We are buried in data. A recent PBS film on Big Data asserts “If you live in a major city, you’re expected to use as much data in a single day, as your 15th-century ancestors encountered during their ENTIRE LIFETIME! (emphasis added)
That is a staggering assertion. And maybe it helps explain why I can’t figure out (after 30 years of trying - or something close to that) how iTunes works. Even though I’m somewhat of a tech junky, and have been working at it for years, I still don’t have anything close to a handle on how to move tunes in and out of my computer, phone, and other devices. Same goes for pictures. Both are organizational nightmares, loaded with vexing cul-de-sacs and dysfunctional screens, popups and keystrokes.
Apple has managed to create one of the most confusing, user-unfriendly process environments in the history of man. Fiendish, actually. Just recently, they forced me (everyone, actually) into their own diabolical security universe. Passwords galore. Double passwords. Biological passwords. Passwords for passwords. This adds a confusing layer on top of a confusing foundation, leading the unwary user who just wants to park a song or a picture on their laptop, into a labyrinth of dark and frustrating rabbit holes.
I own an iphone, a Macbook Air, an ipad and an ipad mini. Or rather, they own me. Using them, or trying to make them at all functional, requires an inordinate amount of stressful time and energy just to keep them updated and coordinated. Inevitably, the confusion forces me to visit the nearest Apple store (which is not that near) where I stand in an endless line waiting for an assigned techie to fix the current problem.
Usually, we manage to correct whatever the problem is. Not always. The success rate is roughly 60%. Of course that requires my techie to consult with at least three other techies in the store, as well as several on-line searches before the problem is solved. I watch these Apple employees struggle with whatever my current issue is (How do I add a picture to an album? HahahaLol!) and wonder to myself: If they can't figure this out without consulting 3 more "experts" and on-line searches, how in the world do they expect a layman to do it?
Its all aout the money. Instead of simple, obvious processes, steps that could have been easily programmed 20 years ago, and that ANYONE should be able to figure out without a manual, Apple wants to lock everything you do into their corporate framework - and then figure out ways to charge you for it.
The processes are horrifying and devilish. The cliche is "Get your 10 year old to do it.", but really, what are the ramifications of that proposition? Is the assumption that your 10 year old is so brain damaged that this makes sense to them?
(more to follow. This is a work in progress.)
Meanwhile, I’m sticking to my basic philosophy: Nobody knows anything. Including me.