Over the past decade, we've seen things that people wouldn't believe. Samsung in flames over our shoulder. We saw Windows phones glow in the dark near Bill Gates. Many of these moments are already lost in time, like tears in the rain. But other horrible things persist, and it's time for them to enter the sea. When it comes to naming the tech trends we'd like to see the back of, we're spoiled for choice: the hardware you can't upgrade, the monitoring tech you can't outrun, exclusives from streaming services, and Windows Flipping updates. . But despite their obvious irritations, they're not the worst. Away from. These are the ones we like to hate, the tech trends we'd like to see reversed in the 2020s.
Style instead of substance
You know who we're going to choose here. The 2010s were the decade when Apple designers ran school at the expense of practicality, when "it just works" became "it doesn't work, but it does." 39; it looks pretty cool.” Remember the MacBook Pro keyboard that couldn't handle people touching it? The Mac Pro that didn't put as much shape into the feature as the launch feature on the tank, set the tank on fire and fired it up? pushed off a cliff? The MacBook with only one USB port, meaning you can't charge it and use an external device at the same time? And don't get us started on the iPhone's headphone jack, the location of the charging point on the second-generation Magic Mouse or the clown car of remote controls that ship with the Apple TV.The good news is that Apple seems to have been late, for example, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro once again has a proper keyboard. Here are more boring but friendlier design decisions this decade.
Subscriptions for everything
You are in a cafe. You order a coffee, but the barista will not take your money. They want his bank details because he can't buy coffee anymore. You must subscribe 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, it's €79.99 per month. That's pretty much where the technology is. The slow progression of subscriptions did not stop at television and movies. Nowadays, you don't just need six different streaming subscriptions to cover the shows you want to watch and the songs you want to stream. You need your photo substorage and your online subgame and your Creative Cloud and Patreons sub that you support and the subsystem that unlocks your photo app filters and your wireless security subcam and the eighty-six different subs you had to go out because no one anymore allows you to shop an app and you look at the graph on your online banking app and wonder: Hey! How did I get here? And the short answer is: cheap, mostly. The cheaper ones that wouldn't pay for even reasonably priced stuff, so the people who made stuff started seeing too much rib on their t-shirts and decided the only way to eat was to do it. Zero entry fee, then hit everyone with a dime to get things going. And that's okay, and that's fair, and that's okay until the day this check doesn't clear or the customer doesn't pay and your bank account is full of spider webs and your email app has 17 messages telling you it looks like There is a problem with your payment method and nothing works anymore.
Launch a technology that doesn't work
Since everyone found out that the original iPhone demo included a duct-taped phone and sheer willpower, we had to sit through tech pitches where execs would just chat excitedly. Products that don't work. Take Samsung, for example: in their rush to market a foldable phone, they forgot to make sure the Samsung Galaxy Fold's folding wick could withstand being folded and unfolded. It's a bit like a skydiving company forgetting to put parachutes in their backpacks, or a shark repellent manufacturer failing to check that their product actually repels sharks. And before you Apple fans get too happy here, one word: AirPower. Such an advanced charger, beyond what anyone else is capable of, huh, neither is Apple. So here is our request to the tech industry. If you're going to shit, if you're going to advertise products that you know you can't do and may never be able to do correctly, go crazy! Show us a holographic helipad! AR glasses that reveal the most embarrassing thoughts of our enemies! A solid and affordable triple-A streaming gaming rig with minimal hardware, 4K resolution, and no lag! Okay, maybe not the last. Too crazy.
Electric scooters without spring
Dockless electric scooters have little to do with the sea when many of them enter rivers, canals, storm sewers, and anywhere else drunks and/or the lazy might dump them. They're still illegal in the UK, but in many parts of the US they've become a curse, blocking pavements, being thrown everywhere and causing all sorts of trouble for pedestrians and local authorities. The problem with dockless scooters isn't the technology, or even the fact that some, critics would say a lot, the riders are horrible. The companies behind them are "disruptive," which is technically "irresponsible and of questionable legality." The same story repeats itself: the operator appears out of nowhere, doesn't apply for a permit, floods the streets, and hopes the council will pay to clean up his mess. It's Facebook's "go fast and break things down" strategy all too literally. It would be a shame if bad business practices spoil the scooter party: if they're not thrown into bits of the environment, they may be better for the environment than cars.