4 ms·

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

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.
    - silentOpen 16y ago
      And yet this problem has not only been solved but been subsequently broken by marketers. Some things that seem easy are actually hard. I'm sure defining the appropriate function isn't all roses but a semi-competent software/radio engineer could figure out something with the right properties. With Apple's budget, they could easily do this.
DannoHung 16y ago
How about just showing the bandwidth itself and then make it colored differently if it drops below the ability to make a voice call?

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.
  - silentOpen 16y ago
    And yet this problem has not only been solved but been subsequently broken by marketers. Some things that seem easy are actually hard. I'm sure defining the appropriate function isn't all roses but a semi-competent software/radio engineer could figure out something with the right properties. With Apple's budget, they could easily do this.

DannoHung 16y ago

How about just showing the bandwidth itself and then make it colored differently if it drops below the ability to make a voice call?