I’m Saving Hundreds of Microseconds Each Day

A hundred microseconds here, a hundred microseconds there, pretty soon you're talking about real seconds.

In 18+ years over at my day job, we’ve shipped over 800 different software updates for our products. Sometimes, those updates contain a slew of new features and changes, given us lots to talk about and promote. Other times, well, it goes the other way. It can be difficult to come up with interesting marketing copy when a release mostly just cleans up some boring things on the backend, invisible to the user.

Thus, I can understand how the makers of Weather Line (an excellent weather app for iOS) wound up here:

Feature touting the addition of a degree symbol for “fastr glance-ability”

That understanding didn’t make it any less ridiculous, however. Just to compare, here’s a before and after shot:

Image showing temperature without a degree symbol, and then with a degree symbol

I don’t know quite how much time that “faster glance-ability” is saving me, but I’ve probably blown several lifetimes’ worth of savings writing this post. And then you read it! Thank you for joining me on this time-wasting journey.