scrubjayspeaks: photo of a toddler holding an orange tabby cat (baby Joyce)
scrubjayspeaks ([personal profile] scrubjayspeaks) wrote2020-07-21 05:12 pm
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Today's Keyboard Smash

Didn't get much writing done today at work, because my ipad decided to have a fit. It kept crashing gdocs if I tried to add any more words. I eventually figured out that it was a storage space issue and cleared out the cache in an app to free up some space. It didn't TELL me this was the problem, though--I just had to start poking around and guess. Which is, you know, annoying.

In the thing's defense, it is now very old by tablet standards. I got it in 2012. It's now so out of date, it can no longer receive iOS updates--which is to say, it's no longer authorized to receive them, because planned obsolescence is a thing and because fuck you. Because the operating system isn't up to date, a lot of newer apps aren't even compatible with it and can't be downloaded at all, and some I already own can't download newer updates themselves.

Eight years isn't very long, as far as I'm concerned. Desktop computers last me a decade or more. Phones would do the same, if they stopped--stop me if this sounds familiar--cutting them off from the network for being too old. I hate this shit. I take good care of my stuff and I buy good shit in the first place. I expect it to last. I don't even care if it becomes a money sink, eating up parts and labor, as long as I can make it keep working.

I, it will come as no surprise, value the familiar over the cutting edge.

I get a lot of use out of the ipad. I basically live on the thing. Realistically, I need to plan on replacing it with a newer model and redownloading/repurchasing all the apps I have on it. I do not relish this thought AT ALL. The more pressing concern, though?

Jesus fishsticks, have you seen how much a newer ipad costs??? We're talking $1k territory, which still feels completely bonkers and unacceptable to me. And like, yes, older models have dropped in price, but that won't solve the problem of "is no longer on speaking terms with the mothership and so can't learn any new tricks."

Fucking tech companies, yo. Your stuff shouldn't have an expected lifespan of six months. If I can physically keep it functioning for eight years, you can damn well keep pushing me eight years' worth of software updates.
shipperslist: nasa landsat image of a river looking like the letter S (Default)

[personal profile] shipperslist 2020-07-22 06:18 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, yes... I have an iPad 2 somewhere, not sure where. It was already old when I started writing fic in 2014 and couldn’t run Gdocs at all. I used some other program + Bluetooth keyboard that worked for some time before I got super annoyed and bought my laptop in the middle of nano. I made do around 100K words which seems bonkers now that I think of it.

And yeah, the forced obsolence is frustrating.