I’m curious. How do normal people – non geeks – survive in this gadget filled world? It’s a fair question as nearly every gadget or piece of technology I have used in the last few years required days of Google’n and trial/error usage before the damn thing would finally work. Maybe I’m different than most and actually expect gadgets to work properly.
Thinking back, the only semi-advance gadget that hasn’t given me grief recently was an Archos 605 media player. It just worked. Files transfer onto the player by dragging and dropping via USB mass storage support. Then much to my surprise at the time, all the files I transfered onto the unit played back fine at the original resolution. There wasn’t any need to re-encode the files with some random program to a random resolution or format; it just worked and made me smile.
Now I’m playing with this Moxi HD DVR and cannot be more upset with it. I spent most of yesterday’s evening trying to get the network support up and running. The bundled software, PlayOn, doesn’t run on OS X or Windows Home Server so I dove into Google looking for another DLNA media streamer.
Before I finally gave up and called tech support, I tried a half a dozen pieces of software with no luck: Tveristy, TwonkeyMedia Manager, TwonkeyMedia Server, Nero MediaHome 4, NeoDigits NeoLink, PS3 Media Server, and the media streamer built into Windows Home Server. No luck. Eventually the tech support guy said streaming AVI’s can’t be done, but for some reason, that’s not good enough for me.
You see, the streaming software attempts to transcode the AVI files into WMV or MPEG-4 streams, which the Moxi supports. So I spent most of this morning trying again and also ensuring my post last night wasn’t incorrect. But here I am, defeated again. Streaming AVI or MKV files cannot be done on the Moxi HD DVR.
But it’s not just the Moxi HD DVR either. It’s everything for my iPod to a TiVo to Sprint Aircards to Logitech Harmony Remotes. Nothing seems to work out of the box properly anymore. I truly believe that every new gadget ships in a beta form and takes months of updates to finally reach a point for general consumption; the BlackBerry Storm comes to mind. It leaves me thankfully that I at least know how to use Google and don’t have to spend more money on a Geek Squad home visit than the gadget costs.
I hate gadgets. They suck. Now back to writing about gadgets.
Update: Watch this video. Our modern life is broken and why. via BB
I love gadgets. You fail.
Personally, I hate to do anything that involves video. It’s always an exercise in frustration.
I don’t mean this to sound elitist, but I think we gadget geeks expect more from our gadgets than the “average” user. Take my iPhone. I get really frustrated when it does this or doesn’t do that exactly the way I would like that to be done. My mom and dad just got iPhones, and they think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. They like to make calls on it, it gets their Gmail, and they can send text messages. They can even browse the web on it! And it looks pretty damned good!
I think it’s really just about calibrating expectations. We get upset that the iPhone doesn’t support flash websites. My parents can’t tell the difference between a flash and non-flash website. They just know that some websites don’t work on the iPhone. Oh well, they’ll check it out from their computer when they get home if they remember. It’s not that they aren’t smart enough to handle the concept. They just don’t care.
So the Moxi HDR doesn’t handle MKV. We know what that is. That’s the format that a lot of the TV shows we download come in. My fiancee isn’t even aware of what a “codec” is. She has videos with names (even the file format is transparent since the extensions are hidden) and they work when she hits play. Sometimes they don’t, and then she assumes it’s corrupt or something and she deletes it. But that doesn’t happen very much since everything she downloads comes from iTunes, so “it just works”. Anything she can’t find on iTunes, she asks me to obtain it, and knows that I will do my thing, find the video, and when it gets to her, it will be a file with a name that will work when she hits play in iTunes. The rest of it is behind the scenes. Not because she’s not smart enough to handle it, she just doesn’t care.
If they cared, they’d be gadget geeks like us, and they’d get frustrated like us. But they aren’t. So they don’t. They have other things that they are passionate about or interested in that frustrates them, and we couldn’t possibly care less about.
http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2009/02/16/get-hulu-netflix-youtube-via-windows-home-server-with-playon-media-server/
How to get PlayOn on Windows Home Server. I believe the original directions were on PlayOns site.
WHAT!!! SOMETHING DID NOT WORK ON A MAC!!!
LIAR!!!
“Maybe I different than most and actually expect gadgets to work properly.”
Maybe I differ from most and actually expect gadgets to work properly.
Spelling and grammar check broke on the ol’ Apple?
“Thinking backing” you are right.
Just as there are no excuses for not considering usability and accessibility with website development there are none with any other development.
I recently bought my wife a Pure iDock digital radio and much to my delight, when I plugged it in, it switched itself on, set it’s own time, tuned itself in and started to play.
I am a gadget fiend but I consider myself a ‘power user’. The core functionality of a piece of kit should work effortlessly out of the box. If it doesn’t that counts as a gadget fail rather than a user fail.
My lovely iPod could do no wrong until I bought a new laptop and then spent hours faffing about just to move my music. Gadget fail not user fail!
I don’t know if it was the iPod’s fault that your media couldn’t be moved from computer to computer. Both Windows and Macs offer ways to move your data and apps to a new computer.
Try mediatomb – its a linux thingo but you could probably compile it on mac os x with a bit of focus.
It supports palming off of transcoding duties to external programs, meaning you can use programs like ffmpeg/mencoder/ whatever which transcode oh so well.
Also, I agree with swissfreak – I have a tendency to always try all the bleeding edge options and am frequently disappointed when it doesn’t work.
gadget geeks either have a lower tolerance for crap, or higher expectations than non gadget geeks
This website seems to agree with you: http://www.gadgetsthatsuck.com
I completely agree, they are not normal suckers, they are blood suckers, stilling from innocent people introducing crap technology even do not work. I am so upset I paid nearly $160 for my tuner only work SBS, and also it slow.
Gadgets don’t suck, the companies that make them might though. The reason geeks find fault with the iPhone and geek’s parents don’t is that even when the iPhone doesn’t work right it’s still a more rewarding user experience, compared to say, a regular cell phone with lots of tiny buttons. But many companies don’t even get that right, or tech support, or the manual. Like Seth says at the start of the video, companies COULD create a meaningful customer relationship but instead focus on moving more product. Until tech CEOs start focusing on long-term gadget usage instead of one-time sales, gadgets will remain somewhat sucky to use.
Gadgets really do take over most of our worlds. There are so many complicating tools out there now that I don’t even take the time to try to use it. A gadget could have the best review, but if it is not easy to work with, I have been lately staying away.