Trend: Software updates are getting out of control

I came home from work the other night after another long day of listening to Jeff Noble talk incessantly about his latest post on uitrends. I am just joking of course; Jeff talks incessantly about anything. Anyway, I came home and booted up my laptop to decompress the day away. I immediately noticed a pop-up to update my Adobe Reader. I wasn’t in the mood to read any pdf’s, didn’t even have any open, so I politely clicked cancel and ignored it for now. What’s this? Another pop-up informing me that a newer version of Java is available? No thanks, I won’t be doing any coding tonight. I really just wanted to listen to some relaxing music. So I fired up my music player of choice, Winamp. Right as my Titanic soundtrack was about to play, don’t judge, I encountered another pop-up, “Winamp Update, Version 5.5.6. Download Now”.

No. Next. How about Windows Media Player? “A newer version of Windows Media Player is available and it is highly recommended…” Cancel and close. That has reboot written all over it.

Ok, so I won’t listen to music. I’ll just fire up IE and check out my fantasy football scores. Check that, better make it Firefox. As Firefox is loading, guess what happens? If you guessed it prompted me to install a new update, then you have been paying attention. Thanks! I click the “Remind me Later” button, because I’ll click anything to make it go away. Time to see how I did in my Yahoo fantasy football league. I type in the url, the browser waits a few seconds, and then loads Yahoo. Or is it Yahoo?

It looks a little bit like the Yahoo I have grown accustomed too over the past five years, except totally different. Looks like they updated the layout with “Smart, advanced features…” After spending many minutes, ok hours, trying to restore Yahoo back to the layout I liked, I gave up. I’ll just close the browser, shutdown my computer, and read a book instead. But before I can shut it down, I am presented with one final offer:

Being in software development, I understand the need for updating software. Security threats, bug fixes, and innovation are all very good reasons to deliver new software. However, as often is the case, less is more. The less time it takes to update and relearn software, the more I can and will use it.

Therefore, I ask you, fellow developers, please limit the number of updates you make. If we all plan just a little bit more, group like features together, and only release updates when necessary, what a wonderful world this would be. In addition, please consider how your users will react to user interface changes. People, in general, don’t like change. So at least give an option to use the version that we have grown to love. Don’t change a thing Yahoo!

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