Amir's Rant: Wireless Carriers, please stop writing software!!!

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
So I recently bought a new Samsung Note Edge. Lots of good things about the phone. But a lot of bad things too. The #1 bad thing is all the pre-installed junk and random pop ups from nowhere asking you to agree to this and that, and accept this policy or this and that. Having done no usability testing of any kind, they don't understand that you first have to tell the user what is in it for them before dumping legalize in front of them.

Just last night Samsung asked me if I want to sign up for "policy updates." Why on earth would I want to do that? There was some tiny reference to removing malicious things but in exchange I was to allow Samsung to store my phone ID, where I was born, the name of my children, what I ate yesterday, etc., etc., etc. Are you kidding me? Trust Samsung with my personal information and data security? With no mention whatsoever of where the data is stored and what safeguards they have in place?

But this post is not about that. It is about Verizon who I like as a Carrier but seems to wake up every day confusing itself for a software development shop. No doubt it is all farmed out without a single person knowing what they are doing monitoring their work. Here is the notification that popped out of the blue:



What on earth is "support and protection?" Which app is it that decided to give me this notification? For grins, I click "Get Started." This is what greats me next:



What the cotton picking, piece of you know what, dog pile, is this? What password? You didn't ask me for any bloody password.

Oh yeah, I am stupid enough to "try again." And get the same response.

And you Google are not without blame. Why do you allow such notifications without a way to know what app is showing it? What if this were malicious code saying it is from Verizon. How would I know? Is this a system notification? What the heck is it?

I mean really. In this day and age when we have Apple having long set the standard for creating polished usable software, why is this Android world playing the game as if we are in stone ages of software development? I mean when was the last time you got a pop up from your Mac or PC asking you to sign up for something where you have no idea what it is talking about, and then tell you that you typed the wrong password??? How backward can we get?

Why can’t I get a curved edge on a phone and not have to put up with such incompetence?

Bit of positive, I made those screen snapshots using “Palm swipe” which is one of the standard feature in newer versions of Android. You hold your hand as if it is the knife edge or Karate chop and slide from one side of the screen to the other. No messing with buttons, etc. Just slide your hand and you hear a shutter click and the image is stored. Now, why it is called “Palm Swipe” when you are not swiping with your palm is beyond me. It should be called “edge of your hand swipe.”

And oh, remember my second rant here? http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Chrome-what-is-so-hard-about-a-spell-checker. I am hit with it right now, with Chrome refusing to spell check this post. So I had to copy it, paste it in Word, and have it do the spell check and then paste here. Oh wait, it is now working as I type this last bit!!!

Software can be hard but not this stuff guys. Not this stuff. So much incompetence. So little time to rant about it....
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
So I recently bought a new Samsung Note Edge. Lots of good things about the phone. But a lot of bad things too. The #1 bad thing is all the pre-installed junk and random pop ups from nowhere asking you to agree to this and that, and accept this policy or this and that. Having done no usability testing of any kind, they don't understand that you first have to tell the user what is in it for them before dumping legalize in front of them.

Just last night Samsung asked me if I want to sign up for "policy updates." Why on earth would I want to do that? There was some tiny reference to removing malicious things but in exchange I was to allow Samsung to store my phone ID, where I was born, the name of my children, what I ate yesterday, etc., etc., etc. Are you kidding me? Trust Samsung with my personal information and data security? With no mention whatsoever of where the data is stored and what safeguards they have in place?

But this post is not about that. It is about Verizon who I like as a Carrier but seems to wake up every day confusing itself for a software development shop. No doubt it is all farmed out without a single person knowing what they are doing monitoring their work. Here is the notification that popped out of the blue:



What on earth is "support and protection?" Which app is it that decided to give me this notification? For grins, I click "Get Started." This is what greats me next:



What the cotton picking, piece of you know what, dog pile, is this? What password? You didn't ask me for any bloody password.

Oh yeah, I am stupid enough to "try again." And get the same response.

And you Google are not without blame. Why do you allow such notifications without a way to know what app is showing it? What if this were malicious code saying it is from Verizon. How would I know? Is this a system notification? What the heck is it?

I mean really. In this day and age when we have Apple having long set the standard for creating polished usable software, why is this Android world playing the game as if we are in stone ages of software development? I mean when was the last time you got a pop up from your Mac or PC asking you to sign up for something where you have no idea what it is talking about, and then tell you that you typed the wrong password??? How backward can we get?

Why can’t I get that nice notification curved edge on a phone and not have to put up with such incompetence?

Bit of positive, I made those screen snapshots using “Palm swipe” which is one of the standard feature in newer versions of Android. You hold your hand as if it is the knife edge or Karate chop and slide from one side of the screen to the other. No messing with buttons, etc. Just slide your hand and you hear a shutter click and the image is stored. Now, why it is called “Palm Swipe” when you are not swiping with your palm is beyond me. It should be called “edge of your hand swipe.”

And oh, remember my second rant here? http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Chrome-what-is-so-hard-about-a-spell-checker. I am hit with it right now, with Chrome refusing to spell check this post. So I had to copy it, paste it in Word, and have it do the spell check and then paste here. Oh wait, it is now working as I type this last bit!!!

Software can be hard but not this stuff guys. Not this stuff. So much incompetence. So little time to rant about it....

Time to get yourself an iPhone Amir ;)
 

Orb

New Member
Sep 8, 2010
3,010
2
0
Glad you mention this Amir as it reminds me the debacle around super/zombie cookies and what freaking Verizon and possibly a few others are doing; goes to show personal consumer information is king sigh :(
Verizon partner won’t stop using unkillable tracking cookies, refuses to honor its own opt-out requests [Updated]: http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/1...ies-refuses-to-honor-its-own-opt-out-requests

I doubt they are the only carriers going about this, and I am sure this trend just like Samsung Smart TV I posted in a new thread will grow (be interesting to see what other manufacturers will do with their "smart tv").
Cheers
Orb
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
29
405
Time to get yourself an iPhone Amir ;)

I have been for a few years in the Android camp. I love the HTC One M8 but man ! I am getting tired of ( a good amount of ) Android nonsense ... iPhone 7 time? .... Maybe :)
 

BlueFox

Member Sponsor
Nov 8, 2013
1,709
406
405
It is Agile development causing this crap. Consultants sell this idea to clueless managers who then shove it onto developers, and you end up with crummy software.
 

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
I have a HTC m8 also.

I love the phone except for a few things. One of my favorite things is it's not apple's annoying OS. I can customize it a little bit, so it's easy and much faster to navigate. However the updates now and again are stupid. They change stuff too often. They don't have anyone that's very smart leading their development. Apple does, but their direction is that of an annoying hell.

Once in awhile my phone won't type, the keyboard won't come up, and I have to restart. That's my only true problem. But I wish the camera could be used as a light meter like iphones, that have EXCEPTIONAL light meters.

There's a line between Apple OS, and Android. The best comparison I could make is Linux Mint, it's nearly flawless and offers all the utility you'd want like Windows, it does the fancy stuff Mac OS does, but hasn't become annoying. That's why I need for my phone. It's a work tool, I don't need it to make me feel important because I'm waiting for it all the damn time, like with my iphone I had...
 

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