There are people going quietly nuts, right now.
I am not among their number.
I used to get kind of giddy whenever new software was released, but I’m kind of over it, by now. I remember Bill Gates saying his goal for the year was to have Macintosh Word v3.02 roll out with no bugs, a goal I remember he missed that year. As a writer, I had a suite of word processing software and quickly came to appreciate this feature of WriteNow v2.2, that feature of MacWrite Pro v5, another gimmick within Nisus and something else going on in Microsoft Word.
But realistically, when we get to the point where you can watch TV on your spreadsheet, I’m pretty sure you don’t really need a new spreadsheet, any more. I was there when a Mac word processing document could have one ruler for formatting the entire document. Is it a letter? You get one ruler. Is it a book report? You get one ruler, too. Is it a Doctoral Thesis? Sorry, but you get only a single ruler as well. Gradually, through version incremental and point-releases, feature upon feature was added. And you know what?
Most people seem to only use about two dozen.
So I think our time and our money would be better spent in learning the software we already have, rather than in loading up new programs we will have to wrestle with for days or weeks or months as we learn those two dozen features we actually use.
The same goes for some hardware, now. I cannot tell you what Apple Watch I have. I have some stuff I put on a couple of years ago and used once or twice. But I’m not operating it at anywhere near capacity. There are entire books of things my Apple Watch can do that I have no idea of. I’m much better off learning a few of those, making more of an effort with the various downloads I’ve installed and getting in the habit of keeping it charged and keeping it on my wrist—rather than getting the latest gee-whiz version that was announced yesterday.
The same goes with my iPhone. I believe (but would not bet serious money) it to be an iPhone 8+ Pro or something kind of like that. And I know that I’m using it to about 25% of it’s ability on a good day. Most days I use it to make calls, send texts and (damnit!) to see what day and time it is.
What about you? Do you have to have the latest-and-greatest? Or do you soldier on with old, paid-up technology because it’s familiar and paid up?
