Whanganui Chronicle
  • Whanganui Chronicle home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Taranaki
  • National Park
  • Whakapapa
  • Ohakune
  • Raetihi
  • Taihape
  • Marton
  • Feilding
  • Palmerston North

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • New Plymouth
  • Whanganui
  • Palmertson North
  • Levin

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Whanganui Chronicle

In praise of a simple gadget

By Frank Greenall
Whanganui Chronicle·
15 Jan, 2015 11:46 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

HERE, YOU HAVE A GO: The complexity of TV remotes and other electronic gadgets has got out of control. PHOTO/FILE

HERE, YOU HAVE A GO: The complexity of TV remotes and other electronic gadgets has got out of control. PHOTO/FILE

I'M thinking of having it wall-mounted as a treasured trophy ... in a place of honour.

It's a circa 1975 Thorn TV remote control. It has an off/on button. It has a tab for each of eight channels. It has an up/down buttons for volume. It has a button for mute. And that's it - simplicity at its finest.

All the other controls are on the television itself, should anyone be up for using them.

I'm not sure how it's happened but, as we speak, at hand on my side table are not one but two remote controls that I somehow now require to tune into my latest goggle box, and between the two of them they boast a total of (I've counted) 93 buttons - approximately 79 of which I wouldn't have a clue as to their reason for existence.

This is apparently called progress.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Ditto with an increasingly bewildering array of controls or settings for cellphones, computers and electronic gadgets in general.

The problem is that all these oh-so-brilliant gadgets are put together by supremely gifted geeks who seem to presume that everyone else on the planet spends - like them - most of their waking hours playing with electronic gadgets and are, therefore, equally adept at navigating and piloting them.

These advances have been made, incidentally, with a corresponding decrease in the font size of the lettering on the remote control denoting function, almost to the point of invisibility. Or, alternatively, words have been superseded altogether by icons whose symbolism is shrouded in hieroglyphical obscurity.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

I have another casebook example of geeks gone gaga in terms of losing contact with the real world.

Some years ago I belonged to a club, many of whose members were technically inclined individuals who worked in professions requiring varying degrees of electronic expertise. At a certain point (this is how long ago it was) it was decided that the club would benefit from a new VCR (video cassette recorder - remember those?).

Subsequently, a top-of-the-range model, very expensive, turns up looking a bit like Darth Vader's briefcase - a sleek, shiny affair unsullied by any obvious and obtrusive control knobs or buttons.

While it was unquestionably state-of-the-art, the technically inclined club members were still nonetheless mystified as to which art it was the state of. Eventually one determined member sat down with the manual and after a day and a half managed to work out how to get the state-of-the-art triumph to actually play a videotape, and, at a pinch, to record a programme.

At this point, club members collectively decided that our deputised technician had sufficiently established who was boss, that honour had been satisfied, and subsequently the machine served no other purpose than as a very expensive drinks stand. But truth be known, the geeks had triumphed once again.

These fancy controls are all well and good, and undoubtedly some techno-freaks gain satisfaction from being able to tweak every last setting and app on any given appliance to the nth degree.

But the geeks need to understand that most of us don't want to go through the equivalent of programming a moon rocket launch in order to be able to start/stop, send/receive, play/record or see/hear.

There should be at least two default settings - one for Joe Blows (JBs), one for Geek Freaks (GFs). The JB controls should have no more than a dozen or so tabs, all with clearly worded or at least abbreviated functions.

If abbreviated, an equally clear key fleshing out the commands should be close at hand on the control. The GF control can then have however many hundred microscopically iconned tabs it likes - preferably on an entirely separate remote altogether!

We Joe Blows of the world need to rise up and strike a blow on behalf of visually impaired electronically challenged simpletons everywhere.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

-Frank Greenall is a freelance writer and cartoonist living on Bastia Hill

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Whanganui Chronicle

Two men charged following Marton incidents

15 Jun 11:52 PM
Whanganui Chronicle

Whanganui Lotto ticket wins share of first division

15 Jun 11:43 PM
Whanganui Chronicle

Tribunal asked to halt seabed mine fast-track

15 Jun 09:38 PM

The woman behind NZ’s first PAK’nSAVE

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Two men charged following Marton incidents

Two men charged following Marton incidents

15 Jun 11:52 PM

The incidents occurred at the same commercial premises on Broadway, Marton.

Whanganui Lotto ticket wins share of first division

Whanganui Lotto ticket wins share of first division

15 Jun 11:43 PM
Tribunal asked to halt seabed mine fast-track

Tribunal asked to halt seabed mine fast-track

15 Jun 09:38 PM
6yo believed among two dead in boat capsize off Taranaki

6yo believed among two dead in boat capsize off Taranaki

15 Jun 08:33 PM
How one volunteer makes people feel seen
sponsored

How one volunteer makes people feel seen

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Whanganui Chronicle e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Whanganui Chronicle
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP