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It’s like clockwork. companies including apple this weekIntroduce new options to make their gadgets feel new and advanced.

You will soon be able to zip that text message You sent it but you regretted it! A Mac computer can use an iPhone camera for video calls! You can do Change color tone of android app icons to match the rest of your screen!

And like watches, the vast majority of people will not use these features.

Tech experts told me that only a small percentage Proportion of people adjusting everything about how their electronics or software comes from the manufacturer. Most of us aren’t constantly tinkering with the fancy features of phones, TVs, and laptops.

So why do companies keep adding functionality that is useful to a small number of people and ignored by the rest? And is there a better way to design products?

Cliff Kuang is a designer and a book About the history of product design, he named the three culprits behind the ever-growing features. First, companies add options as it helps them market their products as new and exciting. Second, products with millions of users should appeal to people with very different needs. And—it hurts—we’re so obsessed with options that look great but that we can’t or won’t use.

Kuang described this third factor as “users’ inability to differentiate between ‘Hey, this looks good’ and ‘Hey, I need this’.

If it makes you feel any better, Kuang said he was guilty of it too. He was fascinated by a feature on his Tesla that automates parallel parking. “The first time I used it, it was great,” he said. “And I never used it again.”

Technologists often say they’re in a situation where they can’t win in product design. Dedicated fans often demand more options, which makes no sense to the regulars. (This phenomenon is often derided as “bloatware,” as with bloated software.) This is one reason why technology often feels like a thing. made for 1 percent of digital patterns and not the rest of us.

But if companies try to reduce underused options or change anything people are used to, some users will hate it. Everyone has an opinion. Steven Sinofsky, a former Microsoft executive, joke Revising commonly used software like Windows and Microsoft Office was like ordering pizza to a billion people.

In April, tech writer Clive Thompson made a provocative suggestion To fight the temptation to add more features to existing technology: Just say no.

Thompson, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, said companies need to decide ahead of time what set of features they want to work on and stop when they get there.

“Feature drift is a real thing and it ruins software every year,” he told me, citing Instagram as a product he believes is getting worse as more options are added.

Of course, products cannot remain frozen in the past. And some features such as those made automatically notify emergency services after car accidents, even if they are rarely used, can be useful. It is also unpredictable which plugins might be useful to the masses.

Kuang said the best tech products are slowly evolving to guide users towards a future creators have dreamed of. He said Airbnb did this by improving its website and app, people towards a recent significant change. discover different types of houses without a destination or travel date in mind.

To escape the bloatware trap, Kuang said, “You’re working backwards from the future you’re trying to create.”

Tip of the Week

How to prepare for changes on your phone

Whether all the features are useful or not, you will soon be using the updated software for your phone. Brian X ChenA consumer technology columnist for The New York Times talks about how we need to prepare for this change.

In this week’s column, I went over Changes coming to smartphones this fall In OS updates after Apple and Google.

How should you prepare? First of all, I recommend that you do not install any early test versions or beta versions of the software that is currently available. These unfinished versions of operating systems are still being checked for defects.

However, here’s how you can prepare your phone for new operating systems when you’re done:

• Backup your phone data if you subscribe to another device such as your computer or a cloud storage service. This will prevent disaster in the unlikely event that something goes wrong while updating your phone software.

• Turn off automatic updates. In your phone settings there is an option to automatically install software updates after bedtime. I recommend disabling this. When the OS arrives in the fall, take a wait-and-see approach to evaluate what others have said about major bugs that may have surfaced online. New products are often defective on the first day. Install the new operating system manually when you are sure that it will not break your phone.

• take the opportunity to do digital spring cleaning. Delete apps you no longer use and files you no longer need. Sometimes, new operating systems take up more space than their predecessors, so it’s a good idea to do some cleaning beforehand to get you started fresh.

Before you go …

• A controversial plan to revive US chip production: An unlikely group of billionaires, including a longtime Democratic donor and a Trump supporter, is asking Congress for $1 billion for a nonprofit investment fund to expand computer chip manufacturing in the United States. My colleague Ephrat Livni Unusual proposal is divisive in Washington.

• TikTok posts claimed to be a jury member in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s latest trial. It wasn’t him, CNN explainsand it was another example of that. often misogynistic online frenzy on the case.

• What do apps for kids do? Washington Post columnist Wrote More than two-thirds of the top 1000 apps for kids send personal information to the advertising industry. (Subscription may be required.)

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