EAST GADBURY —
An East Gadbury woman awoke Friday to find that an overnight software update had moved every button on her phone she had only recently learned to use, sources confirmed, in what the manufacturer has called “a moment of delight.”
Margaret Hollis, 52, said she had pressed “Update Tonight” before bed “because it kept asking, the way a child asks, and like a child it doesn’t accept no.” By morning the settings icon had changed shape, the camera had moved corners, and the button she used to send photos to her sister now deleted them instead. Four years of pictures of her garden are now, according to the company, “in the cloud,” a location with no address, no phone number and no one in charge.
“It took me two years to learn where everything was. Now the phone calls it an ‘exciting new experience.’ I didn’t want an experience. I wanted my torch to turn off.”
Her torch remained on until approximately 3pm, when her nephew, 14, fixed it in under a second without looking up from a different phone, then added that her model stops receiving updates next spring and will “basically be a brick.”
According to the Gadbury Institute of Digital Bewilderment, the average smartphone user spends 41 hours a year re-learning features that worked perfectly well before, and a further 12 hours dismissing pop-ups for features nobody asked for, many described as “magic.” Over a lifetime, the institute estimates, that is roughly two years spent finding where a trillion-dollar company has moved the settings, after which the user dies with three updates still pending.
“Every update is a small house move,” said institute director Dr. Simon Ellery. “Same furniture. Different rooms. Someone has hidden the kettle, and now there’s a monthly subscription to find it.”
The release notes, which Hollis did not read and nobody has ever read, promised “bug fixes and performance improvements.” Experts confirm the phrase is legally required on every update and means “we moved things, and your battery is now worse, so you’ll buy the new one.”
Hollis said she would adapt. “I’ll learn it,” she said. “All of it. And the day I finally understand it, it’ll update again. That’s the deal now. You don’t own a phone. You rent confusion.”
At press time, her phone had displayed a message asking whether she was “enjoying the new look,” with options for “Yes” and “Remind me later.” An option for “No” is not planned.
This article is satire. The people, places, quotes and studies described are fictional.