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Comment by binkethy | Hacker News Reader

I hate my samsung phone with a passion i also had while hating my iphone before it.

The stupid thing keeps trying to get me killed, is unresponsive to the most obvious urgings, and insists upon joking around when i need some info NOW.

I also have issues with most map apps and using them for navigation. It seems that the UI designers for these things never consider difficulty in seeing the crucial details on a small screen at high velocities with small glances.

I need the remaining KM until that turn, in large numbers, Google.

At the end of the day, despite being an allegedly technical person, I find smart phones to be rather difficult to use for their intended purposes. I have had immense difficulty in answering phone calls with mysterious swipes that at least this horrid samsung willfully ignores, laughing at me in derision, no doubt.

I don't get along with smart phones.

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> I also have issues with most map apps and using them for navigation. It seems that the UI designers for these things never consider difficulty in seeing the crucial details on a small screen at high velocities with small glances. > > I need the remaining KM until that turn, in large numbers, Google.

OsmAnd has a nice design, IMO: https://imgur.com/a/oZJIZst

It also lets you change the widgets and colorschemes, that's the LightRS map style and route line.

Enshittification. I don't know what is being taught in design schools but enshittification is definitely one of its subjects. Take a look at major products and how shitty they became, with poor design decisions that are unjustified.

Google Maps switched to a Apple-like color scheme months ago. Everyone hated it, the main roads were no longer highlighted and distinguished from normal roads. Google ignored. I had to drive back to the office 2 weeks ago and my friend setup the GPS, only to be confused about the route because the streets I should take were highlighted in blue, but due to high traffic in the area they became yellow. I was confused for a few minutes thinking "okay, this is a main road, where the hell should I go?" until my friend told me it's yellow because of traffic conditions.

Honestly, I think Samsung has one of the worst android interfaces. It looks approachable, but most any activity is harder than on others that are truer to the stock experience. That said, every manufacturer has some stupid things. My Moto phone always blanks the screen when you are talking, which is great, but then makes it difficult to actually get the screen to stay on if you need to use it while talking.

>I need the remaining KM until that turn, in large numbers, Google.

One thing with maps too is that it decided to default to auto mode when using the app, but auto mode won't bring up the keyboard, which sucks if you need to make changes to your route and aren't wanting to use the voice mode.

> My Moto phone always blanks the screen when you are talking,

I don't know exactly what model of phone you have, but most smartphones have a proximity sensor which is used to intelligently blank the screen only when it is at your head. Not uncommonly this sensor gets dusty or dirty, causing the issue you describe.

It maybe something to do with that, because it doesn't happen if I use the phone sitting on the desk, but once I've tipped it to my ear, even after I tip it down to look at the screen it'll lock the screen, I unlock it, it immediately locks it again, I unlock it, etc over and over.

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