Everyone seems to want to say goodbye to IT, but I have some things I would like to say “goodbye” to in the technology world.
- Optical drives. They take up an insane amount of space for something that I use maybe once a year … if that much anymore. Disk space is limited. They are noisy. They have moving parts. Just get rid of the things once and for all.
- I might be alone in this, but I would love to do away with hinges on technology items. Laptops. Convertible tablets. Game Boy Advanced SPs. Just get rid of the things. Almost no company can make a good one (some ThinkPads get really close) and they are the weakest point of almost any device. I would love it if we could just do away with hinges. This is a major reason I would love to go iPad + desktops only in the future.
- Can we finally do away with printers? I know some people still swear by them, and I am fully aware we are not going to get rid of them, but they are really annoying and a major cause of headaches. Their drivers are flaky, at best. They are loud. They are noisy. They have MANY moving parts. They break … all of the time. Can we finally do away with these things!?
- The phrase “I’m not very good with computers” should be retired. I understand that you might not be comfortable with everything involved with computers and modern technology, but pulling out this excuse everything time something doesn’t go exactly the way you expected it is more annoying than endearing. There are plenty of times things go wrong for me … that’s part of the business. Just ask for your help and we’ll get through it together.
- All current, standard USB cables. The whole lot of them are terrible. Having the Lightning connector on my iPad mini and iPhone 5 has seriously spoiled me … when it comes to good cables. Reversible. Solid-feeling. All USB cables are a sham. There is hope since the future of USB looks to be reversible but … we have yet to see what that will look like. Even the Thunderbolt port and cables are light years ahead of USB. Shameful, really.
- Websites trying to sell something without clearly listing a price. Usually they are something like “Request a Quote” or “Call for Pricing” instead of clearly listing a pricing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the final pricing … but I want to know what I am getting into so that I don’t have to waste my time. The likelihood of me leaving your site if you don’t list pricing increases almost ten-fold.
- Websites trying to sell a software product without good, and representative, screen shots. Every operating system comes with some way to take screen shots. DO. IT. I understand that design is not only what it looks like, but I want to know what it looks like. If your product pages are huge blocks of marketing text … I’m going elsewhere. Immediately.
This is not a complete list, but you get the idea.