Phone Updates Used to Be Annoying. The Latest iOS Is Awful

I come from a long line of Luddites. My grandmother special-ordered her Toyota Camry with crank windows because she was convinced it was “one less thing that will break.” My father refused to upgrade our six-CD stereo system even though the eject button wouldn’t open and it could only play the first CD he ever put in it. The Traveling Wilburys Vol.1 was the soundtrack to our family dinners for a decade. As for myself, I only switched to a smartphone in 2013, when it would’ve cost about the same amount to repair my flip phone.

Now I am the same as anyone reading this. My phone is my toy and my toil, the first object I touch upon waking, the spackle to my spare minutes, the inanimate partner in our shared lie, which is that it works for me and not the other way around. Mostly ...