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Slashdot Asks: How Do You Navigate Your Smartphone?
There are many different ways to navigate a smartphone. Some devices employ capacitive touch navigation buttons in favor of on-screen navigation buttons for the back, home and overview commands. Others, such as the recently released Moto Z2 Force and Moto Z2 Play, feature a mini trackpad under the display that lets users navigate their device through a series of swipes (on-screen navigation buttons are used by default, but the option to use the "one button nav" mini trackpad can be enabled in the settings). The upcoming iPhone 8, for example, may feature a software bar in lieu of a physical/virtual home button, introducing new gesture controls for returning to the home screen and switching between apps.
How do you navigate your smartphone? Given the many different options available on the market, do you think there is one method of navigation that trumps the others, or is it a classic case of "different strokes for different folks?"
How do you navigate your smartphone? Given the many different options available on the market, do you think there is one method of navigation that trumps the others, or is it a classic case of "different strokes for different folks?"
I use the live tiles set up on the home page of my Windows Phone. Super simple.
I don't respond to AC's.
I navigate with maps.
with a Nutscrape Navigator
I use the keyboard, damnit.
I use punch cards the way God and Nature intended.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
put it in my pocket and look out the window of my car.
On my Android phone I swipe left to ignore a call or swipe right to answer one. The rest of the crud isn't used except for family texts.
I finger it.
I just talk to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I was in repair shop once (because my iPhone's phone jack wouldn't take the stereo mini cable I was trying to stick into it anymore. I thought something was bent inside the hole, turned out it was just jammed with pocket lint.) and the clerk did something I now do every day.
She took my phone, and instead of hunting for the settings icon, she swiped down, hit the letters "se" and the settings icon presented itself! She f*cking searched for it! I do that with spotlight on my mac all the time, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do that on my iPhone, but I sure do now.
So to answer the question:
1. I try to delete apps aggressively, that helps.
2. I put the most used stuff on the first page, leaving empty space if that's required.
3. I group games together and tuck them away.
4. I search for stuff I use once in a while.
Its an ongoing process. The problem is there's a long tail graph of usage of apps. My iMessage, phone and Skype apps get used a ton, my sense app and a few games get used once a day, settings etc, once a week and a hand full once a month. The remainder probably need to be deleted.
The iOS app/interface manager isn't that great. Sure I have full control, but damn, help me out a bit. Doesn't the windows phone sort apps by usage? That would be amazingly helpful. So would a notification of what apps should probably be deleted.
I don't want that much fine grained control & it's stressful to see all that crap on your phone.
TK
You insensitive clod!
It's not really a trackpad but instead a fingerprint reader which also recognizes just two rudimentary gestures - touch for home button, touch & hold for fingerprint reader, swipe left to go back and swipe right for recent apps. But, still, I like that in normal use I don't need to wear out a physical button. Something else will break, anyway, I suppose.
On Android the cursor control is so terrible I have to use Vol Up/Down remapped to cursor left/right in order to fix certain corrections. Sometimes autocorrect works and sometimes it pretends it doesn't even exist anymore. Sometimes the red underlines provide a drop down list and sometimes they don't. Android has like 4 types of autocorrect enabled at any given moment which makes textboxes slow down to a crawl and then they don't even kick in when you need them.
How does text entry work so well on iOS and fail in so many ways on Android? I defected from iOS long ago but text entry is fondly remembered by comparison.
I was doing a PC refresh project that required getting underneath desks to set up the cable for the file transfer between old and new PCs. I had a touch screen smartphone that was getting wonky. Every time I put the smartphone in my back pocket and got underneath the desk, an ass swipe would call my boss. He would hear nothing but me grunting or farting from the hard work. That would happen four or five times a night. I had to leave the smartphone on my cart to prevent the ass swiping from happening.
Until they started turning it off.
http://i49.tinypic.com/rbejqu....
I've had bad experience with touchscreens. Right now, I have a software back button on the corner of my touchscreen and it just won't recognize any touches. Sometimes I can tap at it for five or ten seconds to get it to register, but most of the time is is just.... dead.
However, my phone has a single hardware button, and that allows the phone to still be usable.
This is the second phone this has happened on, so I think physical buttons are now a requirement for me.
I navigate my Moto E go-phone mostly by yelling and screaming at it, threatening to toss it, and uttering lengthy expletives about the programmers who created its perplexing and idiotic UI.
It took me a few weeks to figure out how to answer the damn thing. It's still unreliable, as hitting *anything* by accident instead of performing the correct touch gesture makes it leave the answering context. I had to look up the manual (yeah the freakin' *manual*) to learn how to answer my phone! You would think they could have printed a little "swipe that-a-way to answer phone -->" on the screen to give new operators a clue. But no... If you fail to answer it with the right gesture, then it provides a menu of options including everything EXCEPT "Answer the fucking phone." There is some way to get back to having a chance to answer it, but I forget what it is. Then of course it always turns on the camera as the side button activates it.
It is a hideous thing!
If I didn't have Linux for my PCs, I would be extremely unhappy with the computing world, because everything else is borderline unusable by comparison.
I would rather just have a simple phone. Maybe with an .mp3 player feature. Of course, such a thing no longer exists :-(
I don't navigate my phone. My phone is not a ship.
Then again, if you insist on metaphors, YOUR PHONE IS NAVIGATING YOU!!!
Sometimes, I throw it against the wall when it freezes up, other times I fumble with it and drop it on the floor. Otherwise, I rub the glass surface with my fingers, like everyone else I know, hoping it doesn't freeze up. Anyway, were you expecting that I use a hammer and chisel?
And sometimes a finger.
Even if I touch "home", it's just to hold it and bring the assistant up without saying "OK Google". I then say "open xxxxxx" where xxxxxx is any app on my phone and it does it - even if it is nowhere to be found as it often is on my spouse's phone (who hates icons covering the background).
With the assistant, I do a lot now without even looking at my phone.
More complicated things like sending messages have become "text xxxx to yyyy" followed by answering "yes" when it verifies whether I'd like to send it - or "take me to xxxx". And with driving directions, I've found I can use common names almost all of the time now - addresses are rarely necessary.
I'm keeping this blackberry classic until it explodes, then I'll get a flip phone.
I do have an android nexus they gave me for work, it sucks balls.
I use Siri for all my phone navigation. You learn a lot about the world that way, because most of the times she doesn't understand me.
-- Cheers!
I am MUCH more efficient on a real computer.
I use the touchscreen, but I also use swipe. Way easier and faster than typing (most of the time) but can suck if I mix English with German in one textarea.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In 10+ years I have been lurking around these parts of the internet I struggle to remember a more absurd question. What's next? What finger do you use when turning on your computer? Do you use the same when turning it off? I use the middle by the way. Same finger the senior editor that approved this question should be shown.
I poke my cock at it because my fingers are too fat.
I use a Blackberry Thumb Operated Trackwheel on my 7290, you insensitive clod!!
*** Don't be dull.***
I don't because I made the conscious decision to never get one because they are life-consuming wastes of money and time.
If people want me, they can e-mail me or FUCK off.
Life is good.
I do have a Tablet, though. I use a stylus like any sensible person. Touch-screen is the 2nd most inferior interaction right behind motion-based gestures. The only useful component of touch-screens is gestures for doing stuff like zooms, rotations, pans, etc. Basic interaction is atrocious. Typing with thumbs? Hell out of here with that noise. No amount of magical keyboards make that enjoyable.
I need to be sure that the basic functions are always accessible, so the next time an app pukes up a fullscreen ad I can just break out of it and delete the app. Of course app developers don't like that. They like soft buttons that they can disable.
Have a Moto G5, I navigate using the finger sensor. One quick touch, main screen. Swipe to the right, shows background running tasks, swipe to the left closes or return to the prior screen. That's all, folks!