from Hacker News

Dear. Android – Leave. The. Power. Button. Alone

by shdon on 7/7/24, 7:43 PM with 26 comments

• by binkethy on 7/8/24, 7:26 AM

  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.

• by BugsJustFindMe on 7/8/24, 1:30 AM

  Despite the title, iPhones do this too as noted, and importantly it was a change made after removing the fingerprint reader. And of course in perfect Apple fashion you don't get a choice. I hate it. I still fail to turn my phone off sometimes. But also I will probably eventually get used to it, and people who started using iPhones after the change won't experience it as a change.

• by Kirby64 on 7/8/24, 1:58 AM

  I don’t get this point of this article. Turning off your phone is an infrequent activity. Using a two button combo to accomplish this seems perfectly fine. It’s not like a two second hold is that inconvenient, and once you learn it in your phone… how often are you turning off other people’s phones?

  Relegating the side button to only function as power off and nothing else is not a good default behavior, in my view. For power users, sure… let them configure it to do that, I guess.

• by NoPicklez on 7/8/24, 4:35 AM

  Why waste an entire button to just be responsible for powering the device on or off? It's not something I do very often at all and if can be repurposed as a functional button then I am all for it.

  It's especially helpful as an accessibility option.

• by mmaniac on 7/8/24, 1:17 PM

  Part of being a luddite who doesn't discard perfectly good tech when newer and shinier gadgets come out is that I get surprised hearing about negative trends like this.

  Really, the power button doesn't work any more?

• by exabrial on 7/8/24, 1:40 AM

  We really need a third operating system. One that applies common sense like: power means power, and direct have integrated ad tracking.

• by daghamm on 7/8/24, 4:28 PM

  This is such an odd rant. My old Nokia occasionally restarted in my pocket somehow, I'm happy Android has found a better solution.

  Besides, the power shortcut is the most used (and appreciated) function on my phone. I'm using it to quickly open the camera.

• by vlark on 7/8/24, 3:24 AM

  I have my Android phone's power button set up to turn on/off the flashlight feature with a double click. It's immensely convenient. I have a low-end Samsung A23 5G.

• by seeknotfind on 7/8/24, 12:47 PM

  HahahahhahahajajjajahahahahahBNnNnbn. The consumer speaks. You'll get what you want if you're upset, so keep it up. :)