Why oh why did the clock readout on my phone have to turn pink?
My phone recently updated, and to my surprise the time readout on my lock screen turned bright pink. Barbie pink.
In the last phone update before that, the numbers had turned thick and clumsy, whereas before they had been elegantly thin and yet still readable. I didn’t like the change, but it didn’t bother me unduly. But now they were thick and pink, a sort of ghastly pink that only a 4-year-old could love.
I finally found a way to change it back, but it took quite a while and some searching to figure it out.
So, why do programmers do this to us? It seems, as best I can reconstruct what happened, that the new “improved” idea was to take a color from the photo on each person’s lockscreen and use that color for the clock numbers for that person as well. And it turns out that there’s a fair amount – although not an overwhelming amount – of pink on the photo I use, which is of my grandchildren.
Changes such as this may seem small, and they are small. But they are often jarring and unwanted. At least there was an option to turn it back to a neutral color.
I’m constantly fighting software from second-guessing what I want.
Auto complete in text messages turns bldg into bludgeon. As it tried to in this comment.
A coworker opined in tiny font to
It is a “Kitty Helps” feature, as anyone who has owned cats who jump up on your desk and “help” your typing or mouse driving. “Kitty Helps” are also notable in arrangement of cut flowers and such. It’s all part of the feline training of domesticated humans.
Why did your clock turn pink?
Because it was (comparatively) easy. I’m a (retired) hardware engineer. When I changed something in an existing design I’d draw it on the schematic. But then, someone else had to lay it out on the PC board, New boards made, parts purchased, board assembled, then it was done – ignoring testing, etc.
The software weenie who changed your clock sat down at his keyboard, cracked his knuckles, revised a hundred or so lines of source code then ran it through the compiler and… done – again, ignoring testing, etc.
This flexibility is great; for one thing, it allows the correction of errors quickly and cheaply. I spent a lot of time and effort designing hardware for that flexibility, but it has its downside, as you discovered.
But why, you ask, why?
Because the company needs to keep the software guys for the next substantive program, so they get assigned somewhat mundane tasks, and sometimes the creativity instinct winds up off at a tangent.
I’m not sure which aphorism applies:
The devil finds work for idle hands.
Or
Murphy rules.
buddhaha:
Some days I’m not so sure about God, but I never doubt Murphy exists. 🙂
The most annoying realization to all of this, when a software ‘update’ changes your personalized settings, is the sense of violation-of-space. I think it’s similar to finding out your home has been broken into, or that your office work space has been rifled.
Your phone or computer is ‘yours’. The idea that some anonymous person or worse, corporation, has the hidden, all-powerful authority to access its workings and, in the process, casually replace your preferences and settings is – creepy.
But maybe it could be seen as a healthy reminder that you don’t really have any privacy when it comes to these matters.
Aggie:
IMO it was Microsoft which pioneered the “your personal computer is not yours; it is an outpost in our empire.”
Perhaps I’m fighting the last war. I do worry about OpenAI’s ties to Microsoft.
All of your pixels are belong to us.
Neo:
So, why do programmers do this to us?
Not the programmers. They hate this crap, the perpetual changing of the application “face” just for the sake of change.
It’s a setting and most likely marketing who decided on that pink. Again, most likely because of the Barbie movie.
You found the change site, they just set its default.
Aggie:
But maybe it could be seen as a healthy reminder that you don’t really have any privacy when it comes to these matters.
This little bit isn’t really a privacy issue, but your point is valid overall.
You can control your privacy but it takes consistent work to do so. It’s only been recently (I’m 75) that I’ve relaxed about my identity online.
Come get me mo’fo’s.
They figured out you’re a girly girl. Megan McArdle once admitted on her blog that she owned 30 pairs of shoes. Neo just hints at that with all the posts about ballet and make up.
watch out, Robbie is going to do a Live Action Monopoly movie, sigh
and then Coppola has to sell his vineyard to make his passion project, Megalopolis, a futuristic take on the Catiline conspiracy, that hes been working on for 30 years, it will hopefully be more Fifth Element then Valerian, who sunk a whole studio, Europa films,
one red flashing light, its got Adam Driver as the Catiline character, Giancarlo Esposito as his rival, who is the corrupt autocrat and a host of other players to it, it has ambition, is it too ambitious, we shall see,
Wasn’t there a post here a couple weeks ago about First World Problems?