> Also, am I the only person who gets seriously bothered by profession-looking websites or applications that list the dollar sign after a price?

It's common practice in some other countries to place the currency sign after the amount.

(http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/22574/where-to-place-c...)

Google thinks the page is italian, if I let it translate it, the $ sign goes to the start... odd!

The currency sign is a suffix in many locales, e.g. parts of Europe. Makes sense for a translator to fix it. Although I'd consider it feature of the currency involved as opposed to the document language.

I've noticed an increasing trend for Americans to write, for example, '10$'. As an odd reflection to that, I've also noticed a lot of people writing percentages with the percent sign in front: '%50'. I can't help but wonder if the latter is just confused web developers.

See my reply to mdanger about battery life not being an issue at all.