Upgrades Can Be A Nightmare.

I had a bad dream last night but as with most dreams, there’s probably something valuable in it. I’m sure Freud would agree.

I’m decades out of college so it wasn’t one of those I showed up for the exam and forgot to study dreams. Nor was I somewhere in public when I discovered that I was naked. No, this dream occurred (in real life) two days before the big Apple Watch / iPhone / iOS announcement so it went like this:

I was at some sort of public facility (lots of people around) when I first looked at a wedding invitation I was carrying with me. Shockingly, the specified time and date of the event was at the exact present date and time. Further, it indicated that people would not be admitted more than one hour late. Drive time from my location was just under 30 minutes but I didn’t have my car. The clock was ticking (hence, the badness of this dream).

dream

So I fired up my iPad. The screen appeared with dazzling colors and icons but they were entirely unfamiliar. Apparently, this was Apple’s newest operating system release. I couldn’t find the Uber App anywhere. So I tried to search in the standard way that you search any Apple iOS device — by swiping from the center of the screen. That didn’t work because the search interface had changed. I went back to manual searching (very slow) and finally found Uber. But its designed had changed too and I couldn’t figure out quickly (tick, tick, tick …) how to use it. So I manually searched for the Lyft app (tick, tick, tick …) but had the same problem trying to use it.

In the dream, I was burning through my time and in danger of missing an important event. This morning (in real life) I don’t remember whether I made it to the wedding or not, but that wasn’t the point, was it? This was a technology dream (nightmare) and it highlights a few potential problems and associated best practices:

• Turn off your software/app auto-update option. A redesign of the operating system or of app interfaces can be jarring. Upgrade when you have the time to experiment and explore.
• Don’t be the first one to upgrade. Often the first iteration contains serious bugs or design flaws. Let others iron these out for you. But don’t wait too long to upgrade as you’ll miss out on exciting new features, and more importantly, frequent security fixes.
• Accept that fear of technology (and more broadly, change) is natural. I’m an engineer / technology geek / early adopter. I love technology. But if I can have a dream like this, it shows that there’s a subconscious fear of technology buried somewhere in my brain. If I’ve got it, you’ve likely got it at some level too. Resolve to embrace a “no fear” attitude.
• Don’t wait until the last minute to plan transportation to a wedding.

If you’re an Apple fan, let me know what you think about the latest version of the Apple Watch, iPhone, or iOS. I hope it’s a dream rather than a nightmare for you.