The Wall Street Journal.

Geoffrey A. Fowler4 hrs ago

You know those days when your phone battery doesn’t even make it to dinner? And Facebook pings you 12 times about people you haven’t cared about since sixth grade? And your printer fails so spectacularly that you just want to back over it with your car?

We love technology, but this week we’re shaking our fists at it for all the ways it annoys us.

© Illustration: Jason Schneider App Addiction.

Battery Life Is Too Short

Charging is the party pooper of every mobile gadget. Yet phone-makers keep designing them thinner, hurting—or at least not improving—battery performance.

Until wireless charging becomes common (or scientists perfect some alternative power technology), here’s the solution: Make fatter phones. We won’t mind a few extra millimeters if they could extend the life of a phone by a few hours. We don’t need phones thin enough to slice cheese. We’re already shoving the slenderest models into unsightly battery cases, or at least lugging power packs around.

Updates Bog Down Old iPhones

Hooray, new iPhone software! Oh wait, you may not want to install that.

New versions of iOS have brought security updates and needed capabilities to older iPhones and iPads. But both iOS 7 and iOS 8 came out initially in versions that weren’t tuned well to older phones, and caused owners to report slowed performance, overstuffed storage and shorter battery life.