There’s Always Another Update (Premium)

Sometimes I feel like I spend much of my time just keeping my so-called smart devices up-to-date. The problem is particularly acute with PCs, in part because I manage so many of them.

Oddly, I predicted this. I recall someone excitedly describing a coming wave of smart TVs 20ish years ago that would include lightweight OSes and app stores, and how this would make our lives easier by removing the need for external streaming devices and the messiness of HDMI switching. But that’s not how I saw this change. Having already suffered through years of problems keeping Windows and apps up-to-date on PCs–this was before mobile devices really took off–I was curious why anyone would want to bring those problems to such a simple device.

But the impact was even worse than I’d imagined. Smart TVs and displays now boot up over time instead of turning on instantly, and they need to be unplugged or reset from time-to-time. Those OSes are never well-supported and quickly become bogged down by the low-end processors on which they run. The apps are terrible and not as full-featured as those on dedicated streamers like Apple TV and Roku. TV remotes are typically horrible as well. And smart TV makers use all this technology to annoy customers with online account sign-ins so they can advertise upgrades. Accounts that may or may not be vulnerable to electronic attack. The whole thing is a mess.

Tech enthusiasts were quick to fall for this trap, which is somewhat amusing, just as they gravitated to Teslas, as much for their computer-like innards and apps as for the benefits of electric power. I admire the acceleration power of these vehicles, and I also admire their Spartan interiors. But the electronics–the huge screen, the apps, the online services–is just cringe. We just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. How much better would these vehicles be if we could just use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto?

I don’t own a Tesla, and I never will. This isn’t a statement of any kind, unless that statement is that I hope to never have to buy another car, and if I do, it will be much less expensive than that. But when the inevitable day comes, my wife and I are far more concerned with phone connectivity than we are with anything else. Our car is over 10 years old and it has a tiny, non-color display with just a basic Bluetooth connection. I hate it.

Each time we come back to Mexico, I pull the PCs I keep here out of storage, power them up, and set about updating them. There are three of them, all refurbished HP laptops, and each was configured a bit differently thanks to the local account and Microsoft Work and School account testing I was doing during our last trip in a bid to see whether some configuration might help with easing the enshittification. But in each case, I signed in, opened Windows Update to install whatever had accumulated over the previous two months and the Microsoft Store to update the apps.

It’s no longer surprising to me how many updates there are each time I do this because I see it all the time. Microsoft delivers monthly cumulative OS and .NET updates to all PCs. I enable the switch for preview updates, so I get those as well. I routinely check Optional updates in Advanced options, and there’s always something there too: HP and other PC makers routinely deliver driver and firmware updates through Windows Update these days, often with vague names like “HP Inc. – SoftwareComponent” (yes, as one word) that don’t in any way explain why I need this thing. But I download and install them and then reboot as required. I feel like this is my job, forever doomed like Sisyphus to just keep repeating the same task over and over.

Looking at just one of these PCs, I see that since arriving in Mexico a week ago, I’ve installed two quality updates–the January cumulative updates for Windows 11 and .NET Frameworks 3.5 and 4.8.1 (both of which require reboots)–9 driver updates, one firmware update (which requires a lengthy offline install during a reboot), one “other” update (an update to the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool), and unknowable number of definition updates. Indeed, if you don’t think you’re always installing updates, check Windows Update on any PC right now. I guarantee there’s at least one update, and that it’s a definition update. They arrive all day long, every day, and the only good thing about them is that I don’t need to deal with them manually.

it’s notable that every one of those updates includes some improvement to the security or reliability of the system. And then there are those mostly unwanted feature updates that come with each cumulative OS update, though the January rendition was devoid of that, a rarity tied to most of Microsoft being off for half of the previous month. This is ironic, in a way. The PC is an almost infinitely malleable thing, thanks to what Bill Gates used to call “the magic of software,” but it is that very quality that also requires us to keep the thing up-to-date, fixing security and quality issues on a never-ending treadmill. If the PC wasn’t so versatile, this wouldn’t be as necessary.

And it’s not just Windows Update. Tied to the above irony, we’ve all loaded our phones, tablets, and PCs down with software–or, apps, we call them now–that dramatically improves the capabilities of each device. But one thing most of us have probably confronted at one point or another is the realization that with great functionality comes great updating. All those apps need to be updated, and fairly regularly, and all the major platform makers–Apple, Google, and Microsoft–long ago pushed many OS components into their respective Store updating chains so that they can happen even more frequently.

Opening the Downloads page of the Microsoft Store app on that same PC, I see that at least 35 apps, system components, and other unknowable items–Store Experience Host, Cross Device Experience Host, VP9 Video Extensions, and many more–have been updated in the past six days. But the real number is much higher: This page doesn’t have an infinite scroll, so I’m just seeing the latest items. And as is the case on mobile, I scan through this list and it reminds me that maybe I don’t need all these things. Is it amusing or stupid that an app like Windows Maps that I will never use, not once, is kept up-to-date with the same fervor as those I do use all the time? I don’t know. But I just uninstalled it. Because, seriously.

I’m a fan of the Windows Package Manager, the winget command line tool that I use to automate my app installs on each new PC I review or reset. Perhaps because of my ADHD-addled brain–which, come to think of it, is probably behind my Sisyphean updating activities–I will occasionally bring up Terminal on whatever PC I’m using at the moment and type winget update to see what’s there. This is the Achilles Heel of winget, to use another Greek myth-inspired description, of winget. It’s good at installing, but it’s not so good at keeping things up-to-date. That is, there are always updates there as well.

As if to prove this to myself, I just checked winget for updates on the PC I’m using to write this, the Surface Laptop 7. This is a PC I actively keep up-to-date. Or so I thought. Winget found 8 updates–8!–mocking me and my sensibilities. Well, actually, there were 9. The other one is for Discord, an app I already loathe as-is but now loathe even more because it will never update via winget despite the fact that–wait for it–I used winget to install the damn thing in the first place. But I can’t let those other updates sit. Again, ADHD. So I type winget update –all and then manually deal with UAC prompts because I keep forgetting the command line to override that until it’s too late. It’s OK, updating is peaceful. It’s how I spend my time.

I mentioned mobile. Everyone knows that smartphones and tablets are updated all the time, usually automatically in the background, with both OS and app updates. But I always check, and I always find updates. My iPhone is on the Developer Beta, so the OS updates have been unusually busy for several months now, but you can count on many of these each year in stable, too. So I just opened the App Store, tapped my little cartoon avatar–Apple, ever sneaky, hides this UI well–and then scrolled down. Yup. 11 app updates, most of them apps like Amazon Alexa, Great Clips (a hair cutting chain), and Zoom Workplace that I never or rarely use. So I tapped “Update All” like the good little drone I am.

I use my iPad Mini every day, but I just went through the same game of hide and seek and there are even more updates on it, 15 of them. So, once again, an “Update All” and a quick scan through the list. Which includes similarly rarely/never used gems like (Facebook) Messenger, Sonos, and others. Whatever. Gotta keep the little tablet busy.

While that was underway, I wondered how my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL was doing. I had already manually installed the January Android update when Google announced it, but I looked at the Play Store, which has a handy press-and-hold on the icon > “My apps” shortcut that lets the compulsive get right to its list of pending app (and system component) updates. Not surprisingly, I found even more updates there–35!–but that’s because I’m not using it as often right now and I’ve neglected my updating duties. Crucial apps like Great Clips (yes, again), Hilton, and others I rarely use aren’t going to update themselves, after all. Actually, of course they will. But who can wait that long?

One other task I dutifully fulfilled when we arrived here was to turn on the Apple TV and navigate into Settings, General, Software Update. I did this knowing that it, too, updates in the background, and since we had been away for two months, I’m sure it did some of my work for me. So selfish. And yes, it did. In fact, it said it had checked for and installed updates just a few days earlier. So there wouldn’t be another update. Probably. I checked anyway. There was an update, and it had to reboot to install it. Classic.

There are two HomePod Mini smart speakers connected to the Apple TV–we use a pair of full-sized HomePods back home in Pennsylvania–and I previously described the convoluted way Apple updates these devices. It’s better than with AirPods, at least, but still ridiculous. Anyway, I opened the Home app on my iPhone and navigated into the settings for each. Yes, each needed to be updated. Of course. This made me wonder about the AirPods Pro 2 earbuds. And the Beats Studio Pro headphones. And … No, come on. Stop.

Having written all that, I checked to make sure winget had finished up on the Surface Laptop. It had. So I compulsively ran winget update again, knowing I’d see that non-updatable Discord entry and that this would vaguely bother me like some incomplete task that I should be able to finish and put behind me. Winget did not disappoint: Discord was there, mocking me, of course. But Microsoft Edge didn’t update either, no doubt because it was in use. So I switched to Edge, went into settings, and let it update (restarting in the process). We can’t let that just hang there, after all. Browsers are updated even more frequently than operating systems.

When you think about it, rerunning winget update is kind of par for the course when it comes to updates. I notice in Windows that I can check for updates in Windows Update or the Microsoft Store, completely install everything it offered, and there is often more to update if I check again. This triggers yet another round of ADHD-fueled completism in which I just keep checking for updates. Sometimes even after it’s told me that there are none.

This is a good strategy for Android system updates, too, by the way. Every time I learn there’s an Android or Pixel update, I head into Settings > System > Software updates > System update and am told “Your system is up to date.” I know it is not, so I press “Check for update” and Pixel makes a big show of checking, complete with an animated circle graphic. And then it reports “Your system is up to date,” which seems definitive enough. I mean, there was that animation, after all. But I know better. So I press “Check for update” again. And again. And I play this game until it finds the update that’s been there the whole time. Sometimes it takes several tries. Other times, it really isn’t there and will arrive in a day or so. But most times I have to check repeatedly and then it finally finds the update. Hilarious.

This reminds me. Pixel Tablet. And Pixel Watch. Oh, and the Apple Watch, also on the developer betas, which had prompted me to install an update last night while I was wearing it. Those updates can only be installed when the watch is on power, however. So I charge the thing. And install the update. It takes a while. This is what my life has become.

We are struggling with rapid advances in AI right now, unsure of what the future holds. But the central promise of technology, and certainly of personal technology, is similar–it will make our lives better–and we’ve been struggling with that for decades. Many of the promised improvements are tied to what is basically automation, with technology working in the background to remove the drudgery. And yet I sit here, many times, constantly checking for updates on whatever device, finding them, and then installing them and rebooting as commanded. I feel like I’m working for these devices instead of the reverse.

Sometimes, when my wife and I convene for dinner or whatever break, she’ll ask me how the day is going. And there are many days when much of my time is spent on updating across multiple PCs and other busy work. I’m not sure exactly how to describe these days beyond noting that I somehow spent the day working but didn’t get any actual work done. I was busy serving my real master. Because there’s always another update. All you have to do is look for it.