Innovation today: Making tech you don’t want, can’t use or doesn’t work

Rant on.  Forcing tech onto the customer is standard operating procedure for companies. Because of advertiser pressure, for example, we have to make an effort to stop auto-playing videos in news feeds, news sites, ads, etc. – completely missing the possibility that the viewer might be staring at a smartphone in the train’s quiet car, or up early when a spouse is still asleep.  Or worse, the news feed shows a video that no one should ever see -- but has yet to be taken down by one of the 3000 take-it-down new hires. 

Tech competition -- masked as innovation -- has transcended the absurdity zone. The current (business?) model forces technology improvements, whether on phones, cars, or software, without an opportunity to opt out or roll back. Testing has become so yesterday, and the changes, which are all about one-upmanship among tech and car companies' non-stop PR machines, are worse than a bad user experience. If the device costs money or the software depends on advertisers imagining that they are reaching consumers, or the consumer needs to WANT the car, something beyond the device or marketing is truly broken. Three examples:

• The forced upgrade – no going back. You may have noticed that software upgrades and new devices seem to be plagued with bugs, workarounds, and irritants – take the iPhone update this past week – and unlike previous versions, there’s no going back to old versions.  Samsung offered an unwanted guest in its new S8. Say hello to Bixby – the virtual assistant that makes Siri look like a rocket scientist. And optimizing the vendor’s support process, of course, seems to be the objective of the no-going-back strategy. Why should they have to deal with multiple versions? Because Microsoft has been doing exactly that since forever? But of course that’s in the 'enterprise' world of PCs, where there is an IT support staff to deal with change. IT staffers, unfortunately, must support that corporate policy nightmare, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). And as with Bixby, auto-play videos, and other, uh, 'features', one must carefully study the user forums to learn how to disable, get rid of, go back, or avoid, this so-called improvement.

• The self-driving car – who asked for this?  You have to love the determination of Google and its salivating imitators. Death is not a deterrent – apparently it was the driver’s fault -- he was ignoring warnings.  Okay, what about that Pew survey last week?  Most Americans expect cars to be driverless within 50 years, but 56% of those surveyed still won’t ride in them.  (Presumably they won't buy them either.) So the conclusion?  Apparently better marketing will change that perception, long before 50 years, since this much-hyped innovation will be on the road shortly, even by 2020.  Audi will make it better -- their PR machine says it will be so. But will there be a clear identification on the car – big label, big letters? So you could know that you are being passed on the highway by a car that may still have an undetected bug in its avoidance maneuvers? When did we say that we wanted a car like this? Oh, we actually said the opposite -- in an MIT study. In a JD Power study. In a Gartner survey. 

• Car info and entertainment systems – committed to distracting drivers.  The AAA Foundation for Safety recently published a report about the systems in higher-end cars, many features tested (across 30 different cars) are distracting and take the driver’s mind off the road. According to researchers, these "infotainment systems tested could be made safer by following federal recommendations such as locking out text, social media, and navigation inputs while the car is in motion." Will that happen? Unlikely. Instead, you will need as much focus as balancing a checkbook. Great!  Distracted driving has been debunked as a key rationale for the development of self-driving cars. And the seniors who supposedly will benefit from self-driving cars? Surely they will love them -- after some initial hurdles. How about hailing self-driving taxi in the Villages, one of the world's largest 55+ communities -- sadly, they are full throttle ahead. Rant off.