[jxramos]

> Noise Free It's incredible how many distractions this kind of app usually has: extra clicks, unnecessary features, rectangular ads, and too many typography styles.

I very much like this adaptation of the term noise. I’m starting to realize a growing angst against intrusive noisy products that present junk to me I did not ask for. I realize there’s a non-zero cognitive load to ads and variable UI that’s unrelated to the product and it increasingly a source of minor frustration in my life I could do without. Social media has socialized the UI to dump suggestions and guides and other junk that gets tossed out in times that are inappropriate, one of those “not now please” moments. That noise can at times break my concentration and then it becomes a strong negative in my mind with a cost to it all. It’s like coming home and finding your desk surface not how you left it then you realize someone moved something trivial or some solicitor left you a note. These visual deltas no mater their motivation, should all be permission opt in settings.

[nicbou]

I use ad blocker rules to cut out a lot of that noise. I found the internet impossible to use without it. I have stopped using apps because they bypass those rules.

The worst ones are suggested content feeds. They're everywhere, including in your operating system.

[jxramos]

Very true indeed they're cluttering up the OS's and it feels like there's no escape.

This unexpected change to the windows taskbar broke my concentration on some task I was doing the other day, and right away I stopped what I was doing to go chase down how to disable the thing so I wouldn't lose more moments of concentration in the future. https://superuser.com/questions/1725905/get-rid-of-decorativ...

Such a crazy idea of our own OS's being the source of interruptions. Even iOS is getting in on this with the Maps app I noticed the other week, I'd even count iTunes displaying a bunch of random album titles that are on the ugly end of the spectrum in my opinion. At least iTunes uses the same batch of images so one can train to ignore it. It's kind of interesting to conceptualize the OS as like this pesky idle assistant just hungry for attention and with nothing to do who likewise feels its owner is just as idle as them with free time and free attention to spare. "My owner isn't doing anything special or fun, let me bug him with this visual distraction". It's even funny at a meta level to even observe myself getting riled up over this growing assault.

It's interesting you say impossible to use without it, I wonder if a certain subpopulation of folks are more prone to these traps. Basically those with a high degree of attention to detail, those with sharp powers of observation, and those juggling a ton of things in their lives where spare mental capacity is on the short end of the spectrum.

[wonderbore]

From my experience, either an app reaches momentum and the author wants to monetize it or it was last updated 4 years ago.

Non-monetized good apps are few and far between. One of which is actually related, by thai-language.com: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thai-english-dictionary-tl/id7...

It's clean, it has whole sentences mixed in the vocabulary, it links phrases parts to their sub-definitions, and lets you paste a whole sentence at once, defining word by word.

One of my favorite apps. Updated 5 months ago.

[trumpablehump]

Why does it need updates?

[Zopieux]

To keep track with the ever changing APIs, and look&feel, of the host OS.

I agree that some apps are feature-complete enough to be both useful and left without updates for years, but sadly they will eventually bitrot after some time and be increasingly annoying to use. This is usually the moment the maintainer is nowhere to be found as they lost interest, are busy, or dead.

[wonderbore]

The class of software that never needs updates is shrinking rapidly — unless you're ok with using software that looks like it was made for Windows 98. It's fine, but not great