Sam Danielson

I love my iPhone. It just can't believe I'm 30 years old despite me repeatedly telling it otherwise. Continually misjudging me for a 16 year old is slightly less flattering than say a 25 year old, at least for me. I'd like to think of myself as fully developed but as my youth slips away that distinction matters less.

Apple, always attuned to workflow efficiency, couldn't have designed a better dialog. Microsoft might have placed the affected apps in one list that appeared at the start of an upgrade. Linux, well pacman and apt-get at least, aren't polished enough to even confirm my age! That's something Linux needs to fix if it ever wants to be taken seriously. Meanwhile Apple makes the dialog appear several times over the duration of an update process, presumably to accentuate the compliment. They even pause the update to make sure I get the message and unimportant details, like which app is affected, are subdued for a simpler interface.

One way to improve the feature for maximum flattery would default to age 25 for men and age 20 for women. Unfortunately the iPhone is callously insensitive to gender when it comes to detecting perverse material, both in the binary sense and in the liberal high-dimensional, continuous-field kind of gender. Usually only naked people and bloody murder are considered inappropriate for children. The iPhone detects a much wider set of perversions and four of my apps are deemed perverse. Could it be the Shakespeare ereader? Could it be the weather apps? Apple opts not to show the name of the perverse app in the dialog. It's simpler and it protects the children from knowledge, instant messages, clouds, and music.

I'm still 30 years old, which is greater than 17. Time hasn't reversed since the last dialog. Either Apple doubts these facts or it just likes flattering me. I think it's the latter. Thank you, Apple!