Ever feel like technology has passed you by?

[RizzoTheRat]

The Don of Croy said:

Because I think you can keep in contact with people without using a branded service.

Like the Post Office or Virgin or EE?

It's just a service/system like any other (although I agree somewhat more intrusively monetised)

[GroundEffect]

br d said:

GroundEffect said:

Just a different way of doing it. As I said, think of it as a front end of your phone/device. You control everything there and then sync it to your device. It's an elegant system when you get your head around that. It's more work to set up up-front but then after really easy. You can set it up as only syncing certain artists so as you get more songs/albums for them you just plug in and it auto-loads to the device.

I think "sync" is the bad word for me, I've never felt syncing is that important. I turn syncing off on anything I use.

The last Apple device I own is an iPod in the car, it's stuffed in a compartment and holds a couple of thousand mp3's that I can listen to when the mood takes me. If I download different music on my PC then fine, I'm not bothered in the least if it's not instantly transferred to every situation I might find myself in. I'm happy to have different stuff in different places, I can cope with that.

But then again I don't get involved in most of the "must know straight away" mediums, no Facebook or twitter or any of that so perhaps I'm not the right person to appreciate it all. I've never downloaded a film or TV program in my life so I only have music to consider, I've had Spotify Premium since day one but again I don't make up endless playlists or organise stuff into genres I would never have the time to do all that, I just search for whatever I fancy there and then.

iTunes was a massive ballache for me, constantly hectoring me to sync and buy and organise and getting in the way of just doing stuff.
Different mindsets I suppose, I think iTuners v non-iTuners is much more a personality thing than a software thing.

I get satisfaction when my iTunes library is just 'so'. I don't use playlists very much as I most of the music I listen to (Hard Rock and Heavy Metal) are written that individual 'songs' don't really make sense so you need to listen to an album in one go, in order. So I'll just start off an album and away I go.

[Tonsko]

I like this thread. Now just 40, and worked in IT since just before I finished university. Now do security stuff.

ANYWAY, some years ago I became disillusioned with hacking and tweaking tech - I just wanted it to work. Didn't want to spend my spare time dicking about making it work if it broke - something that I used to enjoy. Agree completely with itunes thing - even on OSX, I never let it manage my music, as I have it organised how I want it and it was always difficult to get itunes to do things, if it wasn't how itunes wanted to do it. For that reason alone, I ditched iphone and went to adroid - plug in, copy files.

Agree also with the 'Internet of st'. iKettles! Cups that tell you when your thirsty. It is exactly how another poster put it - solving problems that have been created in order to gather a round of investment and providing a solution that wasn't really needed. Oh yes, my phone has just reminded me that my Internet-enabled cup hasn't been used for a couple of hours, I'd best have a drink. Er.

It's also very nice to know that I'm not alone.

[J4CKO]

I like tech but have too much of it, the ideas are great but you end up swamped, Cloud storage for example, have icloud, Office 365 etc, then there is TV, used to be 4 channels, now have sky and all the other devices and you end up spending as much time deciding what to watch as actually watching it.

[covmutley]

34 here. I think i am still fairly informed about technology, but am definitely slipping in terms of how it can be used and applied.

I have never used whataspp, tinder, etc. I use facebook however. Vloggng has passed me by completely also- since when did they have films made about themselves and why do people want to watch someoen play a computer game or talk about their day.

[james_tigerwoods]

I use Whatsapp - it's handy and less restrictive than texting. Plus because I got it a while ago, I no longer need to pay annually.

I've got Snapchat installed, but I don't see the point of it - Well, I see why you'd use it, as per many news stories, but I don't get it.

[havoc]

GroundEffect said:

dickyf said:

i tunes is the most uncoordinated useless piece of software i have ever come across. i asked a much younger person to explain it and they shrugged 'no one know how to use it!' Just accept that and its all ok again.

bks. It works very well, particularly on Mac. Think of it as the frontend of your phone/iPod not just a File Explorer. It consolidates all music from your computer in to one UI. You can't use it like your old school drag-and-drop systems.

But it doesn't. It (like most Apple products) thinks it knows best and compels you to work to its' logic, regardless of how intuitive/helpful/accurate that logic is. At their best (iPod, original iPhone interface) that's fine and I get it. But when they get it wrong it's frustrating as hell...

I've got hundreds of albums on my PC, yet iTunes cannot seem to find any of them without me pointing them out one-by-one. And then when I do it manually it frequently gets confused if there's a collaborative song on an album (don't get me started on compilations), or even just for fun, so you have to spend minutes per album pulling all those songs into one location.

I only use it as the current car stereo has an iPod connector (last one accepted USB sticks - far easier) so I have to have it for that. Worse, Windows 8 seems to have bollixed-up Media Player, so I've now had to find a 3rd party app to play music.


(OP - if you find an answer to your dilemma, let me know...I'm looking into the same thing myself and it feels like approaching a minefield while riding a pogo stick...)

[CoolHands]

Why can't 'they' design useful tech like: a simple right-click on your usb to encrypt it with a password? That's what the real world wants

[Pommygranite]

OP, no I don't think you're alone and I don't think it's an age thing.

I think the there is a such a race for tech companies to push to 'the next thing' that user ease has been forgotten and it's about how many 'potentials' it has.

In addition the media in many various forms push us on to new tech platforms and social media because ultimately it supports their business agenda.

I'm not some tin foil wearing paranoid individual but life in needing to become 'connected' has ultimately become way too complicated.

Twitters just so unnecessary and is simple digital gossip.

Facebook has just become a bunch of pages copying stuff off of reddit and individuals ignoring a the other attention wes.

Apple has lost the plot and forgotten the simplicity of what made it reborn.

Everything needs a bloody update every other day because it's a so damn complicated and got released before it was properly working and can't even get their own programs to work with themselves.

Games system enable you to pay to win and won't work sometimes as they're trying to do everything at the same time and get all confused.

Everyone's trying to be connected to being connected and in doing so are losing the plot on what's actually needed to improve our lives and in doing so is making it way too stressful.

[g3org3y]

CrutyRammers said:

This is it, I think. I work in a tech industry, so I'm in touch with it, but much of modern "innovation" is just pointless jerking off. We've stopped sending men to the moon and building supersonic jet airliners and stuff, now the main thrust seems to be trivial bks like internet enabled kettles and lightbulbs. Rot. If it's useful to me, I'll use it; but boil my kettle via wifi doesn't in any way come under "useful" in my book.

[CrutyRammers]

g3org3y said:

CrutyRammers said:

This is it, I think. I work in a tech industry, so I'm in touch with it, but much of modern "innovation" is just pointless jerking off. We've stopped sending men to the moon and building supersonic jet airliners and stuff, now the main thrust seems to be trivial bks like internet enabled kettles and lightbulbs. Rot. If it's useful to me, I'll use it; but boil my kettle via wifi doesn't in any way come under "useful" in my book.

All that said, the internet itself of course was a massive revolution and one I've embraced wholeheartedly for many reasons.
I suppose a lot of things are in the evolution stage, things like small HD action cameras are great, improved batteries are great, etc etc. Playing a game online with someone the other side of the world doesn't even raise an eyebrow, watching live tv from the ISS is just, well of course you can.
All of that is good stuff...it's the vision for the next genuinely big, useful thing which seems lacking, or lost in the trivia.

[havoc]

g3org3y said:

CrutyRammers said:

This is it, I think. I work in a tech industry, so I'm in touch with it, but much of modern "innovation" is just pointless jerking off. We've stopped sending men to the moon and building supersonic jet airliners and stuff, now the main thrust seems to be trivial bks like internet enabled kettles and lightbulbs. Rot. If it's useful to me, I'll use it; but boil my kettle via wifi doesn't in any way come under "useful" in my book.

Agreed...what actual use are 'stuff' like Hive and Nest...most heating systems come with a timer, and most people tend to come home at a similar time each day...I don't want to spend >£200 to be able to use my phone to tell my central heating system to come on.

(What I would like is a programmable timer and thermostat in one, but I've not found one of them on the market yet...plumber wasn't aware of anything either...which is odd...surely a timed thermostat makes a lot more sense - 14-15 C overnight and when you're out, timed to reach 17-18 just before you get home / just as you wake up...)

[JimbobVFR]

rxtx said:

AJS- said:

I resisted touchscreens

That made me grin, for reasons you're probably not aware of.

I'm OK with touchscreens but I have a large capacity for learning.

[JimbobVFR]

havoc said:

Agreed...what actual use are 'stuff' like Hive and Nest...most heating systems come with a timer, and most people tend to come home at a similar time each day...I don't want to spend >£200 to be able to use my phone to tell my central heating system to come on.

(What I would like is a programmable timer and thermostat in one, but I've not found one of them on the market yet...plumber wasn't aware of anything either...which is odd...surely a timed thermostat makes a lot more sense - 14-15 C overnight and when you're out, timed to reach 17-18 just before you get home / just as you wake up...)

You most certainly can get such devices. I'd even go as far as to say they're very common.

[havoc]

JimbobVFR said:

You most certainly can get such devices. I'd even go as far as to say they're very common.

Which I'm not entirely surprised by...I was pointed in the direction of a 'smart timer' (not thermostat), but told not to bother with Nest/Hive as they're effectively for smartphone control...so is my plumber just behind-the-times/misinformed???

[Rawwr]

CoolHands said:

Why can't 'they' design useful tech like: a simple right-click on your usb to encrypt it with a password? That's what the real world wants

BitLocker to Go.

[nute]

Are you not coming at this from the wrong end. Im 51, my son recently received something with a moulded EU type plug on it and asked me if i had a spare adaptor. I gave him a 3 pin plug and told him to chop the Euro one off and put the Uk one on. He looked at me like I was asking him to solve cold fusion by lunch time. He can build his own PC, jail break his phone (or whatever its called) and is very clever with android but basic things like a plug defeat him.

[Zod]

AJS- said:

Netflix etc doesn't really exist here so that's a whole new thing to either learn or yell at some day.

In what way does it not exist?

[wibble cb]

havoc said:

JimbobVFR said:

You most certainly can get such devices. I'd even go as far as to say they're very common.

Which I'm not entirely surprised by...I was pointed in the direction of a 'smart timer' (not thermostat), but told not to bother with Nest/Hive as they're effectively for smartphone control...so is my plumber just behind-the-times/misinformed???

Honeywell do a 5+1+1 7 day thermostat/timer, pretty much does what you describe, we program the weekdays and individual sat/sun timings and temps,it even has summer/winter settings, I wired it in myself! Surely these are available in the UK?

https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.1000536306.html

[Trevor450]

wibble cb said:

havoc said:

JimbobVFR said:

You most certainly can get such devices. I'd even go as far as to say they're very common.

Which I'm not entirely surprised by...I was pointed in the direction of a 'smart timer' (not thermostat), but told not to bother with Nest/Hive as they're effectively for smartphone control...so is my plumber just behind-the-times/misinformed???

Honeywell do a 5+1+1 7 day thermostat/timer, pretty much does what you describe, we program the weekdays and individual sat/sun timings and temps,it even has summer/winter settings, I wired it in myself! Surely these are available in the UK?

https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.1000536306.html

I have one of these. Available everywhere. Your local big orange shed will also have a selection.

http://www.honeywelluk.com/products/Programmable-T...