The Lifestyler: Think before you do that Software upgrade!

We all love a good software update. The anticipation of more features, faster stronger, fix the stuff that is wrong …. You get the idea and I know you are all addicts of the promise of better tech.

However, stop – think – act!

As I was thinking about this week’s article I had a conversation with a guy who was in a world of pain. He had just upgraded his fruit notebook and everything went wrong including losing his data! I think back to my own experiences and I must admit software upgrades have got a lot better and in many cases, they are now automatic.

Indeed my smart TV recently upgraded the Netflix App and on the surface, it had some neat new features like being able to launch into the last program you watched rather than hitting the browse screen first. However after hitting pause in a program more than once, pause stopped working. They fixed it a few days later by automatically backdating the software all without me doing anything.

So what is the LifeStyler’s advice? Try not to be first! Unless you are into it don’t be a beta tester. Have a little patience. In today’s world, you do not have to wait very long maybe a week and then go for it. Assuming you do have a choice just resist to accept that software update on the first day it is offered to you. Let others iron out all the unexpected bugs that the vendor’s testers missed.

Oh, and if you need a reminder to think back to when the printer no longer worked or your Bluetooth headphones will no longer connect and all that frustration you went through to getting it to work again just because you pressed update. If you don’t believe me take a leaf out of the corporate computing world, like the guys they keep track of how much money you have in your bank account. Do they upgrade the software the first chance they have? NO! Some never upgrade because if it works don’t touch it and others might go through months of testing in a separate testing environment.

So readers sit back, resist the urge to be the first, enjoy a beer instead. Cheers!