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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

#151
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?

“Engagement”

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

#152
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…

Are you sure that's Google and not your device manufacturer or your carrier? The dialer on my Android phone seems OK. I'm not going to claim it's the best UX ever, but it certainly doesn't interrupt me with dialogs about anything. Android phones are infamous for having carrier-required crap pre-loaded.

I switched from LG to a pixel. I don't regret the better hardware or more frequent updates, but so many tiny things were substantially better on the LG.

Biggest peeve: on the LG phones I had, you could use the volume buttons / menu to silence or turn down individual applications. On the pixel, out of the box you only get a global media volume control.

Also have experience with the stock phone dialler putting up prompts while I am in the middle of doing something else, which never happened on LG. The other big annoyance is the timer portion of the clock app is significantly harder to use.

All that said, I will happily take stock android on the pixel any day over any Samsung product.

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

#153
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

default android feature as well [0]

[0]: https://support.google.com/android/answer/9069335?hl=en#zipp...

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s crazy that anyone can force a full-screen interrupt on my personal device with no context. It's a _phone_. Phone calls are it's primary function. If you don't want that, wouldn't a pad be a better option than a phone? Besides, how would you handle calls from landlines and such?

>Besides, how would you handle calls from landlines and such? Direct to voicemail, of course, with a message saying 'text me' for automatic transcription. As they say, its a feature not a bug [to not be interrupted]. In a perfect world I'd have a secretary or AI to screen calls on my behalf, but I don't.

Thankfully you’re not charge of designing my phone

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any browser on iPhone.

You can use any browser skin on an iphone. They're all the same web view.

Right, but the underlying engine doesn’t matter much practically speaking. I don’t think I’ve ever run into a situation where the browser on iOS limited me from doing things I would want to do on mobile.

I use FireFox on iOS because it syncs with FireFox on my laptop.

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

#156
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…

> It’s crazy that anyone can force a full-screen interrupt on my personal device with no context. It's a _phone_. Phone calls are it's primary function. If you don't want that, wouldn't a pad be a better option than a phone? Besides, how would you handle calls from landlines and such?

As a phone, all cell phones are terrible. In the wired-phone era companies used to advertise on call quality. Nobody does that any more because the quality of cell phone calls is so abysmal that text with (or without frankly) emojis is an order of magnitude better for communication.

If they made pads the size of my phone that could still use cell network internet and that I could put a custom OS on I'd consider it.

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

#157
The article makes a great point early on: hearing voices over VOIP is markedly different than over analog phone lines. The robotic voice and the weird compression when your connection isn't good are common for me. Worst of all is the 0.5-1 second delay I still sometimes hear, on local calls no less!

If the same call was being had over a phone line and we were in the same country, the audio fidelity would be excellent.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an S10, literally did. So which anecdote wins?

The point is parent's generalization is wrong because it's either caused by faulty hardware or software issue, but it's not widespread problem across all new (Android) smartphones, just because you and him experience this issue.

Also just throwing my hat into the ring, writing this on a S10e. It's not perfect, but I don't have any issues with the sensors, no ads, and it generally just works about as well as any other phone I've used.

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

#159
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…

What about iOS where you cant copy in a number and then edit it? Every time I want to call a foreign number and need to add a country code I need to make a new contact and then edit that.

This one drives me crazy in all iOS phone number entry type situations. once you've dialed in the the 10 numbers, it makes it into whatever that little bubble is called that makes it no longer editable. you have to delete the whole bubble of 10 digits, and start typing the whole number again instead of being able to edit the probably single digit that needs correcting.

However, I'm old enough to remember the pain of recognizing a mis-dialed number from rotary phones. Old enough to remember only needing to dial 5 digits. Then the pain of having to dial the full prefix going to 7 digits, growing to full horror going to full 10 digit. luckily by 10 digit, touch tone was in place.

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

#160
post #157

The article makes a great point early on: hearing voices over VOIP is markedly different than over analog phone lines. The robotic voice and the weird compression when your connection isn't good are common for me. Worst of all is the 0.5-1 second delay I still sometimes hear, on local calls no less! If the same call was being had over a phone line and we were in the same country, the audio fidelity would be excellent…

That's funny - my experience is digital is much clearer than an old analog line.
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