Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?

Posted by Cliff on from the if-they-were-fruit-they'd-be-lemons dept.

kooky45 asks: "In an effort to make our lives easier and more entertaining, technology designers pack more and more features into electronic devices, but often they're more nuisance than they're worth. An earlier article on LEDs discussed some of these. Another example is my Nokia 6320i mobile phone which has a back lit screen that drains the battery life at an alarming rate. When the phone is not in use the back light is off; if the battery starts to run low, it gives me regular warnings by beeping and turning the back light on! What other examples of designer stupidity have you seen?"

2 of 1,008 comments (clear)

  1. Voicemail by rantingkitten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In my day (I'm in my late 20s) we had answering machines, and you know what? They were good enough. If I left the house and came home a few hours later, I could see if there was a message, and I knew it was left sometime within the past few hours. Barring a few really specific and improbable scenarios, I don't need to know the exact damn time it was left, nor do I need the other BS like mailboxes, saved messages folders, varying greetings, and all the other claptrap.

    Today? If you're the caller, you have to listen to the person's personal greeting, then suffer through another 20 seconds of "At the tone, please record your message. When finished, hang up, or press the star key for more options. To page this person, press nine. To listen to your personal horoscope..." Just shut the hell up and let me leave the message so I can get on with it, please?

    If you're receiving voicemail it's even worse. "You have...two...new messages and one...saved message. To listen to...new messages...press one. To listen--" One. "First...message...received...at...ten...fifty eight...AM." SHUT UP. JUST PLAY THE GORRAM MESSAGE WITHOUT THE PREAMBLE. Christ. Why the hell do I need to know the exact freaking minute someone called?

    --
    mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
  2. "Operation currently prohibited by disc." by Torodung · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Says it all.

    But if you're a DVD exec, I want the buttons on my DVD player ('fast forward,' 'top menu') to work as they *should* without playing "Mother-may-I?" with the embedded OS. The menu should NEVER be restricted. That doesn't even make sense! What harm could my having instant access to your product's menu do to your bottom line?

    Also, on my DVD player I can't even turn the darned thing off reliably. Is it too much to ask that a power switch be an actual -power switch- and not a "send power down signal to the OS" switch? It's not like there's a hard drive in these things. There's no need for the absurd length of time it takes for most DVD players to go from a power off *command* to a power off *state*.

    Same goes for the tray eject button. Kill the motor and eject the disc already! I don't need "pretty" or "graceful," I need my disc back in less than five seconds.

    Worst "feature"... Ever.

    --
    Toro