Things that are meant to be better but are not better

[CrocsNotDocs]

Look, I’m not a Luddite- I usually love technology.

But why oh why have headphones jacks been removed from phones and tablets? I don’t want Bluetooth headphones or earbuds that I have to worry about charging before I go anywhere and that cost a zillion dollars. I want cheap old fashioned headphones that don’t go flat that can be plugged into your device and just work. I don’t want to use the charging port for headphones- I like to charge my device while using it. I want headphone jacks back.

YABU- Everything new is always better
YANBU- some things were not broken and should have been left alone

When I moved to Wales, I had fun with this, too! The only problem was that it made it very difficult to tell anyone where I'd been at the weekend!

Erm... self-checkouts at The Co-Op (with a camera which just serves to remind me that my hair has lost the plot and I look like Medusa). Apparently, I need assistance EVERY time. Last time, I might have exploded and gone, "Do I LOOK like a shoplifter?" It's probably best that I don't shop there very often 😁

But don't use your phone while driving; THAT would be dangerous 😂

With you on this one. Hate both.

Agree a million times. They don’t even work

Oh yes to Brioche burger buns- burgers are dinner not pudding or breakfast!!
sourdough is great though

I have eczema and Reynaud's Syndrome

Touch screens often don't know I'm there

Cash machines, household appliances, tablets in shops etc

They either don't know I'm there or if I'm successful in getting them to recognise me, they hit the wrong button

Close app? Do I want to do that? OK, I'll stay open

My WIFI enabled washing machine infuriates me

The touchscreen doesn't see me and to have all the rinses and extra spin speeds, I had to download an app

Whilst standing next to my loaded machine, I have to switch the machine to remote control, open the phone, open the app on my phone, select washing machine (because the app can control other 'smart' appliances, including a wine cooler if I had one) and then try to select the appropriate program from a myriad of options

Try doing that when your phone doesn't want to 'see' your fingerprint

And don't get me started on that day when the servers went down and the app was useless - I barely got any washing done that day

Going back, the demise of the typing pool. Instead of a team of 5 people trained in typing, in layout, in understanding what is meant, everyone types up their own stuff on a computer/laptop/tablet. Productivity - in the actual job that you are being paid to do - has gone down, because you spent 25 minutes trying to indent a list of bullet points in a report for the boss. But they see the headline "we are saving 5 people's employment costs"

Oh, and my washing machine doesn't need 26 visible, easily selectable functions (40C, 40minutes, high spin would do me) but a self clean option that requires me looking up which 3 buttons to press for 7 seconds... (every time)

Multi factor authentication. Damn it to hell.

> But why oh why have headphones jacks been removed from phones and tablets
Because you buy Crapple products
They can charge more for accessories that only fit their devices
Dump Crapple, never look back

I also am driven to distraction by trying to phone companies or institutions. If you can find an actual number, there's the whole "press 1 for" debacle, but that's after several minutes of trying to persuade you that you should ring somewhere else or go to a website. Luddite I may be, but trust me, if I've resorted to a phone call, you can bet your sweet bippy I've scoured Google for the answer already, and it ain't there. 45 minutes of Greensleeves played on pan pipes does nothing for one's equilibrium when you do get through to some poor operative.

Yes. If you lose your phone and try to book an Uber on someone else’s it wants to send a message to your phone. That you don’t have.

It’s a pain. It also I think gives idiots an excuse (they think) to have phones on speaker .

Smart meters for electricity, we are on the old style RTS and have to switch to a smart meter by June, problem is we don't have mobile signal. Scottish power are yet to give me a solution to the problem.

Whilst I think there should be a choice, the push for self service tills doesn't do much get my goat as ride it round a field hitting it on the arse with a banjo!😡
Our local M and S pays someone to awkwardly stand on the door saying hello and goodbye, and another person to walk up and down the queue for the manned tills asking if you'd rather use self service but not to actually operate the till to prevent the queue in the first place. Bring back proper customer service!

I can't agree with you about Bluetooth because I wear hearing aids and Bluetooth lets me get the sound directly into my ear.
However many products that announce they are new and improved were usually much better in their old and unimproved incarnation in my experience

Oh, and whilst I'm ranting, banks! The loss of banks on high streets and people being able to interact with staff is awful. I'm not saying online banking isn't great but there should be choice.

I'm pretty anti tech. It always seems to go wrong. Agree about the Bluetooth in the car, I recently was talking indoors with a consultant, conversation heard in the car,loud speaker!! As for ordering meals with a QR code, I did this recently. A carvery we've been going to for about 10 years. It's under new management and there wasn't much staff visible. I ordered drinks, they arrived,no issues. I ordered a starter with sides,as my meal,DH ordered a meal, I ordered a dessert as well. We had been seated so there was obviously 2 of us. My dessert arrived, said we hadn't actually eaten yet. It was taken away...no apology! Then my starter (meal) arrived,DHs meal didn't,so I sat there patiently, with my meal going cold waiting. Then decide to eat. Eventually saw a waiter going to another table, asked,he said my "sides weren't cooked, because they assumed they were DH sides,he was having fish and chips,my side was a portion of chips! I really didn't want the chips on their own. We didn't tip.i sent a review,no reply! It's a shame because it's quite near home, lovely spot, pretty garden and quiet. We started going there, because we both find "standard " size restaurant meals way too big. Carvery,we self serve exactly what we want.

Which i don't have.

Nor do I want to have to buy another adaptor or splitter. They're more things to forget or lose and be a choking risk for my toddler in addition to the earbuds themselves.

And the flashing light on the earbuds! I have had to buy blackout tape to stick over the lights so they don't flash in my son's (or partner's face).

@BansheeOfTheSouth
@Northumberlandgirl
@maddening

Ah, but it's getting there: Mercedes under 5 years old van (top spec) and you say 'Hey Mercedes Radio 4' and R4 comes on. You can also set the Sat Nav by voice. Ask it to read text message (that's just come in) as well as dial (named person). Must try the heating adjustment next time I'm in that van. Will take a while to filter down to bog standard cars, but my friend's 2012 Shogun you can vocally ask it to dial a number or name of a stored person.

But I agree it's a pain and even worse when it goes wrong - my screen was broken other than in bright sunlight making it impossible to pay for car parking by phone on a rainy day.

Am currently sat at an airport departure gate. Checked in online, got boarding pass on phone, all worked fine. But you can bloody bet I’ve got a printout of every bit of paper I need for my journey because if you lose or break your phone, what do you do?

I parked in a (rare very reasonably priced) carpark a couple of weeks ago. I'd got the app and both cars details were on it. All good. Tried to pay with Google pay - bank said there was a problem (no idea what!) so had to try again. It took 2 more tries and took about 10 minutes! No wonder it always has spaces, most people probably lose the will to live trying to pay!

Since my cooker died, I've been using an airfyer only - it does every kind of cooking, including steam oven. To be honest, it's very annoying to make all the food in a 20cm box and to have to guess how long / how hot to cook it. But it was a quarter the price of a proper cooker, and my electricity consumption plummeted as soon as I got it.

It does randomly freak out, though, beeping like some kind of apocalypse siren when it suddenly decides its pot's gone missing (it hasn't).

@GingerLiberalFeminist, my washer does indeed have cheat codes 🤣 Apparently most (all?) modern machines do. I just found this one because I was looking for the deep clean cycle, which is mentioned in the handbook but nowhere among its many dials, buttons and icons. I found the one to override unauthorised ink cartridges on my printer, too, but then gave in to HP's automated subscription service: the printer informs its overlords I'm running out of ink and they send some.

In a recent crime drama, the shithot car thief knew the cheat codes for electric cars. I bet they really have them! They'd want to build in some way of getting the vehicle started if it was having a 'blue screen' moment.

You know that oft-misquoted line from the 2016 WEF: You will own nothing and be happy? It was part of a thought experiment by Danish MP Ida Auken, in which she envisioned a future where everything is rented, easily upgraded but never truly yours. I have mixed feelings about that - when I was a kid in the 1960s, most people did rent everything so it doesn't feel as weird to me as it does to younger generations.

I'm not sure if things are heading that way again ... but my phone's in the third year of its three-year contract. When it ends, I'll own the device but its battery will be fucked and they're not issuing any more updates for it. So I have, basically, been renting it and will have to start again with a newer phone. I rent my flat. If I were to buy a car, it'd have to be on lease, which is 1960s hire purchase with a new name 🤷‍♀️ The finance companies rake it in from every angle.

It ain’t most of the time.

I hate that so many places are cashless. I like cash, I feel safer with cash and, call me irrational, but ever since I read A Handmaid’s Tale as a child, I have been suspicious of cashless societies.

Help or live chat functions on websites instead of a phoneline.
You get a bot that goes through a list of very basic yes or no questions and then decides it can't help you anyway!