Through her The Monday Peeve prompt, Paula Light invites us to vent on Mondays, to let off some stream, to get something off our chests. I don’t alway have something to peeve about on Mondays, but today I do. And it’s about automatic updates to electronic devices. This is when the developer of the program or the app installs the latest update to our devices whether we want it or not. In this particular case, my peeve is with Apple and its latest auto update to the Apple Watch.
I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since 2015, when my wife bought me one for my birthday. That was the original version of the Apple Watch, or what they now call Series 1. A few months ago my five year old Apple Watch bought the farm, so I bought a new Series 5 Apple Watch.
FYI, Apple just announced a few weeks ago the Series 6 Apple Watch. At around the same time as the new series was announced, Apple launched WatchOS 7, and, unbeknownst to me, I woke up one morning with a message on my iPhone telling me that the latest update to the WatchOS had been automatically installed overnight on my Apple Watch.
Okay, no biggie, I thought. I don’t use half the features of the Apple Watch, so I figured everything would be as it was before. But I was wrong.
My watch face is what the Apple Watch app calls “Simple.” It’s basically an analog watch face, but it displayed the current temperature, the day/date, the remaining battery life, and a small graphic showing activity (like steps and exercise).
But when I woke up that morning and looked at my watch, it didn’t display the day/date in the upper right corner as it had up until that morning. Here’s my previous watch face.
Notice the day/date in the upper right. But when I woke up after the overnight automatic update, here’s what I saw:
Do you see what’s missing?
I contacted Apple support and, while texting with tech support, I wrote, “Was the day/date indicator for the watch face deliberately removed in this update? Most watches, both analog and digital, can display day/date on the watch face.”
Here’s the response I got:
In other words, just like the WordPress happiness engineer said when I complained about not being able to use the classic editor anymore, the Apple tech support rep essentially said about my watch face no longer displaying the day/date, “Too bad, so sad.”
Everybody and everything sucks these days.
This, That, and the Other 
Omg
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Some updates might be good/necessary, but I feel like a lot of the time they’re unwarranted aesthetic changes to justify someone’s paycheck, or straight-up sabotage in order to goad people into purchasing the latest product instead of the now messed-up older device.
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*instead of continuing to use their now messed-up older device.
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I think you may be right…like planned obsolescence.
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The thing is: it’s endemic; it’s a pervasive perversion that’s been going on for at least a century (probably far longer). See my post ‘Planned obsolescence: conspiracy fact, not conspiracy theory‘.
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This.
Whenever unethical vendors employ such nefarious tricks, I think the only recourse is to boycott their products entirely. That’s what I do, anyway.
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Ugh annoying!
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I know!
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I will never understand why we, the consumers, aren’t given a choice. GRRRR
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Nice peeve.
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Thanks, Jim. Do you happen to know today’s day/date? 😂
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I stopped wearing a watch once I got a cell phone.
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Isn’t there an option not to AUTOMATICALLY update? I have three Macs and none of them automatically update because I didn’t choose it in my preferences. They ask me if I want to install the updates and I always just say contact me tomorrow..to infinity.
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That is not true of the newer macs. They update whether you want them to or not. I think the goal is to make us willing to accept almost anything and become docile sheep.
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https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207251
Go here to learn how to turn off automatic updates–even in a 2020 Mac.
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Hmm. There may be. I’ll have to check my settings.
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Look up at my reply to Marilyn. I give a link that tells how to turn off automatic updates.
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Thanks, Judy.
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Did it work for you?
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Yes, I found the toggle for my Apple Watch and turned it off.
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How annoying! 🤬 As I often complain these days, “Nothing’s simple any more.” 😰
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True.
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I remember thinking that finally, they were going to make those changes to the interface that would make writing easier, not harder. That would make it more like word processing and less like book design. I’m not a book designer — not any more. I’m so angry and frustrated with stupid changes to formats. Cameras. I absolutely REFUSE to update the firmware because the format is already overloaded with garbage.
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My Apple Watch face has date in it.
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Did you update to WatchOS 7 yet? What watch face do you use?
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I did. I use utility. But lots others are showing date and day too. Like California!
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I just checked both Utility and California, and neither offers the day/date option as a “complication” for my watch. Grr.
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That’s bad! I wonder why it’s showing on mine?
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I have no clue. Are you sure you’ve got the latest WatchOS 7 on your watch? The day/date was an option on my Apple Watch before that update was installed. But not anymore…at least not on my watch.
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I do have that update. I have series 5 watch. Maybe you have the 6 series? Or maybe it’s an area thing?
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Mine is also a series 5. I don’t get it.
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I don’t either.
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lol – I was just thinking to myself…does anyone have any idea what day it is anymore?
2020 felt so much like Groundhog Day…maybe they don’t want us to know the date any longer.
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Ha! Maybe that’s why they dumped the day/date. It just doesn’t matter anymore.
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Does anybody really know what time it is?
Maybe someone in Chicago?
Prescient.
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Oh, that sucks!
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The trouble is, there is no quality control in software. I appear to be having similar problems with my heating system at the moment, of all things.
It’s really only a matter of time before a software glitch starts bringing down airplaces and killing people. Oh, wait…
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I was just talking with someone, tonight, who is a computer specialist from way back. He used to work in customer service (in one iteration of what he’s done), but is a manager in a different capacity (still with computers) now. The current customer service people can’t seem to get it together. I said there is so much of a demand for computers that there aren’t enough people who know what the heck they’re doing about them, but have the jobs.
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I heard an estimate that the number of programmers doubles roughly every five years. Therefore, pretty much by definition, half of the programmers out there have less than five years experience.
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I think, too, that some of them graduate with degrees and don’t, even then, really get how it works. I watched an interview of a guy like that, a few days ago, who is now a comedian instead. He said he had double majored, the other focus being philosophy.
Yet, a degree isn’t always necessary. I have one son with college education (both a double major plus — including psychology — at the bachelor level and then a masters) involving computer and data science and math, and he’s clearly good at it and happy doing it. And I have another who didn’t major in computers at all (but does have a degree and did use computers and other components), and he’s completely in charge of IT in an international company while also doing the work of other people in varied areas because so many people are slackers these days. Then, my youngest son is currently majoring in a computer area. I have yet to see how that turns out. I’m kinda hoping he will get involved in cyber security, but who knows.
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Oh. I almost forgot. A fourth son is not interested in computers even a little* bit… except to use one laptop for current work[+] and one for the fact he’s going back to school for a masters (still not in computer anything), as well as to play video games on x-box (a type of computer) [with a brother who lives in New Zealand]. Oddly, people tell him he’s really good at tasks that didn’t exist before computers. So, he’s a go-to in any work environment for using Excel and other applications (of which he makes quick work and moves on).
Anyway, he was an intern (a paid one) at a big company right after he finished his bachelor degree (economics). He liked that position (was hanging out with female administrators). Then he was hired in a different department as a full-time employee. When he got there, they didn’t say what they had hired him to do. So, he was unhappy. (But he did instruct his boss on how to do a computer aspect of her job that had taken an inordinate amount of time for years with her career path.)
Then they wanted to train him, on the job, to do this by-the -seat-of-your-pants computer program patching that a group of “engineers” was doing. Even he could see they didn’t properly program but just slap-dash pushed things through every day. At that point, he quit to save himself from depression. {This is a company that is absolutely known for their data handling! It’s all quite scary and disconcerting if we think about it.}
* He is computer literate.
[+ works for a tax service now]
The son who heads IT [and has saved his company tons of money on their technology and services while improving them] is planning to apply some free time to certificates while his wife works on a masters that her employer will pay for her to obtain since they promoted her. (No computer focus for her, either. She’s in HR, but previously educated as a special-ed teacher.) As you probably know, certificates don’t have a driving schedule like semesters in college. So, he will be able to give his wife solid moral support at the same time.
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+ He who was a tax service guy no longer works for the tax service place. He has started working as the newest in a set of accountants for a large grocery conglomerate. He’s at it again, by the way, clueing people in on what computers can do.
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I’ve always been a die hard “PC” woman. Give me IBM (in the day, now it’s any of a number of different manufacturers) and Windows Version whatever. I HAD to learn “Mac” in graphic design school, because Mac is apparently the choice of graphic designers everywhere. I learned to use both platforms, but I reverted to “PC” mode the second I was out of school. Macs are wicked expensive (all Apple products are IMHO) and PCs (at the time) were cheap. One thing that has always irked me about either of the ‘giants’ is their insistence on those FUBAR updates…endlessly. I finally got so annoyed at Microsoft that I found the ‘control’ panel (so to speak) and set the option to “Ask before installing updates” option. I’d get a little notification (sometimes several times a day) asking for permission, which I routinely denied. If it ain’t broke.. finally last year they stopped sending notifications, because apparently I’ve become a bona fide dinosaur and my Windows 7 is an archaic thing, not worth bothering about.
IF I were in your shoes, I’d go to the Apple Store (if those are still open) and demand that someone (no doubt no older than 13) fix your watch. Then I’d ask the teenager to show me how the ‘controls’ for that kinda upgrade crap work. That whole stealth, ‘thief in the night’ type of programming smacks of Big Brother and 1984 to ME. Sorry about the spate of comment, but it was necessary.
Your peeve is also mine (sans the whole Apple thing)..
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I have an Apple iPhone and Watch, but when it comes to laptops, I prefer Windows machines to Macs. Since I moved earlier this year, I don’t know where the nearest Apple Store is, but maybe I’ll Google it and head over to see if they can restore the prior WatchOS on my phone.
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… were you successful?
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All the watches I have ever owned had the date on them, it would bug me if it didn’t. Hope you can find a little bit better help on your watch.
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It took about 8 months, but they finally came up with an update to the Apple Watch OS that restored the day/date to the watch face.
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