Planet of the Apps

Perhaps because I’m blonde or because there’s a touch of the control freak in me I only like technology when it does what I want it to do. I’m not a technophobe, but it seems to me that technology, certainly software-based is written around what somebody thinks you want often with limited justification, or worse still to suit their needs. I have a car which decides when I want my doors and boot (trunk) locking whether I want it or not, no matter how inconvenient. For years I’ve had to put up with Windows which must be the greatest piece of crap foist on humanity. Not just because it’s ill- designed and unreliable, but because it’s designed with somebody else’s needs in mind. Windows when it was built was likened to a house with no back door. And despite literally millions of pieces of malware and viruses having been designed to fuck your computer there is still no move to shut the back door. The reason is we are valuable marketing commodities and our lifestyle data can be sold on. Try searching for something on-line, say a new TV, then hours later when you are doing something else, see what adverts start popping up.

I have a DVD/Bluray player that will not allow me to skip endless ‘piracy’ notices or trailers, sometimes it takes me ten minutes to get to see what I paid for. I buy a DVD/CD in one part of the world but can’t play it when I get home. Why? Because somebody is putting their needs before mine at my expense

One thing I get particularly Luddite about is mobile phones. Apparently I’m the only person left in the Galaxy who can’t or won’t text and I have no internet access. I have no i-phone, no mutant phone, no Android phone. Surely everyone has one of the new ‘smart’ phones my friends say. I have nothing to say they when wax lyrical about apps. They wonder how I survive, without geo-positioning satellite fixes and an app that tells me what wine bargains are available at Tesco this week.

Before you write me off as a sad case think about this. My phone does just what it says on the can, no more no less. Ok I have no sat-nav, I can’t read books with it, and I can’t shave my armpits with it, but my phone does just what I need it too.

What’s my point? Take your latest ‘smart’ Android, Haemorrhoid, or i-phone abroad and see what happens as your multiple apps start downloading and uploading data . Better still try switching the apps off so they can’t download and upload data. Tough! They’ve been designed to make this well nigh impossible. The Sunday Times recently reported a businessman who took his i-phone 4 to Dubai for a week and found himself with a bill for $5,000 because he kept it switched on and his apps and email facility kept sucking in data. Think this is bad? Another consumer got landed with a $23,000 bill.

Assuming you have a weather app, Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps and say ten e-mails waiting for you and you are in a foreign country this will cost you on average £54 EVERY time you switch on your SMART phone. The good news is if you are in the EU this will only cost you £20! The phone providers are of course laughing all the way to the bank.

Was technology designed to make our lives easier or to line somebody else’s pockets?

1.6$ =£1