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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kinda like step-based control of my stove. It makes things predictable. Although I'd probably prefer knob with numeric indicator to exactly what value it is set.
I kinda like step-based control of my stove I hate it on my oven. It defaults to 200 degrees, and to change it to 450 takes almost a full minute as it plods along in five-degree increments.
I let my spouse, who likes the novelty of a touchscreen, talk me into a Whirlpool oven a couple years ago that is controlled by touchscreen. I had no idea it was possible to hate an oven so much. The only saving grace is that the stovetop elements are still controlled by knobs.
We've got to do a better job of educating consumers. The marketing behind touchscreens is so powerful that it is unanimously considered as a feature, something you must have.
I get angry just thinking about the amount of marketing bullshit around touchscreens. Just go to Garmin Aviation website and now a lot of operation in airplane cockpits is offloaded to touchscreens. What happened to the scratch pad and press an index key in FMCs? Age old UI and it is so crisp and clear, there is absolutely zero ambguity. Write something in a scratch pad, click the button where you wanna insert the data.
This is a cost saving measure disguised as a feature. Public is dumb and does'nt understand UI/UX in the slightest bit.
It is just sad. As long as consumers keep buying, nothing will change.
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I always wondered if these physical switches are actually reliable and now reading your comment actually terrifies me. This behavior can cause irreversible social damage in say during high steak business meetings. One could absolutely sue the microphone manufacturer for this.
Oh I love them high steak business meatings, with rare proposals and well done outcomes. ontopic: all mechanical switches fail, and have multiple ways to fail, from subtle contact jitter to loose/broken springs to whatever else could break
a) the switches are trivially repairable (like switching out RAM on my Lenovo, which requires exactly two Philips screws), or
b) designing the switches such that their mean time to failure is far longer than the mean time to failure of any of the other critical components, which is absolutely do-able using the right materials and tolerances.
It's not as though audio on a laptop is pumping enormous amounts of current that presents a serious electrical challenge in that respect, and it's unlikely that the mechanism is going to be used 1000 times per day for 10 years.
Edited for formatting
Author should just use a proper browser with ad-block and mute add-on. Regardless of audio levels or hardware switches, a website should never play audio on its own without permission.
Nothing will ever come close to convenience of analogue volume knobs. They give both immediate action and infinite granular control. Same goes for kitchen stoves. All the modern touch controls with step-based control is the absolute nightmare in terms of UI.
With one specific exception - stereo volume knobs often - virtually always - suffer from stereo imbalance, where the volume of the left and right channels are slightly different. Some high-end amplifiers offer a relay based volume system where the knob simply switches resistors in and out of the audio path using relays to adjust the volume, and although this does result in "steps" of volume, it does mean the stereo b…
Nothing will ever come close to convenience of analogue volume knobs. They give both immediate action and infinite granular control. Same goes for kitchen stoves. All the modern touch controls with step-based control is the absolute nightmare in terms of UI.
I don't have a lot of knowledge about this, but audio is often streamed via USB or HDMI or Bluetooth or WLAN to another device, like headphones, an AV receiver, or wireless speakers and then uses the DAC in that device.
So the blog posts wish would result in the mute button not doing anything for many users, because it controls only a very specific hardware, but the users expect the function to work against all sound emitted by the operating system on any connected hardware, right? This guy actually wants a switch on his headphones. Or am i wrong and all sound goes through the motherboards sound card at least once, even if it is sent somewhere else?
I let my spouse, who likes the novelty of a touchscreen, talk me into a Whirlpool oven a couple years ago that is controlled by touchscreen. I had no idea it was possible to hate an oven so much. The only saving grace is that the stovetop elements are still controlled by knobs.
My office (well, former office) used to have a touchscreen coffee maker. Why does a coffee maker even need a touchscreen? There are literally three options!
I have certainly experienced this on Android. Random apps seem to be able to override my "mute the phone" command.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With one specific exception - stereo volume knobs often - virtually always - suffer from stereo imbalance, where the volume of the left and right channels are slightly different. Some high-end amplifiers offer a relay based volume system where the knob simply switches resistors in and out of the audio path using relays to adjust the volume, and although this does result in "steps" of volume, it does mean the stereo b…
Things like this make me glad I'm not an audiophile. What you describe seems very annoying, but thankfully I've never noticed anything like it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/...