A mere four days after buying her coveted new fifth generation iPod Touch, a South African consumer switched on her device and received a notification that a new version of firmware for iOS 7, Apple's latest mobile operating system for its iPod Touch media players, iPhones and iPads, was available for download.
She went online and read that installing the update was crucial for ironing out and fixing some bugs in the system, and since she hadn't downloaded too many apps or uploaded any music to her device yet, she went for it. While all her apps were still there after the firmware upgrade, and she had no problems except for a music app which thought she had a new device and had therefore exceeded the amount of registered devices she could use with the specific app, she was in for another nasty surprise. She discovered that, at a hefty 1.1 gigabytes, the upgrade had depleted her remaining Internet data cap at home for the rest of the month.
According to Richard Firth, serial entrepreneur and CEO of MIP Holdings, this is a common problem that many mobile users in South Africa run into when faced with software upgrades. "Whether it's a firmware or an operating system upgrade, they tend to be extremely data hungry, so users are either hit with enormous cellphone bills from their operators after using that much cellular data following an update, or they use their Internet connections at home. And in South Africa, where many people are still subjected to strictly capped Internet contracts, bandwidth is a precious commodity, and going over your monthly allotment can cost you dearly."
Firth says this is a complication in the cost of mobile devices today that many people don't take into consideration, and that the flow and use of data is exceeding practicality in some cases. What if you are among the lucky ones with access to an uncapped connection? How crucial are those upgrades? "Let's continue with Apple, as an example. The company rolled out iOS 7 in September, and it was its first extensive overhaul of the mobile operating system since the release of the first iPhone in 2007. And it made people sick."
Firth means that quite literally, and not in the sense that it was a pain to download, as eager consumers crowded Apple's servers to get their hands on it immediately upon release, with a 750MB download, which on average should take about two hours, but which took almost nine hours to download on that first day. "But that wasn't the only issue. In this instance, the iOS 7's new features had quite a devastating effect on those with vestibular disorders, and zooming and switching between apps were causing widespread nausea, headaches and other symptoms of motion sickness among several users around the world."
Even those who didn't get physically ill from iOS 7 may have harmed their devices when running the upgrade. "Although Apple promised users that the new operating system would bring many new features to their older devices, it ended up leaving users frustrated, causing lag in devices, and even, in some instances, rendering some apps unusable, since the new operating system was specifically designed with the more powerful chips in mind that are being used in the newer devices, the 64-bit A7. And unfortunately, there is no downgrading back to iOS 6 for those users who are left with devices struggling to perform now that they have installed iOS 7. But those who have seen the iOS performing at full tilt weren't impressed, criticising the operating system for being buggy and flawed."
These frustrations aren't just limited to iOS, but also to BlackBerry's OS and devices running Android, Windows and - until Nokia announced that it was pulling the plug on it two years earlier than initially agreed on - Symbian too, Firth says. "I'm not picking on iOS here. My recent update to Windows 8.1 was a hefty 3.1GB download! It's become standard: updates take too much data, seem too frequent, and take too long. Even firmware updates usually require device restarts, and if there is one thing that seems to be universally despised among mobile users that are used to being always connected, it is having their services interrupted by these pesky updates."
The proliferation of apps is not just a data guzzler - too many installed apps can affect the operating speed of the mobile device. Firth adds because of the increasing popularity of mobile devices, businesses of all kinds are looking at developing apps, so this situation will only get worse.
"Consumers need to be aware of the fact that apps need regular updating, and that some have 'automatic update' as the default setting," says Firth. "The average person doesn't think about these things, and doesn't understand the impact on their data bill."
Firth advises not updating right when the new operating system is rolled out to prevent getting stuck in the virtual bottleneck and to update via WiFi whenever possible in order to save yourself from getting slapped with a huge phone bill. "Also make sure that your device will actually be able to handle the new operating system."
He suggests that firmware updates are always good, since those are updates for software and programs that are already installed on your device and are meant to fix known problems. "If you still encounter any problems with apps or software after updates, report it. Programmers and developers are forever working on improving their products and services, and use the feedback to do just that," he concludes.
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