6 ms·

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

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.

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.