Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 450 posts

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#71

Post by nabaraz »

incone123 wrote: post #59
hutzlibu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It would be very helpful for missed calls. “Why did my wife call twice in the last 5 minutes, did something happen, should I panic?!” It also removes the need to leave rambling voicemail." Well, what is stopping your wife from also texting you, if it was something important and she did not reach you? And what would force her, to use a potential subject line? Otherwise it is an interesting idea, but I doubt it will b…

I used to have a phone with DND but if the same caller tried twice in a couple of minutes then it would ring.

Is this through Tasker or something? I would love to have this feature.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#72

Post by Firmwarrior »

gary_0 wrote: post #45
Markoff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not problem of a bezel, but either crappy software or bad sensor, never happened to me through 11+ years of using Android phones with touch screen. Better choose decent phone next time, mind sharing what phone causes you this trouble?

Samsung Galaxy S10e (with recent software). It wasn't cheap. And all my previous Android phones were fine too, but this one only has the little hole in the screen for the camera. There is no sensor.

Return the phone, it's broken

There's no way Samsung made a phone with no proximity sensor

.. well, then again, they did make the Note 7.. https://youtu.be/0IVk8PsSgEI

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#73

Post by dzikimarian »

m4lvin wrote: post #66
codalan wrote: post #40

The stock Android dialer is a complete UX hellscape. Every other time I need to dial a number, I will be randomly interrupted by some dialogue to enable a feature or to learn about X, when I'm urgently trying to make a call. It's so f-ing rude and intrusive. And it's designed to trick you into enabling shit without giving you time to think it over. It's such a scummy thing to do, but hey, it's Google. Imagine having…

That must be the Google Dialer app. The one in LineageOS which I guess comes from AOSP is perfectly fine and never bothers me about anything. Come to the dark side! ;-)

I am using stock Google dialer and don't have such experience either.

Anyway, OP can always pick the one that works for him. There's lots of options.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#74

Post by Toutouxc »

bowsamic wrote: post #25
pkaye wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like other countries have it too. What country were you visiting? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045618/spam-calls-per-m...

In the UK we have it, but not as bad as in the US. In Germany we don't seem to have it at all

In the Czech Republic I get like one spam call per year, and it’s usually semi-relevant (carrier, bank, insurance), virtually zero scams or blind marketing calls.

Same phone number for 17 years, dozens and dozens of companies have seen it.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#75

Post by Vibgyor5 »

gary_0 wrote: post #45
Markoff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not problem of a bezel, but either crappy software or bad sensor, never happened to me through 11+ years of using Android phones with touch screen. Better choose decent phone next time, mind sharing what phone causes you this trouble?

Samsung Galaxy S10e (with recent software). It wasn't cheap. And all my previous Android phones were fine too, but this one only has the little hole in the screen for the camera. There is no sensor.

Not sure if the device really is the issue here. I've the same phone, it costed me $600 when I bought it 3.5 years back. And till date, it's the best phone I've owned: not too big, headphone jack, expendable storage, physical dual sim, capable cameras and Touch ID that's located just right. Importantly, I've never had issues that you mentioned (dropped calls or Bluetooth glitches for that matter) I use this phone (S10e) every single day for calls and music etc. In fact, I'm typing my response on it now

What I mean to say is - there's a very high chance that your device is broken.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#76

Post by xnickb »

kergonath wrote: post #60
pavlov wrote: post #22

Phone calls should have a subject line, just like emails. It’s crazy that anyone can force a full-screen interrupt on my personal device with no context. If call metadata included a subject line, software could automatically screen out calls where the subject is empty or spammy, just like with email. It would be very helpful for missed calls. “Why did my wife call twice in the last 5 minutes, did something happen, sh…

Phone calls from unknown numbers go straight to voice mail. Same for some people who think it’s fair game to call me and bore my ears off with their life whilst I am working. Problem solved.

How is it solved for someone who has to have phone calls? Since when saying "it's not a problem for me" solved any problems?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#77

Post by encryptluks2 »

codalan wrote: post #40

The stock Android dialer is a complete UX hellscape. Every other time I need to dial a number, I will be randomly interrupted by some dialogue to enable a feature or to learn about X, when I'm urgently trying to make a call. It's so f-ing rude and intrusive. And it's designed to trick you into enabling shit without giving you time to think it over. It's such a scummy thing to do, but hey, it's Google. Imagine having…

I've literally never experienced this with the Google dialer app.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#78

Post by kelnos »

arnaudsm wrote: post #23

My golden rules to make videoconferencing more reliable : - Use ethernet. Wi-Fi isn't reliable, your neighbor's microwave can ruin everything. - Use wired headphones. 0 latency. 0 connection time. And disables the mic noise-cancelling algos. - Use classic phone calls when required. It's more robust and latency is even better.

> Wi-Fi isn't reliable, your neighbor's microwave can ruin everything.

Agree that wifi isn't reliable, but not for that reason: microwave ovens haven't been an issue for wifi since most people switched to the 5GHz band, many years ago.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#79

Post by gary_0 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #72
gary_0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung Galaxy S10e (with recent software). It wasn't cheap. And all my previous Android phones were fine too, but this one only has the little hole in the screen for the camera. There is no sensor.

Return the phone, it's broken There's no way Samsung made a phone with no proximity sensor .. well, then again, they did make the Note 7.. https://youtu.be/0IVk8PsSgEI

I know it's not using a proximity sensor because the front camera turns on when it's trying to fake-proximity-sense. I also know what a proximity sensor looks like (I've worked with such sensors for my job), and there isn't one. It's just a bad design; form overrode function.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#80

Post by kelnos »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #44
logicalmonster wrote: post #2

I cannot read the article due to the paywall, but just to vent.....one painful phone pet peeve for me that's declined recently is the art of people leaving a useful voice mail. Ok, I get it. There's a few technically-challenged people that struggle with emails and texts and prefer to use their voice. I'm perfectly happy to deal with that. But they call and leave a voice mail that focuses on the wrong information. The…

> and phone number (even though any digital system provides that already Speaking of which, when I call any customer service, they ALWAYS ask for my phone number. I've been baffled by this for awhile. Why? Can't they see it?

I wonder if caller information is just unreliable enough that they always ask anyway, because even if it gives the wrong number a smallish percent of the time, that's bad enough that it's worth taking the time to ask.
Post reply on HN