The regular Product “Bug List” is getting an upgrade with a few images to highlight the challenges and bugs of that occur when interacting with every-day products. Although this list pertains to my own experience, I would highly encourage anyone to start capturing any “bugs” that they find in the products and experiences they use on a daily basis!
1. On Safari, the show password eye built into the browser is very often conflicting with password vault plug-ins, which often leads to a lot of frustrating Safari and password vault window opening.
2. It is very unclear as to why, but periodically I will lose about half an inch of messages off the bottom of the Messages app on the iPad… it’s particularly bad when links are sent that have an automatic pop-up with a thumbnail, but restarting the app seems to clear the issue!
3. When the Mercedes GLC-300 drives in cold weather, the automated traction control system will often shut down, which greatly decreases the acceleration of the car, which can be a major danger on highways in Colorado. This issue can sometimes be fixed by restarting the car, but more often than not, the issue persists until the car warms up.
4. When rotating between a work laptop, personal laptop, and a PC tower, cable management can become somewhat of a nightmare, particularly for peripherals like mice and keyboards that require constant swapping. Certainly a problem that can be addressed with wireless peripherals, but an issue with wired ones nonetheless!
5. The wireless router provided by CenturyLink has fairly regular dropout intervals where it will have DNS issues that cause a temporary internet outage that can be solved by swapping the input and output ethernet cables back and forth once (it’s a weird issue)
6. In Wordle on the New York Times games app, the keyboard is very slightly smaller than the normal iOS keyboard, and the return/enter key is on opposite sides from normal, which has led me to delete many a letter right after typing it.
7. Insulation was not installed in one of the exterior walls of our neighboring apartment unit. The apartment complex is a relatively new build (after 2010), and we recently received a notice to consume less natural gas for heating from the HoA… although I agree with the goal, it was a funny email to receive from the organization that didn’t insulate the complex!
8. The Apple TV remote that we have doesn’t have a home button, which is probably the function that I would use the most.
9. At gas stations in cold climates, the windshield cleaning fluid and brush is often completely frozen. Not ideal when those are the messiest road conditions in Colorado!
10. In general, laptops do not give any visual indication from above where the relevant power and peripheral ports are located. This requires the user to look around the laptop or to bend around to try to find the ports, which is a very minor, but constant pain point.
11. For some reason, the 2018 MacBook Pro that I own will often fail to connect to new WiFi networks, unless the WiFi on the laptop is restarted.
12. In order to get a new iPhone purchased through a wireless carrier, you typically need to turn off “Find my iPhone” for your old device. However, this is not typically possible if you have lost the phone or it was destroyed, which can be a big headache.
13. As a non-bug, I recently discovered that nearly all beer tap labels have the same thread size! Hurrah for standardization!
14. The temporary backing on Black Diamond skins is a lightweight rubber grad pattern, which is very each to get on the skins to ensure they don’t stick to themselves, but the grid pattern is cut in a way that leaves some jagged edges which catch on backpacks, and the carrying pouch for the skins. It can be fairly annoying, and it’s only a matter of time until I damage their carrying bag.
15. On a trip full of distractions to Steamboat, we accidentally left our rooftop ski rack open when leaving the resort, and drive about 5 miles down the road before I noticed that the shadow of our car looked funny. Although we didn’t lose any skis, we came very close! With rooftop ski racks, it’s difficult to see if it is open or closed when you don’t have a sunroof, and there are no other status indicators.
16. I recently had to return an item to a Lululemon store, which involved three product bugs all at once! The first was that the clerk forgot to remove the security tag on the original pair, which was not caught by the security gates at the exit. The second was that the same pair had its belt loop get torn on the first wear, and the third bug was that the door handles at the Lulu store in Boulder are symmetrical on each side of the door, which has lead to me embarrassing myself when trying to enter and exit every time.
17. High-performance outdoor gear is a miracle of materials science and soft goods engineering, but ensuring that you have the right cleaning compounds and equipment available to not damage the clothing when you try to wash it can be very expensive, confusing, and have high consequences if you get it wrong.
18. I can’t figure out why, but the messages on the Apartments.com iPad app do not show up on the phone app for me when I am signed into the same account on both devices.
19. We have a little cupholder phone mount from Weather Tech, which works great overall, but the two plastic knobs that lock the phone holder width in place both snapped off with regular use in one year. Both failures occurred in the plastic of the injection molding of the knobs, and not at the interface with any metal parts.
20. A constant headache for me is cleaning my fitted sheet because I know the other items in the dryer will get all wrapped up inside the fitted sheet in one big ball and none of the items will dry properly. I am thinking of putting the fitted sheet into a laundry bag in the dryer the future.
21. As someone who doesn’t leave voicemails very often, I do wish that I could hear what I had left as the message to verify what info I had shared. This has been particularly relevant when talking to real estate agents from all over, and wondering what I told whom.
22. In my mind, perhaps one of the worst modern products is the little foot hook that you are supposed to use to open bathroom doors. Quite often, public bathroom doors are incredibly heavy with aggressive hydraulics to automatically shut the door, and I don’t know that I’ve ever had an easy time opening a door with my foot by pulling. Pushing a door with your foot or leg is easy, but pulling one open is ergonomically difficult.
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