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Comment by yread | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm a luddite but updates are not always necessary. It's a barcode app, what updates does it need? Is there a cve that needs to be patched? No? Then I don't need a new version

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I’m usually like this. Then my bank’s app refused to launch until I updated.

They re-designed it. When I went to click my usual “schedule payment” button on a bill payment, it just said “Coming Soon”.

I wasn’t a happy person about it.

Big Canadian bank too. US$65b mkt cap.

I never use my bank app because I don't fully trust my phone but they redesigned their website to be more mobile friendly. Now I can only see 10 operations at once instead of 30 before, and I can no longer sort by amount...

When I complained 2 years ago about it my banker told me to participate in their feedback program... Now they send me market research polls about future products and features, no way to report usability issues, it's not even run by the bank itself...

Financial services companies do seem to be particularly bad when it comes to UIs for their customers. Both awful apps and broken "mobile-first" sites seem to be par for the course these days. A few do try to do better, but the reality is that most people don't change banks for much more serious reasons than this, so the banks have a financial incentive to just throw some mostly workable junk together and ship it as cheaply as possible. :-(

It’s a bank app. Keep your bank apps up to date.

Complain about updates all you want but not keeping your bank apps up to date is the wrong solution.

> Big Canadian bank too. US$65b mkt cap.

Well then, let me tell you about Toronto Dominion bank (TD, market cap ~$105B)

The app allows you to photograph a cheque to deposit from the app. This option is displayed for their TD USD chequing account.

I scanned a cheque from a US bank in the app (to deposit into my USD chequing account), only to be informed that cheques from US banks cannot be deposited using the app and that I'd have to go to a branch.

The same app is missing transactions and does not correctly display the current balance of some accounts (which are correctly shown in EasyWeb) The app has also blocked screenshots, so I was unable to provide their customer support with proof of the missing transactions.

Call me entitled, but I would expect all transactions and current account balances visible in the web interface to be accurately reflected in the bank's official app.

If you have ever experienced N26, Revolut, or any number of European "FinTech" banks, you will understand that Canadian banks are busy banging rocks together while telling you they're hot shit.

> I scanned a cheque from a US bank in the app (to deposit into my USD chequing account), only to be informed that cheques from US banks cannot be deposited using the app and that I'd have to go to a branch.

Dunno if Canadian banks would be game for this, but back when AdSense only mailed cheques in US$, and inexplicably refused to e-deposit to my US-based bank account, I’d mail my cheques in.

Generally the apk can be decompiled and the protections stripped if it really bothers you to update.

"is there a CVE" is not a question that regular people can, will, or in my opinion even should ask.

I mean, if they do, all the better, but my point is that advanced enough tech knowledge should not be a requirement for a safe system.

Better scanning in low light, better error correction in code recognition, ability to recognise codes from a further distance, faster capture of codes, more options of what to do with the resulting data, reduced power usage while scanning, better user interface choices (e.g. updating to support more devices or matching new platform UI), ability to interface with external barcode scanners, better privacy protections for the user, reduction in overall package size, etc etc etc.

There’s always more things you can do to a product to improve it for its users.

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