Quote:
Originally Posted by pruss
What I don't really understand is why all this isn't customizable. It would take a tiny amount of Kindle developer time to give the user the option to choose exactly what information they want--percentage, percentage up to three significant figures, byte count, screen count, paragraph count, progress bar, etc. Users have different tastes and needs. Why the same for all?
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People often make the mistake of thinking that adding user configurable-options is a very simple process and can be easily accomplished. It doesn't work like that. Especially on simple devices with limited resources. Choices add overhead... decisions that need to be made before graphics, text or menus can be rendered on the screen. Every decision (configurable setting) slows things down. Also, the more configurable software is, the buggier it tends to become. Things become bloated. Updates and bug-fixes start getting few and farther between. Cats and dogs living together—mass hysteria!
Yes, I exaggerate, but there really is no such thing as a
simple user-configurable option. User Choices are the antithesis of stability... and always have to be balanced against each other.
Would you rather have a device that let you configure and customize everything everything under the sun, but was extremely flaky, buggy and locked up every-other moment... or a device that had fewer configurable settings, but had a rock-solid OS and an interface that never flakes out on you?