Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Why do they keep changing things?


I think car designers got over this some years back; but, for much of my life, the hood releases on cars could be just about anywhere on or in the grill.   My last few have stabilized at the middle/top of the grill.

Though there aren’t a lot of options for placement, why do some manufacturers put the gas fill opening on the left and some put it on the right (are there any still behind the license plate?).  Ah, the adventure of putting gas in a rental!

PC’s and Macs do all the same things but insist on putting controls in different places.  I’m not sure which came first; but, why is Ctrl Alt Del, Cmd Option Esc on a Mac?  (I didn’t even know there was a force close function on a Mac until the other day when Photoshop Elements froze – I’d never in two years had a crash.  Take that MS!)

The impetus for this post came yesterday when I got a new phone.  Same carrier – T-Mobile.  Same manufacturer – HTC.  Same OS – Android.  But things had to be just a bit different.  When the phone comes on, you have to unlock it by sliding the unlock icon to the right, rather than sliding it down.  Answering a call and ending it are now left/right rather than up/down swipes of the same icon.  The mini-USB port is on the left side rather than the bottom.  The on/off switch is on the upper right rather than the upper left side, having swapped positions with the audio port.  The “Internet” icon is now the “Browser” icon.  The “hard” buttons at the bottom for “Home,” “Menu” and “Back” aren’t real buttons now, just dedicated spots on the casing that respond to touch (though I kind of like that change).

After a day, I’m pretty much already used to the changed placements and labels; but, I still can’t figure out why they were necessary.  I’ve got it – someone passed the “Designers Full Employment Act” and didn’t tell me.

4 comments:

Big Mark 243 said...

When I begin to read this I was thinking about all the poor souls in R&D who would become unemployed without these design changes. But you made the conclusion with my help. Meanwhile, I am still clueless about speaker wire and why would I want it stripped? Is it a new TSA mandate? All speaker wire boarding a flight need a search??

Dave said...

Though it doesn't fit the theme of the post, gone are the irritating "Genius" button and nagging and useless T-Mobile "Faves" function. And, most importantly, and the reason I got the phone, it makes WiFi calls automatically if you are in a bad cell (and of course if you are in a hot-spot). Thank you T-Mobile.

Dave said...

Made me smile Mark.

Jeni said...

Hmmm. Aside from the fact that service is totally crap down in the gully where I live, thus making the idea of any kind of cellphone a bit useless (therefore, I don't have one plus, don't need it either.) But I was just thinking maybe they make all those changes just to see which people they can piss off a lot or else, just to keep oldsters on their toes, awake, alert and avoiding senior moments a bit that way. (And, I agree completely with your take on the hood release and gas tank placements too.)