Can you actually even turn and keep the microphone off or does it toggle itself back on like Apple's Wifi and Bluetooth one-touch toggle off for now buttons?
This comparison rubs me off the wrong way every time I see, because.
1. The notifications clearly tell the behavior (doing $THING until tomorrow).
2. There's a way to turn them "really off".
What LG does is completely different. IIRC from the teaser of this video, the microphone is never "completely" off or apps can re-enable them somehow.
It should work just like a physical button. I don’t appreciate the “we know better for you so we’ll adjust the behavior accordingly” MITM.
9/10 times I've used this setting, what I've actually wanted was to temporarily change the behavior. This just saves me from the need to remember to undo it (which I won't remember in a timely manner).
This isn't "we know better than you" paternalistic control - the default/easy behavior should cater to the actions and situation we do regularly. I'm sure they do, in fact, know that for most of their customers, when they disable wifi it's because that user wants to temporarily disconnect from the current wifi, but will want to use wifi shortly after, but won't necessarily remember to go into settings and re-enable.
It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.
Yet, here there is needless nuance added because there is a benefit to the company that the device is either chronically or as much as possible connected to the internet, connected to bluetooth, low battery mode is off, and if they cant have it connected to the internet and bluetooth, well, at least keep the beaconing on and sending out signals and at least meshing so advertisers and stores and their own Find/lost services are still able to benefit.
Thats not even getting into passive Fingerprinting and secondary furtive location tracking. I was surprised to learn that having bluetooth on identifies your device to stores and anyone else who can track bluetooth devices in range. Even when you toggled off bluetooth, you're still being profiled. I wonder if actually going into settings and turning off bluetooth or wifi even totally stops the device from continuing to signal in all ways, it would be unsurprising if thats another UI nicety that doesnt actually mean what it says or implies
OTOH, it benefits the phone owner to use wifi, as it's lower power use than cellular the majority of the time.
Why?
I get you have some principled opinions or deep belief about tracking or betrayal from corporations or something. That’s nice.
But why should it be easier to do the things that people don’t want to do often instead of the things that people do want to do often?
Good UI makes repeated actions easier than rare actions. That is good UI because it makes the common action easier, conspiracy theory about tracking and fingerprinting be damned.
Why is OFF so complicated and nuanced, why would they put out something where even toggling something doesnt turn off the beaconing function where its not OFF and even tho its DISCONNECTED, its not OFF?
Why does it need to stay ON (albeit DISCONNECTED, altho theres no evidence thats even true) if theres no benefit to it being ON as you've said?
I would agree with you that it should operate like a dumb toggle if they didn't have the notification saying that it would auto re-enable again.
Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles. The same reason you see a handle on a door a pill before you read the sign that says push. The sign is literally there because the physical design is telling you something different. It is literally mixed signals.
Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer. Hell, if they really wanted to keep the toggle like design, make it look like a spring.
But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why people get confused. It is also crazy considering how much Apple prides themselves on design. If it was good design, you wouldn't need the sign...
Also, is this really different from a button that reflects state? E.g. you have a battery saver button that automatically turns on at <20%, is that fundamentally different than a button that resets to a given value at 0:00? I genuinely don't know, just asking questions here.
For the buttons when you pull down the menu, literally any physical change would help, not just color and a message. Highlight the circular edge and make it work like a count down. Make it a polygon instead of a circle. Rotate the symbol in that count down. There's a million ways to do it differently
Yes, good design needs no language. However, it's not reasonable to see a toggle and think it's a permanent toggle. Esp, when it's a button. There are many buttons in the world which doesn't toggle. In iOS, a toggle is also different from a button.
> Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer.
They did, actually. They added clear messaging, think about a LCD screen on top of a button, and have iconography communicating the status clearly.
> But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent...
I'll respectfully disagree here with you.
> ...because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle.
Sorry to disagree, but this is not true:
- Enabled: Blue background
- Temporary disconnect: White background
- Disable: Line through icon.
> In iOS, a toggle is also different from a button.
> They added clear messaging
> Sorry to disagree, but this is not true:
They're inconsistent:
- Radio buttons are blue when on but white when temporary disabled
- all other buttons are white while enabled
- cellular is green when enabled
- battery saver is yellow when enabled
- airplane mode is orange when enabled
- the icon is red for rotate lock and silent
- white background means both enabled and temporary disabled
- on most of the radio buttons they're blue when enabled and white when temporary, no off
- on others (vpn, rotate, silent, battery, etc) white background while enabled
- personal hotspot, satellite, silent, and automotive cues have a cross out when disabled
- nothing else does
- that includes radio things like VPN and airplane
I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Additionally that there are shapes other than circles and ellipses
Maybe we can try, why not?
> Do I really need to continue? I trust you can find more on your own.
I mean, I'm a bit tired right now, but will try tomorrow.
> They're inconsistent:
I don't think so: Anything broadcasts signal is blue, anything cellular is green, and since Airplane mode disables every radio transmission, it's orange. It makes sense for me.
> white background means both enabled and temporary disabled.
If something is enabled with a white background, it's icon has color. If something is temporarily disabled, its icon becomes transparent.
> personal hotspot, satellite, silent, and automotive cues have a cross out when disabled
Is it only my stupid brain thinks that a cross out means "unavailable", independent of the reason? It may have been turned off, can't be turned on.
Also, many of the radio-related settings has text next to it. Not available, turned off, disabled, etc.
> I also want to remind you that some people are colorblind.
Thanks for reminding me the following:
- Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Differentiate without color.
- Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color filters.
So, I'll be dead honest: I'm happy with the design language of current iPhone. Is it perfect? No, but its use of color and clustering things make me way faster on using it. A regular grid with thin icons as used in Android is way more slower for my tiny brain, I'm not intelligent, sorry.
We might not agree, and we don't have to. This is what propels world forward, but we don't have to be this angry while disagreeing. We talked about cardiac arrest with a friend today. It's painful for everyone involved.
> Anything broadcasts signal is blue
OTOH personal hotspot, which does broadcast, is white.
I think the display pattern is at least partially location dependent.
> Thanks for reminding me the following
Though the first one doesn't seem to do anything for me. What's it supposed to do?
> A regular grid with thin icons as used in Android is way more slower for my tiny brain
> We might not agree, and we don't have to. This is what propels world forward, but we don't have to be this angry while disagreeing.
Because to your bigger point, you're right. No single one of us knows the "perfect solution" (not just one exists). And I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
[0] I think engineers should always be a little grumpy, because it's how we improve things. We fix our frustrations. But I'm not trying to say angry or hateful. There's productive arguing and fighting.
Marvin was able to touch the surface of the ship and open up an entry hatchway, and the interior of the ship was completely black. There were black controls labelled in black, on a black background, with a little light that lit up black, which made it difficult to control the ship. The ceiling and walls of the swaying cabin were also black, as well as the seats, control panel, the instruments and the little screws that held them in place. The thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when a corner of the foam underlay was lifted up that was also discovered to be was black.Same with WiFi. It doesnt even turn WiFi off, it just "disconnects" but keeps WiFi searching and whatever else. Why not have the option to make the toggle actually do the same thing as having to go all the way to Settings to do when the intention is clear and obvious?
Why does it take 2 presses and going a level deep to turn off something when the easy toggle makes it so smooth and easy to turn on which is conveniently the behavior they want
There is a toggle showing the Wifi symbol and the bluetooth symbol, you toggle it means you want to turn it on or off, it doesnt show wifi connections glyph or bluetooth connections glyph, it shows the symbolic representation of that underlying larger function/mode of your phone. You expect when you turn it off it disconnects and stops trying to send that particular signal since you made a concrete choice (you thought) to turn it off. Same with Low Energy mode, if I toggle that it means I want it on until I toggle it off, not when battery is 80% or when phone is turned off and on again. You expect state persistance until you change it.
Its like saying when you try to unsubscribe from a service, ok you've disconnected from your subscription (but in fine print) it will be back next month or some other arbitrary merchant prescribed date. No, it will be back when I say I want it back and make the necessary active effort to reestablish or change that.
I want you to try this experiment:
1. Toggle WiFi and BlueTooth from your command centre thing 2. Go to > Settings 3. What information is shown for Wifi and for Blutooth?
It will likely say something "No connection". Phew, I guess it worked. Alright, lets call it a day.
But wait?
4. Tap each one and voila, both should show the green On toggle status. You have not turned off Wifi or Bluetooth, it has merely "disconnected" them, depending on your Wifi settings it will likely try to autojoin your known hotspot and they're back in business likely well before the automatic "tomorrow reconnect" comes that the toggle ostensibly sets in motion
Its not technically lying but the expectation when you turn off a toggle is it turns off that which you physically and intended to toggle. This abdicates that reasonable expectation and twists it ridiculously.
Its bad enough that theres no easy optionto actually turn it off short of automating it, its just sneaky and a clear conflict of interest
Same deal with Low Battery Mode or whatever, it always tries to get you off it, back to the Green battery icon at the top bar of your screen. Battery is 80% charged, thats enough for you, back to waste energy doing more of the stuff thats good for us and bad for your battery, Mac at least has always but its always trying to assert what is sufficent or enough for you even when there is a clear preference of the user, if it mattered to them that they were aligning with your preference and not working against you they could easily evaluate that but thats contrary to their interest
Long version:
We have different expectations from our systems. I personally use Mac laptops as well, and Apple devices use P2P wireless and Bluetooth for so many little things you use everyday, so when I click it and it explicitly prints "Disconnecting from Bluetooth devices until tomorrow" prominently, I'm happy with the functionality. If I want to turn it off, I can go to settings from control center in three taps at most.
About your experiment:
- When I disconnect Bluetooth for a day, it shows Bluetooth as on and adds a note: "New Bluetooth connections have been turned off from Control Center." It has a big button above it: "Allow New Connections".
- When I disconnect Wi-Fi for a day, it shows Wireless as on and adds a note: "New Wi-Fi network connections have been turned off from Control Center". Clicking a network to join makes it connect again.
If I open an app using Bluetooth while it's disconnected, it shows a dialogue saying that new connections are disabled, but app needs new connections. You can enable it on the spot.
Unless you give explicit permission, it never connects to a wireless network or Bluetooth device. A couple of times I forgot that I disabled the connections and wondered why it didn't connect to wireless network at home. Same for Bluetooth. I wondered why it asked me to enable it, then remembered that I turned off connections.
When you're running on low power mode, half of the features of the iPhone shuts down from 5G to mail fetch and beyond. HDR display is disabled, system FPS is halved, etc. etc. It's of course natural something wanting to run at normal speed. However, on busy days, I click it once in the morning and never think about it.
I never understand the general anger about something not working as expected. I understand where you are coming from, but the primary reason I'm using Apple hardware is "I already manage a thousand servers, I don't want another one to manage in my pocket".
That thing takes care of itself, let it be backups, updates and whatnot. Yes, Apple devices has their opinions and some users might not agree with that, but another thing I don't understand is, how it's good when some free software has its opinions and how it's bad when the source is closed? I mean, everything has opinions and a set modus operandi, and Apple devices work that way.
For once, I like how that thing works and I can just depend on it.
For the battery life thing, my old iPhone X lasted 4+ years per battery, and I used that one for 10 years until its battery gave up, and I didn't aggressively manage that one. My current one lasts two days despite me capping its charge at 80%, and not using power save mode aggressively.
I mean, being this judgemental and angry about a computer is bad for your health. Nobody forces anyone to buy these things, and there are choices. At the end of the day, it's a computer, but its form factor and hardware quality is top notch, I'll give them that. If you really want to use an Apple device, being open minded and giving the default settings a go is always a good idea. I like to have an open mind about things. I mean, things evolve and new things sounding stupid sometimes works so well that leaves the user baffled. I'd rather try and don't like a setting or let my habits change than being an old man yelling proverbial cloud.
You may not like the behavior or design choices of a certain piece of hardware, that's also OK, but labeling behavior as something which is not is wrong IMHO.
Isnt that sort of disrespectful or comtemptuous of the concept of consent? If i dont want something, its a bit weird to force me to keep saying no not now...but yes is forever. Little rapey isnt it? If i want it i will seek it out, its just cynical to not offer a more redpectful permanent no option. Love to hear your thoughts about how im wrong about what i want and bring treated like i only have two contrived choices rather than a true third no option that takes me out of the sales pipeline forseeably
While I find iCloud useful and use it regularly, I don't think nagging people until they break is a good thing to do. I didn't setup a new Apple account or a new Apple device from scratch since forever (I migrate forward so I don't setup anything), so I didn't know that Apple resorted doing that. Sad.
> Love to hear your thoughts about how im wrong about what i want and bring treated like i only have two contrived choices rather than a true third no option that takes me out of the sales pipeline forseeably
Thanks for your prejudice, but I'm not that person you're thinking I am. No offense taken though, but I feel obliged to remind you this: https://xkcd.com/438/