The iPhone lovingly reducing the volume claiming to protect your hearing (a feature that seems impossible to disable even after changing the phone’s region) as an added iOS 14 feature was a volume control “option” that I found annoying and insanely unsafe. I don’t even think there was initially an option to disable it for specific outputs. The best part was at that stage when it kept nearly muting itself in my car while I was driving and had the windows down, taking my attention away from the road forcing me to fiddle with the volume up button. I know that it’s possible to mark each individual output as “other” now but it’s still kind of insane to force this on users.
The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
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Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#22Nearly all volume controls suck because by and large the software world is ignorant of the fact that loudness scales logarithmically. 99.9% of volume controls scale the output linearly.
It’s weird how I nominally know this but never really thought about the implications... How does the hardware world do it? I’d expect the normal way to make a volume control would be to have an adjustable-gain amplifier using the standard opamp circuit somewhere, but those aren’t logarithmic in any resistance you could wire to a knob, are they? (Yes, I am deeply ignorant about electronics.)
A lot of digital audio applications just do programmable gain in the digital domain. My main rig extends samples to 42 bits and attenuates in the digital domain, then dithers to 32 bits for the analog conversion.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can twist mine as much as I like, but the radio comes on instantly and the software that cares about the volume knob being twisted starts about 3 seconds later.
I had one that would work, but only if you rotated the knob very slowly . So if you turned the car on and the music was deafening, you had to oh-so-slowly turn down the volume with one hand, while trying to staunch the bleeding from your ears with the other hand.
While an awful situation, I couldn’t help but laugh very much at how ridiculous it is. Thanks for this comment.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#24Nearly all volume controls suck because by and large the software world is ignorant of the fact that loudness scales logarithmically. 99.9% of volume controls scale the output linearly.
This is in the same category of error as most programmers thinking that sRGB uses a linear light model. They try to do arithmetic like blending or blurring on the raw image data this inevitably does the wrong thing.
Similarly, most non-AAA game engines ignore the sRGB tone curve and treat all inputs and outputs as if they were linear, which results in unexpected brightness shifts in textures.
Up until very recently, Blender used linear light internally, but output that as sRGB without converting it to the appropriate gamma curve. There's guide after guide online on how to fix Blender by using "filmic" mode, which should be renamed to "not broken" mode.
Same thing as the colour picker in image editors like mspaint or Photoshop. They all have the same rainbow picker that has very visible discontinuities in the colour gradients, like a rippled curtain. It should be smooth, and it is, if using a perception-based colour model instead of linear light output straight to an sRGB monitor without any kind of colour correction.
This kind of thing has been going on for decades, and will continue for decades more. Programming is still a growth industry, so the average developer is inexperienced and doesn't know about these subtleties.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#25The worst volume control in the real world is Bluetooth on cars. Somehow every time I connect to my car the volume gets lower. Now I have to turn it up to the max to hear a little bit. I have tried all the methods on internet with no success.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#26Car manufacturers are easily the winners here. If your car’s audio system doesn’t have a simple knob you can grab and twist, well, that just sucks.
The new Lamborghini Huracan Evo is especially bad at this with its touch screen volume control, no knobs at all.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#27Car manufacturers are easily the winners here. If your car’s audio system doesn’t have a simple knob you can grab and twist, well, that just sucks.
Ford moved volume control to the touchscreen, but people wanted a knob. Solution? They stuck a knob to the touchscreen. Under the knob is an artificial "finger" that touches the screen.
I haven't used it personally so all I can say is it's a hilarious solution.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/02/im-obsessed-with-the-ford-...
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#28The worst volume control in the real world is Bluetooth on cars. Somehow every time I connect to my car the volume gets lower. Now I have to turn it up to the max to hear a little bit. I have tried all the methods on internet with no success.
What car?
Tesla actually seems to have gotten this part of the Bluetooth implementation right and it syncs the car’s volume with your phone’s volume.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#29This started out entertaining, then I realized that there is no attribution for the designs, and even though there are several links that say things like "the original thread," they are all just links to search results for "volume" on the ProgrammerHumor subreddit.
It never was a single thread but a meme that lasted for a while, with people making lots of different top-level posts. So linking to search results is the best you can do.
Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
#30The subreddit /r/Programmerhumor sometimes had a whole bunch of memes around volume controls, but there are often times other funny themes that can go on for weeks...
- bad phone number inputs
- how large node packages can get
- software interview process
- backend vs front end engineers
And my favorite meme was when they parodied the Hawaii missile alarm back a few years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/7qk25w/an_...