Top 10 annoying technologies

Top 10 annoying technologies

The point of technological advancement is to make life easier, faster and more efficient. New features are supposed to streamline old tasks, and automate tedious routines. But this is not always the case.

Sometimes a new technology makes things more complex, more frustratingly difficult to use and more time consuming. Be it poor design, an unnecessary extra step, or simply a well-intentioned but poorly-placed bell and whistle, new technologies sometimes do nothing more than irritate the hell out of everyone.

This week, we look at a few of those pet peeves of the technology world. Not surprisingly, this list was difficult to whittle down to 10, so there are a couple of honourable mentions at the end.

As always, we invite users to share their thoughts with us, and add some of their own electronic annoyances.

10. Apple iTunes
Iain Thomson: When iTunes first came out I was really impressed. Here was a media player that did a really good job, from the fading in and out of music to an excellent cataloguing system.

But with later versions it all started to go wrong. The software got more and more clunky and intrusive, then you couldn't download it without getting QuickTime as well.

The sharing feature sounds very good, but do you really want your co-workers to know you've got a few folk music CDs burned onto your drive, or a copy of Charlene's I've Never Been to Me that you downloaded to annoy someone with?

The latest version is even worse. The Genius feature sounds like a good idea, but to use it you've got to give Apple your credit card number. Oh, and it'll suggest a whole host of music you wouldn't be seen dead downloading. Once again, Apple's hype isn't met by reality.

Shaun Nichols: I don't share Iain's sentiments on this one, mainly because I use the Mac version of iTunes which is understandably better integrated with the operating system. Bundling QuickTime and Safari with iTunes for Windows was a pretty bad idea, both in terms of annoying customers and inviting legal action. It is, after all, what got Microsoft into trouble a few years back.

I have my own thoughts on Genius, but the technology could very well prove annoying when you have to scroll through the bad stuff you purchased in varying degrees of coherence.

9. Mac OS 'classic' error messages
Shaun Nichols: No major software release in the past decade was more sorely needed than Mac OS X. The sleek, ultra-stable Unix-based offspring of Steve Jobs's NeXt project replaced a Macintosh operating system that had become badly antiquated as Apple struggled with its direction in the late 1990s.

While there was no shortage of complaints about Mac OS 8 and 9, most notably poor memory management and the lack of true multi-tasking, the thing that really made you grit your teeth was its handling of errors and crashes.

It's bad enough when your clunky, unstable operating system crashes on you. It's even worse when you can't figure out what the heck is wrong. Rather than simply being told 'the hard drive is full' or 'the application ran out of memory', users were presented with 'error type 34' and 'error type 108' messages.

These types of reports were obviously designed to make things easier for developers and troubleshooters in the earlier days of Mac OS, but, as time wore on and the system began to show its age and limitations, they became ever more frequent and frustrating for users.

With OS X now seven years old, the 'classic' errors have long gone the way of PowerPC chips and ResEdit. Application crashes and errors still happen, but they're rarely the sort of system-crippling issue that would lead to a crash or force a restart. Even better, they're explained in plain English.

Iain Thomson: Oh Shaun, you young pup, you have no idea what it was like in the earlier days of Apple. If you think version eight was bad, then the first Apple computers would have made your head explode.

Back then Apple came up with the idea of having a special graphic, dubbed 'Sad Mac', which popped up when your Apple didn't feel like working, along with a string of hexadecimal numbers that disappeared before you could write them down. You can see a similar face when your iPod crashes.

To add insult to injury, the computer would also play the sound of a car crash. You were left wondering how the computer could do all this, but couldn't open the document you'd slaved over for days.

I saw a fair few of these over the years and they always made me want to put my fist through the screen, preferably followed by Steve Jobs's face.

8. Bluetooth
Iain Thomson: Bluetooth was such a good idea, a great way to get the cables off the desktop and free up the clutter.

But the problem was that it was too good an idea, and every manufacturer wanted to make sure they could sell you their Bluetooth devices rather than leaving it to the free market. So they started putting their own code into the software stack, and before you knew it connecting a Bluetooth device was a gamble.

Then there are the headsets. In days of yore if someone was walking down the street yammering away at themselves you'd put them in a waistcoat with long wrap-around sleeves and house them where they couldn't harm themselves. Now the streets are full of people having animated discussions, and it's difficult to spot the oddballs.

Plus they look ridiculous. I tested the first ever Bluetooth headset and it was massive. I felt so embarrassed using it I hid in the testing laboratory. Things have improved but there's still a sizeable proportion of users who look like pseudo-Borg robots on their way to a cut-rate Star Trek convention.

Shaun Nichols: Bluetooth is especially troublesome in San Francisco, which has a surplus of early adopters keen on trying out the latest gear and mentally-ill people who hear voices. These days, it's becoming harder and harder to tell the two apart.

I'm reminded of an old George Carlin routine about wireless headsets. We can't go into much detail here, as it is the late great George Carlin after all. Needless to say, he had some suggestions for what people should do with their free hands.

7. Terms & Conditions
Iain Thomson: The devil may have the best tunes, but I'm willing to bet he's got a fairly well stocked legal department as well, turning out endlessly long T&Cs.

You've all seen these things: long lists of what you can and cannot do with an application, what the company can do to you in return if you break them and probably a legal indemnity in case you get electrocuted just by pressing the power button. You may have seen them, but have you ever read one?

Basically the T&Cs are there to cover the backside of whoever's selling you the product in question. They are long-winded, frequently incomprehensible and usually a complete waste of time.

A case in point. Bill Gates was giving an address at a US university and, after he had finished, a student brought up a copy of his Windows 95 CD and asked Big Bill to sign it. Gates refused, saying that it was his CD and not the student's, and then recommended that the bewildered fan read the T&Cs that came with it. It turns out he was right: by some convoluted logic the student didn't own the CD, just the software it contained.

As we've recently seen in the Lori Drew case the courts are going to have a field day when it comes to enforcing these lines of gibberish. It's illegal to set up a Facebook or MySpace page under a pseudonym; try enforcing that and there's going to be a lot of teenagers working on chain gangs.

Shaun Nichols: Almost nobody ever reads T&Cs. As such, they are often used by companies to lock people into things they'd otherwise never want to do.

Companies such as Zango are notorious for loading their T&Cs with consent for extra software installations, while other unsavoury groups will use the T&C fine print as permission to solicit user information. In some cases, T&Cs are even more than an annoyance: they can be a danger.

6. iPhone spelling correction
Shaun Nichols: I must say that the iPhone is a really, really cool device. Most of the features are completely intuitive, and the rest are learned within a matter of minutes.

There is, however, one feature that at times makes me nostalgic for my old clamshell Motorola. The iPhone's auto-correct feature is terrible.

I know it's well intentioned, and with any messaging system, particularly one that uses a touch-screen keyboard, spelling correction is essential. The problem is that the iPhone uses the space bar to accept it. In other words, what you type gets auto-corrected when you move on to the next word, whether you wanted to change it or not.

Type the word 'cook' only to have it changed to 'cookies' when you're done, and you're not only left with an embarrassing misprint, but that Sunday dinner you're making for your diabetic grandfather just took a turn for the worse.

Auto correction is a great technology, but you'd think that Apple could at least find a better way to implement it than the space bar.

Iain Thomson: You have to say this was a bit of a gaffe on Apple's part. Sadly this isn't a problem limited to the iPhone, as they've installed it on the iPod Touch as well.

You'd think that, since the device is all about touching, you should be able to tap the suggested word to use it, but no, that deletes it instead. Also, the words suggested aren't even that close. Try writing 'cream' and it suggests 'fee' instead. I think they need a dictionary in Cupertino.

5. Windows Vista
Iain Thomson: Vista is annoying for a number of reasons. Firstly it got my goat because it took so long. Bill Gates was originally talking about it coming out in 2004 but the deadline kept retreating faster than the Elephant Man's blind date.

Then there was the software itself. At first Vista was billed as a ground up rewrite of Windows with security built in from scratch. As the deadlines whistled past, more and more was cut out of the operating system until we were left with a tinkered version of XP with a flashy, and resource-hungry, user interface.

As the deadline for launch was finally set for January 2007, hardware manufacturers kicked up a stink, pointing out that this would leave them with stock on the shelves as no-one would buy during the important Christmas season.

So Microsoft came up with the Vista Capable sticker for hardware that could apparently run the new operating system. In fact, some machines barely could and Microsoft is now in the courts trying to sort that little mess out.

When it finally did come out, and in spite of the long delays, device drivers weren't ready. So you had a spiffy new operating system that refused to recognise your add-ons. It also had the annoying habit of producing more pop-up windows saying 'Are you sure?' than any previous operating system. So, all-in-all, quite annoying.

Shaun Nichols: Perhaps Vista gets a bit of a bad rap. These days, if you buy a decent new system with Vista pre-installed, it runs just fine. Unfortunately, the software had built up such a huge reservoir of bad sentiment that people were afraid to use it just based on reputation.

This led to yet another Vista annoyance: the TV ads. That Microsoft now admits the only way people will use Vista is if they are tricked into it, is a little sad and kind of irritating, considering all the hype and promises that surrounded its release.

4. Microsoft Office Assistant
Shaun Nichols: Many people don't like someone looking over their shoulder while they work, while others get irritated when backseat drivers tell them what to do. The Office Assistant combined both irritating traits with a dose of annoying cartoon characters thrown in.

Just the idea of a talking paper clip that watches what you do and tries to correct or reformat your work is more than a bit irritating and even slightly creepy. In practice, it's all those things and more.

'Clippy' has taken his place among the upper-echelons of a very formidable pack of irritating Microsoft products. Thankfully, he was removed from the latest version of Office.

Iain Thomson: I attended the launch of Office XP in Seattle and remember well the moment when the opening speaker was finishing his presentation and said: "Oh, and we're turning off the Office Assistant as a default." The ensuing whoops and cheers were unmatched at any point in the day, much to Microsoft's annoyance.

On the face of it Clippy sounded like quite a good idea. Help is nearly always useful and I'm sure the originator, who has never dared reveal his or her identity, was inspired by the best of motives. Science fiction is littered with computer helpers to humans, so why not put one in Office?

They should have known better, to be honest, for Clippy was basically Microsoft Bob all over again. Bob, designed by the current Mrs Gates, is considered by many to be the company's Edsel.

Clippy had the annoying habit of popping up when you least wanted him, getting it wrong most of the time, and has rightly been extensively parodied. I'd have ranked him higher than this.

3. Are you sure?
Iain Thomson: In the good old days of DOS computing, when men were men and a command line was the only control you needed, erasing data was simple. You told the computer to erase something and it did so. If you made a mistake you learned the hard way not to do it again.

But all that changed with the introduction of the graphical user interface (GUI). Now, if you try to do almost anything, the computer starts second-guessing you. Are you sure you want to delete that file? Well let's see, I highlighted it and pressed the delete key. That's a pretty clear indication that I wanted the thing off my computer.

As operating systems have moved on there are more and more of these annoying little prompts. Are you sure you want to close a multiple tabbed browser window? Do you want to save your password? Do you want to save that document before closing it? It's like the computer has suddenly morphed into the grandparent you love to hate.

People have got to learn to take responsibility for their own lives and this goes double with computers. Accidentally deleted your presentation? Tough. You're a moron and the only way you're going to learn is by experience.

Shaun Nichols: Part of expanding the appeal of computers is simplifying and adding protections for normal users. Often these extra precautions will become a hindrance to more advanced users who simply want to get things done.

An option to disable the 'are you sure?' dialogues would have been a very welcome addition. These days, extensive backups and widespread use of the 'undo' command provide ample insurance for most tasks. Time to retire the 'are you sure?' precaution once and for all.

2. Voice recognition systems
Shaun Nichols: What starts with 'account' and ends with 'go **** yourself'? That's right, a call to your bank's automated call system. Voice recognition was designed to be a replacement to the old 'press one for ...' system which was highly irritating in its own right.

The problem was that most systems don't really account for things like accents or different pronunciations, meaning that, unless you talk like the guy from movie phone, you're in trouble. If you're calling a system in a foreign country it becomes almost comedic. (Listening to my former Dutch boss check airline reservations was a favourite pastime.)

Only now are prototype voice recognition systems that account for these things being developed, meaning we should have at least a few more years of having to repeat the word 'operator' over and over again.

Iain Thomson: When the first voice recognition systems for the PC came out I was sold instantly. It's what I'd always wanted. No more aching fingertips from hammering a keyboard and you'd be able to tell the computer what to do just like in the movies.

Sadly the promise wasn't fulfilled. The early software slowed your machine to a crawl, later systems weren't much better and the software takes ages to get used to your voice. It also throws a strop and refuses to work if you get a cold. When I got a press release from Lernout & Hauspie claiming that its system could be trained in a few minutes, I put straight in the circular filing cabinet.

Things may have improved slightly, but basic problems still remain. The software is incredibly poor at recognising names, and useless with companies. In the end you spend so much time editing documents, you might just as well have typed it in the first place.

1. Pop-up ads
Shaun Nichols: Sometime in the roaring 1990s, an enterprising advertising mind thought it would be a good idea to use pop-up browser windows to display advertisements. I like to think that there is a special spot reserved in Hell for that person, right next to the composer of the Meow Mix jingle and the cast of Friends.

The pop-up add has become perhaps the most annoying single thing on the internet. Even worse, they can actually cause browser crashes and result in identity theft and malware installations.

The business of stopping pop-ups has become quite serious, as pretty much every recent browser release has installed some sort of pop-up blocking feature. That doesn't stop advertisers from continuing to use them, however.

Iain Thomson: Occasionally, in the depths of the night when sleep won't come and the house is quiet, I have a dark fantasy about getting the inventors of spam, pop-ups and viruses together in a room. As this is a family web site I won't continue but, suffice to say, a sandblaster, a vat of industrial strength rubbing alcohol and a lorry-load of enraged porcupines are involved.

Pop-ups were an easy winner when we were drawing up the list. They have to be the most annoying form of advertising known to man, worse even than Mormons knocking on the door at 8am on a Sunday morning. If I see a pop-up I make a mental note never to buy that company's products, which is why I have yet to get a Netflix account.

But the advertising industry loves them. After all, the name of the game in advertising is getting in your face and, when it comes to reaching internet users, that's exactly what they do. Block them, boycott them, do whatever you can to destroy this scourge of internet use.

Honourable Mention - SMS
Iain Thomson: Of all the data services available on a phone, SMS is still the most popular, and one of the most annoying.

Why is it annoying? Because it's unstoppable. The minute you turn on your phone the message pops up. If you're trying to avoid someone there's no recourse, short of saying you've lost your phone.

It has also led to SMS speak, a bastardised polyglot of emoticons and phonetic language that is more trouble than it's worth. I showed my mother how to SMS and have regretted it ever since. In order to be 'down with the kids' she's invented her own form of text speak. If I had a penny for every time I've got a message and had to call my sister to ask what on earth Mum was saying, I could afford that Caribbean island with the nuclear rocket launch pad I've always wanted.

Now, the phone companies didn't invent SMS, it was an engineering function left on phones that people learned to use without prompting. So to make up for it, the phone operators invented MMS. Now you get annoying messages with tacky photos attached. It's double the annoyance, and I know of at least one couple who have broken up thanks to the sending of an ill-advised picture.

Shaun Nichols: SMS gets my nod simply for what it has done to the English language. It seems that these days, pretty much anyone under the age of 23 is incapable of actually typing out such basic things as 'you', 'are' and 'thank you'. And it's not just in SMS conversation; text speak has infiltrated email, blog postings and even formal papers.

Honorable Mention - The emoticon
Shaun Nichols: Emoticons didn't quite make our list because they're not really a technological advance so much as a cultural plague.

The idea started out well enough; a practical way to convey tones that did not translate to text communications, such as sarcasm or teasing. Unfortunately, it turned into an easy way to identify annoying people.

Iain Thomson: OK, hand on my heart I have to say I use the odd smiley face once in a blue moon. Because email is slightly tricky when it comes to sarcasm the occasional smiley face can be the difference between a good chuckle and causing mortal offence.

That said they are to be used sparingly. If you get an email loaded with the things you know you're either dealing with someone who's just learned about them, or an individual who, back in the days of writing, would dot their 'i's with little hearts.