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I made this comment/question in the other thread about iPhone 4 letter, but I'll paste here: "i'm wondering why bars are not equally the same height across. th

by ttol 16y ago

I made this comment/question in the other thread about iPhone 4 letter, but I'll paste here: "i'm wondering why bars are not equally the same height across. the quantity alone should be enough (1 vs 5) to convey strength. with the height being variable, it seems to make things seem worst in the worst possible way -- 5 will still be 5, but when its a 1, because the height is so much shorter, it seems worst than 1. what is the upside to variable height when you already have variable width in terms of number of bars? it's not as if there's an algorithm that determines the correct height for that particular signal, as there is a (faulty?) algorithm to determine the correct width (bars)."

jerf 16y ago
My cheap POC phone does that, and I do prefer it. I think it is because the "varying heights" icon has become part of brand identity. Woe betide the putatively-informational display that becomes part of the "brand identity".
- parallax7d 16y ago
  How about a number 0% - 100%. I think we as humans could grasp this system without having to interpret or count bars. Also, less room for apple to graphically misrepresent signal strength.
  - pstuart 16y ago
    Good idea. Make it a user selectable option.
    - hadley 16y ago
      Yup, that's the apple design philosophy right there.
      - spicyj 16y ago
        In fact, the battery percentage option on the 3GS and the 4 allows for such a choice, but you're right that it's uncommon.
        adbge 16y ago
        Googling around, you can toggle this feature on a 3G (or earlier) by jailbreaking the device and grabbing a third party utility called SBSettings.
  - dustingetz 16y ago
    signal strength is measured in logarithmic units, not linear.
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      And, even then, I hear that the relative metric is signal-to-noise, not raw signal strength.
  - a-priori 16y ago
    But then you're back to square one, except you've made the problem worse by dividing it into 100 units instead of 5. What's "100%" mean? It's pretty clear what "0%" means (no signal), but what's "1%" mean?
    - parallax7d 16y ago
      100% would mean whatever equates to getting full telephony/full data bandwidth. As throughput drops, you can certainly apply a percentage to it, until you get to 0%, no throughput. People would then learn that at x% they are getting decent data speed, and at x% things become unusably slow, at x% voice service drops off, etc..
      - windsurfer 16y ago
        That's not how it works at all though. Speeds step down at different rates depending on many factors.
        silentOpen 16y ago
        All the more reason to give yourself a bigger domain (101 elements instead of 5). You don't need to map into the percentage domain directly from signal strength; you could easily define a function of data/voice connectivity as throughput to a percent scale. "But data and voice have different quality of service criteria and blah blah blah!" So make up a function that accounts for this. Or add another indicator for data exclusively and keep the bars for voice.
        palish 16y ago
        you could -EASILY- define a function of data/voice connectivity as throughput to a percent scale. "But data and voice have different quality of service criteria and blah blah blah!" So make up a function that accounts for this. Translation: insert magical code here? You remind me of people who say "Your videogame is so slow, why don't you use multiple cores? Just use threads, you could easily do it." Practical problems are rarely easily solved.

by ttol 16y ago

jerf 16y ago

My cheap POC phone does that, and I do prefer it. I think it is because the "varying heights" icon has become part of brand identity. Woe betide the putatively-informational display that becomes part of the "brand identity".

parallax7d 16y ago
How about a number 0% - 100%. I think we as humans could grasp this system without having to interpret or count bars. Also, less room for apple to graphically misrepresent signal strength.
- pstuart 16y ago
  Good idea. Make it a user selectable option.
  - hadley 16y ago
    Yup, that's the apple design philosophy right there.
    - spicyj 16y ago
      In fact, the battery percentage option on the 3GS and the 4 allows for such a choice, but you're right that it's uncommon.
      - adbge 16y ago
        Googling around, you can toggle this feature on a 3G (or earlier) by jailbreaking the device and grabbing a third party utility called SBSettings.
- dustingetz 16y ago
  signal strength is measured in logarithmic units, not linear.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    And, even then, I hear that the relative metric is signal-to-noise, not raw signal strength.
- a-priori 16y ago
  But then you're back to square one, except you've made the problem worse by dividing it into 100 units instead of 5. What's "100%" mean? It's pretty clear what "0%" means (no signal), but what's "1%" mean?
  - parallax7d 16y ago
    100% would mean whatever equates to getting full telephony/full data bandwidth. As throughput drops, you can certainly apply a percentage to it, until you get to 0%, no throughput. People would then learn that at x% they are getting decent data speed, and at x% things become unusably slow, at x% voice service drops off, etc..
    - windsurfer 16y ago
      That's not how it works at all though. Speeds step down at different rates depending on many factors.
      - silentOpen 16y ago
        All the more reason to give yourself a bigger domain (101 elements instead of 5). You don't need to map into the percentage domain directly from signal strength; you could easily define a function of data/voice connectivity as throughput to a percent scale. "But data and voice have different quality of service criteria and blah blah blah!" So make up a function that accounts for this. Or add another indicator for data exclusively and keep the bars for voice.
        palish 16y ago
        you could -EASILY- define a function of data/voice connectivity as throughput to a percent scale. "But data and voice have different quality of service criteria and blah blah blah!" So make up a function that accounts for this. Translation: insert magical code here? You remind me of people who say "Your videogame is so slow, why don't you use multiple cores? Just use threads, you could easily do it." Practical problems are rarely easily solved.