Can we turn it all off?

I get very annoyed at how most every software app (and OSs for that matter) and devices (think mobile phone, watches, etc) are either pushing content to me that I don’t want, constantly asking me if I want to share what I am doing, or assuming that I want help. Keep in mind that over the past 33 years I have worked for two of the largest software companies in the world – so, I am a part of the issue that I am ranting about – kind of ironic!

This morning I was typing some content into the simple Notepad text editor found on the Windows OS platform. I wanted to bold some text, so I highlighted the text and pressed the icon for Bold. Up pops a dialog box offering to show me how bolding and formatting works…please, I have been using Microsoft Word since the early 90s – it was character-based using the DOS operating system. Do I really need to be shown how to bold something?

Likewise, since when do browsers assume I want help with shopping? And no, I don’t want you to store my credit card information. I don’t want your suggestions, I couldn’t care less about telling others what I am doing via “hiding behind a keyboard” – I will tell the people who mean something to me what I am doing when I see them (ok – we do text our kids a lot). My iPhone has a complete section for managing Notifications – every app wants to know if they can notify you and how you want your notifications delivered and if they remain persistent.

As I have watched software applications evolve over my 30+ years in the software industry, I look back to some of our applications my company has created and I think – you, know, back in the year 2000 I really liked our products due to their simplicity. Software companies feel/think that they need to keep adding features so they can continue to sell their products and keep up with competitors. I get that – I do like the evolution of software and as hardware gets more powerful, there is more we can do with software. But this assumption that I want to have stuff thrown in my face all the time needs to stop – or at least have an on/off button.

Here is what I want – in an app or OS I want a button that says: Place in minimal mode. In other words, just provide the most basic services that the app or OS provides. Sure, I can go into the plethora of settings on my iPhone and try to figure out what all those settings mean and then turn selected settings off, but what a pain. Likewise I can go through all the settings on the Edge browser and turn off the shopping widget (really, do people really benefit from that?) and other settings but I would prefer “one button to rule them all” and that button is the “Turn it all off” button!

Finally for my bad analogy, although this OS is getting a bit more modern with respect to user interaction, but I have always enjoyed using Linux. Years ago it was hard to get drivers working for your video cards, could I get the sound card to work, what about wifi. But today, Linux is a well-polished OS. And, for the most part, the apps in the Linux community, like LibreOffice – which is free, are basic and outstanding. I don’t turn much off when I fire up my Linux box (which is installed on a very old gaming desktop system we got some 10+ years ago – and it works great for Linux.

Rant over!