[ale] Stupid smart phone

[Alex Carver]

Turning the phone face down to decline the call is indeed an available 
gesture in some Android phones.

At one point smart phones used to use the ambient light/proximity sensor 
to detect pocket/no pocket but somehow that got overloaded into a dozen 
other features (pocket check, face check, desk check, floor check...) 
that all conflict and no one bothered to verify that it would all work.

There was also pressing the power button briefly to hang up but that was 
after the "turn off the display" feature had been attached to the power 
button. I hung up a lot of calls when that feature rolled out because 
the proximity sensor wouldn't turn the display off when I held it to my 
face.

The manufacturers are just going to cram features in to differentiate 
themselves from the others and they're not going to bother making sure 
it all works together or makes sense.

On 2021-12-10 04:55, Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
> Curmudgeon Alert!
> 
> Wife complains she calls and my phone answers but I'm not actually on the phone. She can hear sounds from my end. I have no idea what she's talking about. Until one day I heard her yelling my name from my pocket.
> 
> My security sense goes into high alert. Can someone call and my phone will automatically answer in my pocket and without my knowledge? What fresh, new level of personal privacy hell has android now sunk to?
> 
> In settings, gestures, is a way to have the phone automatically answer a call by just the motion of moving the phone from a viewing location to the ear.
> 
> Pretty much the same motion of walking with the phone in a mid-thigh phone pocket on my cargo pants.
> 
> I turned off that setting.
> 
> So what's next? A gesture that blocks callers if the phone is turned screen down?
> 
> Maybe a bit of delay that involves the actual ringing of the phone? Maybe checking if the phone is in pocket mode? Or the case cover is closed? Or maybe stop writing stupid code for people too lazy to plop their cheeto stained thumb on the answer button.
> 
> Can I still buy an analog flip phone I can dial by touch with numbers I actually remember?
> 
> Get off my lawn!
> 
> 
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