Diddling with Arrow Buttons: I Want That Job

Who sits around on their high-tech perches redesigning what does not need redesigning? Eons ago, which in this era means a few "updates" ago, things worked smoothly and logic ruled -- more or less -- on my iPhone.
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Oh, great. Yay. Another ever-lovin' update for my iPhone, supposedly to iron out glitches and add features. Etc., etc., etc; whatever. All it means to me is that random, key things I have gotten used to since the last so-called "update" will no longer be, and that most of the changes will not be any improvement at all.

Who sits around on their high-tech perches, redesigning what does not need redesigning, and who sees fit to pay their competitive salaries and why? Eons ago, which in this era means a few "updates" ago, things worked smoothly and logic ruled -- more or less -- on my iPhone. This last go-round of "updates" found my multiple texts freezing up all too often and screwed with a convoluted photo storage lineup. Now, this latest and greatest "update" offers, among other things, arrow buttons that went from white to gray. Wowsers.

Urban Dictionary people: there needs to be a new word created to suggest tech design lateralism, supposed change that results in no improvement whatsoever and only aggravates via forced readjustment every hapless user out there. Don't even ask me how I felt when the cataclysmic sea change occurred and we dutiful happy campers all went from skeuomorphism to flat design. I liked 3 dimensions, I like them still. I liked the little bitty e-pages and organic images, the shading, the pseudo-depth. I even wrote a piece suggesting Thomas Jefferson would have preferred skeuomorphic design and still stand by it...

This time, our "update" shrunk my beloved, big old "DECLINE" to pinheaded near oblivion. In this 24/7, relentless tech-connectedness we all suffer from, the "Decline," while bold and sure in size and mass, was a welcome bit of life-editing, a much satisfying representative of some token filtering in our day to day. Is this teeny weeny zit-sized circlet that is now the decline button supposed to evoke some sense of reductive euro sleekness? Why make it hard to not take that unwanted call when that is precisely what we should be doing?

What is the point? Why did it have to be changed? I wear glasses to read and wince each time I realize there's something new I can't see. But today's blind episode is not my fault. Post "update," I actually thought for a moment (before I found my glasses) that the "Decline" button had been completely obliterated. Gads! Then I realized that speck on the screen was the new and improved decline (no more evoking a capital letter). I just now need a pointed extension on my fingertip to accurately hit it.

I am reminded of those awesome paint manufacturer's color wheels, when I would look at the gajillion colors and their poetic, illustrative names and think, I want that job. Hmmm... Cranberry au Lait or Pepto Mauve? Can't you just picture the color by the words alone? Well, now I want to take a programming course. Rest assured, I love technology, I love progress, and the functional glitches do need to be fixed. But I want to be the one earning schneickloads of money to diddle with button colors and the downsizing of red spots so that thousands upon millions of devotees are forced to accept into their little hands and minds that which I alone, 21st-century brat, hath wrought. I want that job.

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