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Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

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Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#171

Post by johndhi »

In my experience (which is about as relevant to this topic as one can imagine), regulatory-required features in software always get built in really shitty ways.

These are some of the reasons I've seen for why:

-the regulation isn't sufficiently flexible to allow the company to build it in a way that makes the most sense for their system

-for the same reason testing, user research and feedback largely don't matter

-the projects are led by legal or compliance teams who are generally terrible at building features

-the feature isn't requested by customers so the company has very limited dialogue with the user about it

-the feature will not make money so no one at the company is incentivized to build it well or spend time on it

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#172

Post by kwhitefoot »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #39
Dobbs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to call 911 is an essential part of a phone. To the point that Apple (and I'm assuming Google) both allow calling emergency services while the phone is locked.

In lots of countries it's also possible to call emergency numbers without a sim card.

It's not just possible, it is a feature of the GSM system. As far as I know it is a requirement in Europe.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#173

Post by Kwpolska »

mlyle wrote: post #167
numpad0 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1]. $1k, -95dB to 3GHz, in stock, manufacturer standard I/O plates sold separately. I think there's zero room for hypotheticals and challenges to talk about setting these up if you ask not webdevs but actual phone people. 1: https://jretest.com/product/jre-0912/

Who's the person who crawls into the tiny box and makes sure the dialer UI is doing the right thing, given that is what our primary concern is? We've been talking about the cost of making a screened room. "Turnkey" ones cost about $20-50k, but you're going to pay contractors a fair bit beyond that. Not to mention whatever equipment you're putting inside. https://www.ramayes.com/Refurbished_Radio_Frequency_Shielded...

$50k is chump change for Google. Regardless, there are costs and regulations associated with making a phone, and if you aren’t willing to adhere to that, you’d better keep making search engines and other websites.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#174

Post by mlyle »

Kwpolska wrote: post #173
mlyle wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's the person who crawls into the tiny box and makes sure the dialer UI is doing the right thing, given that is what our primary concern is? We've been talking about the cost of making a screened room. "Turnkey" ones cost about $20-50k, but you're going to pay contractors a fair bit beyond that. Not to mention whatever equipment you're putting inside. https://www.ramayes.com/Refurbished_Radio_Frequency_Shielded...

$50k is chump change for Google. Regardless, there are costs and regulations associated with making a phone, and if you aren’t willing to adhere to that, you’d better keep making search engines and other websites.

> $50k is chump change for Google.

c.f. my comment:

> > > It shouldn't be too expensive, but

People just don't read and understand that you can agree with the broader scope of comment but not the details.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#175

Post by guraf »

rkagerer wrote: post #76
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #65

Funny, because I have the opposite problem. My Pixel dials 911 out of random and I always have to race to disconnect the call. Just last night my Pixel Watch started ringing out of random while I was eating dinner and it said it was dialing 911. I saw a phone call pop up on my Pixel 6 phone but fortunately canceled it before it connected. My watch didn't even tell me why it dialed 911, and once I disconnected the cal…

Jeez - can't dial 911, randomly dials 911. I don't understand why these devices can't even do the most core feature of a phone properly. This will sound crass but the development teams (right up to CEO's) should be dragged out to the gallows and flogged. If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911 experience was perfect before shipping, and not rested for a minute until any bugs were solidly quashed - up…

In any other field, engineers would be held responsible and after so many "mistakes" they would lose their license.

Software engineers will fight tooth and nails to keep their privilege is being called engineers whilst having none of the responsibility when it comes to the harm they're causing.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#177

Post by numpad0 »

mlyle wrote: post #167
numpad0 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1]. $1k, -95dB to 3GHz, in stock, manufacturer standard I/O plates sold separately. I think there's zero room for hypotheticals and challenges to talk about setting these up if you ask not webdevs but actual phone people. 1: https://jretest.com/product/jre-0912/

Who's the person who crawls into the tiny box and makes sure the dialer UI is doing the right thing, given that is what our primary concern is? We've been talking about the cost of making a screened room. "Turnkey" ones cost about $20-50k, but you're going to pay contractors a fair bit beyond that. Not to mention whatever equipment you're putting inside. https://www.ramayes.com/Refurbished_Radio_Frequency_Shielded...

Our primary concern is dialer crashing! I don't understand why you're trying to shift the blame away from Google. That's just stupid.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#178

Post by thereisnojesus »

snazz wrote: post #143
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the exact same thing last year when I first heard of this (recurring) issue. Safety is not part of a promo packet, so who at Google cares to fix it? I hate how Apple infantilizes the user, but at least they have vision of making a product. Not a collection of promotion producing ideas.

Safety is definitely one of Apple’s key marketing points—you might have seen their ads for fall detection/emergency SOS on the Apple Watch or car crash detection on the iPhone.

Nope, I have not

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#179

Post by guraf »

johndhi wrote: post #171

In my experience (which is about as relevant to this topic as one can imagine), regulatory-required features in software always get built in really shitty ways. These are some of the reasons I've seen for why: -the regulation isn't sufficiently flexible to allow the company to build it in a way that makes the most sense for their system -for the same reason testing, user research and feedback largely don't matter -th…

If what you said was true, we'd see the same poor quality in Samsung or Apple phones. Yet we don't.

Re: Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency

#180

Post by Waterluvian »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #65

Funny, because I have the opposite problem. My Pixel dials 911 out of random and I always have to race to disconnect the call. Just last night my Pixel Watch started ringing out of random while I was eating dinner and it said it was dialing 911. I saw a phone call pop up on my Pixel 6 phone but fortunately canceled it before it connected. My watch didn't even tell me why it dialed 911, and once I disconnected the cal…

Some 911 operator online once mentioned that most of the calls they get are “butt dials.”

And then when I called months back I got an answering machine and waited what felt like an eternity (was one minute) to be routed to someone who then routed me elsewhere after determining what my needs were.

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