Rant: Old client software is SO annoying!
I’m old. I know it and I try to make sure I don’t annoy everybody by being old. But some software isn’t as well mannered. This morning I…
I’m old. I know it and I try to make sure I don’t annoy everybody by being old. But some software isn’t as well mannered. This morning I recorded the process for installing the latest Adobe Flash Player software (Version 17.0.0.134, in case you are wondering). Six clicks to install an update to a piece of system software that I should never actually see.
One click to download installer (why not Mac app store?)
2. Wait
3. Two clicks to open .dmg
4. One click to dismiss the warning about Internet software
5. Enter password
6. Wait for download
7. Close Safari
8. Click retry
9. Actually close Safari
10. Click retry
11. Wait for install to finish
12. Click Finish
Once it is finished, Safari re-opmns and presents both the page that started the process and a new page that wants to sell me something you don’t want to buy, particularly when you are pissed at the company for making you go through that unnecessary and stupid installation process for fat and old software that has been outdated by modern internet-first software. Oh, wait, I haven’t started ranting yet!
13. Remove disk image from desktop
This last step is one that you do later, when you look at your computer desktop and realize that Adobe left a present: the client installer for a piece of software that should properly, in this day and age, be integrated with the system. That installer can only be removed, since it has no functionality. Oh, I guess no one at Adobe actually thought to clean up after themselves. Sort of like the dog that poops in your lawn without covering it over.
But then I realize that I am going to have to do the same damn thing over again at my office computer and again on my traveling computer. And then I realize that, if Adobe updated, Oracle will likely make me go through a similar process to update Java on all three of my computers. And Microsoft is going to make me do the same thing for Outlook on all three of my computers.
Recognize the pattern? Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle are all old, creaky software companies who have not gone back to redesign their software for today’s computing. At least on the Macintosh, Apple offers an app store that will collect and organize updates and make sure they get installed with the least disruption to the user. But these three companies ALL insist on using THEIR installer, each of which is slightly different from some annoying and completely irrelevant reason.
You can say that you can stop using these, but you have to get everyone else to agree to stop using them for their systems. Sure there is a lot of internet-first (much less mobile-first) software available that does similar or the same things. But it just really pisses me off that these really rich, really valuable companies with lots of smart designers and programmers can’t take the time and the money to go back and make their stuff work right.