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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

Nice.

I have a recurring problem with alarms and timers with my iPhone. When an alarm goes off there’s a big button in the middle that snoozes it, so it will go off again. At the bottom, in small print, is Stop.

While when a timer goes off there’s a big button in the middle that stops the alarm. At the bottom, in small print, is “repeat” which will make it go off again.

Naturally I can never figure out which one to press when I’m groggy and don’t have my glasses on.

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I use an Android phone, my wife uses an iPhone. On my phone, if the screen is black, you press the "power" button to make the screen not-black. On her phone, if you pick it up, the screen becomes not-black, and if you then hit the power button (even if the alarm is going off) it locks the screen.

So cue me trying to turn her alarm off while she is in the shower, I pick it up, hit the power button and now have to unlock her phone in order to turn the alarm off. I mostly get it right now, but she's very confused as to why I'm trying to unlock her phone when I should only have to hit "stop"

This annoys me to no end as well. I always need to look at the device to see which is which.

Can’t figure out why someone thought this was the best design.

This annoys you for no purpose?

Nice ambiguity in the expression that I’d never noticed that before!

That's not the right phrase, it should be "annoys me no end".

Well, TIL. [0] “It annoys me no end” sounds wrong, but disirregardless, thanks internet strangers, I’ll refrain from using this turn of phrase going forward.

(No /s)

0: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/69501/meaning-an...

I've always heard it as, "annoys me no end". No "to" in there.

It makes more sense the way the GP wrote it: "to no end" == "without end", though it is ambiguous.

It may make more sense, but that's not the phrase that people use.

I've never heard anyone say, "to no end". It's always just "no end".

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/69501/meaning-an...

I haven't seen "to no end" being used to mean "for no purpose".

But I see GP's usage of "to no end" a lot.

Yet is it too late to change (perhaps some people have this in their muscle memory?). And what change would be best?

I think either change is fine. I’ve owned an iPhone for 8 years and can type without looking at the keyboard, but I still can’t remember whether the timer or the alarm has snooze in the middle. Just pick one and be done with it.

The Snooze button on iOS alamrs can be turned off by editing the alarm. I never use Snooze, so I turn it off for all my alarms. All that's left now is a nice Stop button.

You can click either of the volume buttons to snooze btw. That’s the way I do it - volume buttons for snooze, and only physically look at screen if I want to click stop.

This is the kind of UI inconsistency that ChatGPT (or other machine) should be able to bring up for remedial action.

Any of the physical buttons will snooze it.

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