My previous phone was getting long in the tooth, and there was no way to get call recording to work on it, so I bit the bullet the second I saw that Nothing 2A was supported call recording out of the box. It’s bigger than I’d like, but I just have to live with the fact that everyone is OK with carrying tablets around for now.
And because I have a whole bunch of applications and more than one email, I have now spent half a day logging in to different services, trying to get 2FA to work and requesting new passwords, migrating chats and files, cursing all the while. So many parking apps – I hate you with a burning passion!
I thought that Bank ID (Swedish national 2FA application) would be a hassle to renew, but it was as straightforward as you’d please. It’s the FAANG apps that are giving me a headache – there’s no standard way of migrating the stuff, each app has come up with it’s own authentication scheme requiring some particular set of hoops to be jumped. Some apps were so difficult to get to work that I’ve uninstalled them rather than deal with the hassle. It’s a culling criteria as good as any, I guess.
Even though some people love the Nothing 2.5 launcher, it looks like a half-finished Winamp skin so I installed Nova despite how slow it can be at times. I look forward to when I can forego a cellphone alltogether and manage all my digital interactions with a ring or something less attention-requiring, but until then I’ll go for a utalitarian approach – my phone is not my personality.
I’m occasionally surprised how utter shit the usability of both mobiles and computers still is though! I’m sure part of it is just nostalgia and selective memory on my part, but I honestly miss the days of MacOS 9 and Nokia phones. Todays UI consistency is poor, the information architecture is muddled, and some design choices are just baffling. The CoverOverflow animation on Android is nauseating and can’t be turned off? The menu for editing apps is ordered differently from one app to another (see screenshot)? Why are app names truncated?
Of course, as a budding UX:er I ought to be encouraged: Look how much there’s left to do! But on the other hand, I’m sure there are designers smarter than I – whole scores of them in fact! – who have tried to wrestle these things under control and failed. The digital world stands testament to their failed ambitions, cobbled together from tear-stained post-its and angry PM comments in a shared Figjam board.