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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

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

#91

Post by aulin »

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…

You're probably talking about some chinese dialer on top of android, Google one is clean and essential.

One thing I always struggle with is that phone becomes painfully slow and heats up like crazy on a call. The one thing it should do without effort seems like the heavier one on the hardware. Wonder how they managed to do phone calls 20-30 years ago if it's such a compute intensive task.

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

#92

Post by filoeleven »

senectus1 wrote: post #54

I can't remember the last time i actually held a phone to my ear... I always always have a bluetooth headset/car around. these days I wear an AfterShokz "bone conducting" headset pretty much as soon as I get up in the morning till i go to bed. I listen to podcasts/audiobooks/music and make calls on it all day... no issues.

Huh, I didn’t know that bone conduction had progressed that far. Do you have a headset with or without the boom mic? Is it always paired to one device, or do you switch between a few? If you do switch it around, does the handoff work well?

Asking because I’ve loved the idea since I first heard about it, and might pick up a headset myself now that I know they’re of decent quality.

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

#93

Post by mellavora »

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.

Could you let us know what headphones offer a control to disable noise-cancelling algos?

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

#94

Post by saiya-jin »

kelnos wrote: post #78
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.

You would be surprised that most wifis out there still don't run on 5ghz. I mean what do you expect from non-technical people, wifi is just this white box that should work, if not turn off/on and then call support. Ie we (Switzerland) have both bands available from the router and till now even I didn't know that higher band is better for interference, and I am most technical in the family/friends circle.

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

#96

Post by arnaudsm »

mellavora wrote: post #93
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.

Could you let us know what headphones offer a control to disable noise-cancelling algos?

When you're on speaker, most platforms have a noise cancelling algorithm to prevent Larsen loops between mic and speaker. Using headphones usually disables it.

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

#97

Post by mellavora »

kleiba wrote: post #43

I suppose sometimes there's also a good side to belonging to an older generation (like me): my experience with making phone calls looks like this: walk out into the hallway where the charging station is plugged in, pick up the phone handset, punch in the number, push the green button, wait, and talk. The end. Did I mention that I don't own a smart phone?

What is this "green button" of which you speak? And how do you "punch in" numbers, don't you mean spin the dial?

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

#98

Post by tremon »

gary_0 wrote: post #12

Because phones aren't allowed to have bezels anymore for some reason, I'm constantly hanging up on people because there's no room for a proximity sensor to turn off the screen so my cheek presses the "hang up" button. It tries to use the front camera as a makeshift sensor, but it doesn't work very well. Recently I reacted with incredulity when the people on the other end could properly hear me through a newly-connect…

My father's phone had the same problem (some HTC abomination), but with the mute button rather than the end call button. I'm not sure if it was due to cheek contact with the screen or some gyro sensor thinking that the phone was flipped upside down, but during a call the phone would randomly mute its microphone.

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

#99

Post by mellavora »

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?

not if you are spamming your number when you call

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

#100

Post by marak830 »

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…

Why do these bullshit comments always seem to end up on top?
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