacturer not checking that its product actually repels sharks.
And before the Apple fans get too smug here, one word: AirPower.
A charger so advanced, so beyond what anybody else is capable of doing that, er, Apple wasnt capable of doing it either.So heres our request to the tech industry.
If youre going to make shit up, if youre going to announce products you know you cant make and that you might never be able to make properly, go crazy! Show us holographic heli-trousers! AR glasses that reveal our enemies most shameful thoughts! An affordable, rock-solid triple-A streaming games platform with minimal hardware, 4K resolution and zero lag!OK, maybe not that last one.
Too far-fetched.(Image credit: Bird)Dockless electric scootersIts not much of a stretch for dockless electric scooters to get in the sea when so many of them get in the rivers, in the canals, in the storm drains and anywhere else where drunk and/or lazy people can throw them.
Theyre still illegal in the UK but in many parts of the US theyve become a curse: blocking sidewalks, being dumped all over the place and causing all kinds of problems for pedestrians and local authorities.The problem with dockless scooters isnt the tech, or even the fact that some critics would say many riders are awful.
Its that the companies behind them are 'disruptive', which is tech-speak for 'irresponsible and of dubious legality'.
The same story repeats: operator appears from nowhere, doesnt apply for a licence, floods the streets and expects the council to pay for clearing up their mess.
Its Facebooks 'move fast and break things' strategy taken far too literally.Itd be a shame if bad business practices spoiled the scooter party, though: if theyre not being thrown into bits of the environment, they can be better for the environment than cars.(Image credit: Facebook)Facebook PortalWhat could go wrong with a Facebook-connected camera in your home, apart from absolutely everything?All personal digital assistants are potentially sinister, of course.
But Facebooks rivals havent spent most of the last decade demonstrating their complete disregard for peoples privacy.
How many times have we heard senior FB execs apologise, say they havent lived up to their usual high standards and promise to do better after yetanotherprivacyscandal?You know how Portal will pan out: Facebook will promise not to listen to or look at anyone without permission, and then an accident or a leak will make it clear that Facebook has been listening to and looking at a whole bunch of people without permission just like its continuing to record and monetise your location data even when youve said no to location sharing with the Facebook app.
Facebook will then apologise, say that it hasnt lived up to its usual high standards and promise to do better.Expecting Facebook not to try and analyse and monetise Portal video and audio is like expecting your dog to ignore a plate of sausages youve left on the worktop.
Oh sure, theyll give you those big sad eyes when you come home, but theyve still eaten your dinner.x5Pm4L4sVvtkhjjaUn5CMH.jpg?#
