How did they get away with designing this?

Humphrey10

LucianH wrote: »

I associate iTunes with a car crash. It's so traumatic your mind attempts to erase it from your memory.

QFT.

It must be designed to be deliberately bad, there is no way it could be so horrible to use otherwise.
Type "iTunes is " into Google and look at the Google suggestions. "Why is iTunes so" also gets similar Google suggestions.

Entimp

I'd like to add a whole device: The Blackberry Playbook.

Traumatic doesn't even come close.

Some small graces now that it has email and spellcheck... but if you know what a Flat File System is, and the fact the Playbook has one... makes emailing documents on a time saving device and task that takes forever.

GunJack

As an Engineer, I can't believe how many products, both hardware and software, come into the car-crash category....and the biggest thing lacking is that rarest of ingredients, common sense

culpepper

power supply sockets on laptops! They either get so stressed that the cable breaks inside or the actual socket on the motherboard gets broken off or the socket is glued down and the thing gets fractured to pieces .
If sockets are such a replaceable item, why isnt there a little port cover that can just be uncovered and a small seperate board with the socket on it, so that anyone replaceing one can unscrew the cover, unscrew the old socket on its little board and screw in the new one without having to gut the whole computer.

Also CMOS batteries in laptops which again need the whole computer to be dismantled when they could be accessible through a door so that they can be unplugged and a new one installed.

GunJack

culpepper wrote: »

power supply sockets on laptops! They either get so stressed that the cable breaks inside or the actual socket on the motherboard gets broken off or the socket is glued down and the thing gets fractured to pieces .
If sockets are such a replaceable item, why isnt there a little port cover that can just be uncovered and a small seperate board with the socket on it, so that anyone replaceing one can unscrew the cover, unscrew the old socket on its little board and screw in the new one without having to gut the whole computer.

Also CMOS batteries in laptops which again need the whole computer to be dismantled when they could be accessible through a door so that they can be unplugged and a new one installed.

Exactly my point - lack of common sense !!!!!!!

ChiefGrasscutter

I speculate that those of us who have the ability or time or even interest to fix these sorts of thing are now a rarity.

It's all part of the throw away culture. One where an ability to keep things going is regarded by peers/friends as eccentric/old fashioned/tight etc wheras you are seen as a more interesting person if instead you have the 'ability' to simply chuck it in the bin and get out the credit card to buy another one.

So the manufacturers don't bother to include for the facility of doing a repair - as it would undoubtly add cost.....and price is the major factor the majority of consumers now bother about.
Nor do people seem to take suitable care of the products once they have them. So the average laptop is probably doing to be destroyed by being dropped, submerged etc whatever long before the CMOS battery expires.

I too as an engineer have come across the "who on earth designed this" situation. My thoughts are to blame the rush to get things to market and the ever shorter consumer product lifecycle so that things that should be sorted never are.

googler

OK, I'll bite.

What, specifically, is so bad about iTunes?

GunJack

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

I speculate that those of us who have the ability or time or even interest to fix these sorts of thing are now a rarity.

It's all part of the throw away culture.

How true..... and all these companies would claim they couldn't survive if they can't sell the next/"better"/upgraded/etc. versions of everything :mad:

paddyrg

I am totally with you OP - product design should be about so much more than the packaging, but be all about the interface too.

fenlander_uk

I've just switched to Libre Office. I can't tell you the sense of relief I feel at no longer having to deal with that wretched, vile ribbon. You couldn't pay me to go back to MS Office.

In my home I have TVs made by Sony, LG and Philips, PVRs by Humax, various digiboxes and Windows Media Centre. LG and Humax do well at reorganising channels. WMC is awful. My Sony TV is a nightmare. They're all completely different.

I've no idea how the radio/CD player in my car works. I just leave it tuned to Radio 4.

Getting a pancake (the Tesco variety) out of my toaster requires the reflexes of a formula 1 driver and the agility of a gymnast.

Android was designed to torture Windows users (and probably vice-versa).

Of course, I see all these things as opportunities, not problems...