6 ms·

IPad - please don’t ding while you and I are asleep

11 points by roee 14y ago

rizwan 14y ago
Isn't this what the new Do Not Disturb feature in IOS6 addresses? http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ Also, all iPads have the switch above the volume button as a mute button already for notifications like this. (Note: yes, I know most people have changed this setting (back) to be an orientation-lock, but this guy's new to iPads so I'm assuming he didn't change the setting)
- deleted 14y ago
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phren0logy 14y ago
This is an actual beef, but is this seriously the the biggest criticism this guy could come up with? If so, it would seem the iPad is pretty well designed.
josteink 14y ago
On Android it is solved by simple installing a app which controls the devices sound profiles based on times you prefer. It probably took the developer 5 minutes to cook up with an ugly UI, but it works. I guess in the Apple world you need to wait for Apple to do it. And this feature has been missing since iOS 1. Yeah. Not missing iOS one bit.
- CubicleNinjas 14y ago
  Or just turn off sound notifications for emails in settings.
  - roee 14y ago
    That's exactly what I did as I mentioned in the post
    - CubicleNinjas 14y ago
      My note wasn't for you. You solved your "problem" in a Google search, but used this article as a trojan horse to soap box about two unrelated tangents. My note was for everyone here who was wondering how to fix it, but weren't willing to look in the second lines of the sixth paragraph.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - koeselitz 14y ago
    That's exactly what I do. Every night, I carefully set the settings on my iPhone so that I won't be disturbed by email notifications or other stuff. Every morning, I carefully set the settings on my iPhone so that I'll know when I get emails or texts or other messages. If I forget to do this, I miss a lot of stuff, but I really have no choice but to rely on myself. Does it really make sense that it takes so much effort? These are otherwise such effortless machines; it just seems weird that I can't make this part of using them easier.
    - kingnothing 14y ago
      If you mute your iPhone, alarms will still make noise. I mute my phone when I go to sleep and un-mute it when I wake up.
    - glhaynes 14y ago
      I think it's exactly this pain that iOS 6's Do Not Disturb mode is meant to alleviate.
      - koeselitz 14y ago
        I hadn't heard about that until this thread - nice! I am looking forward to that. Seems like a great thing.
- jshen 14y ago
  I've never found the abstract argument about more control a compelling reason to choose a product. Does product A or product B provide me more value? iOS is a much better user experience for me, and the people that point to "user control" of android never show anything that is of such value to me that it would overcome the better experience of iOS. I'll give one huge value iOS has over android in my life. My 2 year old can use an iOS device without needing assistance. She can't do the same with an android device.
  - Ineffable 14y ago
    More control is a big source of value for a lot of people. Personally, I don't need a 2 year old to be able to use my phone, but I draw great enjoyment from being able to customise it to my tastes very easily. Don't like the stock keyboard? Chuck it out. Don't like the app launcher? Download a new one. If you want a more consistent UI and smoother animations over that, then great - there's a polished, well made device for you too on iOS. Different strokes for different folks.
    - jshen 14y ago
      I agree with you, but let me rephrase one sentence. "More control is a big source of value for a [minority of people]"
      - josteink 14y ago
        Given Android's rampant popularity, you would have to come up with a source for that claim. I know here on HN the mantra is that people buy Android because it is cheaper/"they cannot afford iPhones", but in the real world people deliberately choose things not made by Apple. Despite the Apple fandom on this website, there is no universal truth in Apple being a superior platform. In fact, I say the lack of customizability speaks of it being poorly engineered.
        jshen 14y ago
        So your argument is that quality is a function of sales volume?
chrisdroukas 14y ago
Wait a few months for Do Not Disturb. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/11/do-not-disturb/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/11/do-not-disturb/
prezjordan 14y ago
Just out of curiosity, why not hit the mute switch when you're going to sleep? That's what I do. It takes a tenth of a second and allows me to control when I hear notifications just the way I want. I guess if you want the notification sounds but not while the device is open, then yeah you've got a bit of a problem (you would have to hit slide down and then slide the switch back up once you opened it.
- objclxt 14y ago
  I put my iPhone in airplane mode when I go to sleep - my alarms still work, I don't get disturbed, and because the radios are all powered down the battery barely drains at all (I charge mine in a dock at my work desk during the day).
  - cglee 14y ago
    I used to do this until I started missing important calls/texts because I forgot to turn it back on. An airplane/sleep mode with a timer would be nice.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      It is nice. And it's called 'Do Not Disturb', and is part of iOS 6. It has plenty of other features (like letting a call through, if the caller has calling twice in a row. It could be urgent).
incongruity 14y ago
"Second, if you ever build a product that can go to sleep, ask yourself: when my owner puts me to sleep, does he think I’ll make unsolicited noises unless they were explicitly requested by him (eg alarm clock)?" I think what's at issue here is the mental model at work on the part of the designers vs. this user (and other users, clearly) For the designers/Apple, locked is clearly not synonymous with "sleep" – any device that can receive push notifications or perform background tasks isn't really asleep... it's just not the focus of my attention. Would you say your smartphone is ever asleep? Mine never is. If it's not powered off, it's constantly working in the background, for my benefit (presumably). It checks email, weather alerts, waits for calls and everything else. It may not be the focus of my attention, but it's certainly not asleep. The author clearly wants to treat it like a traditional computer not surprising given his opening statement about not viewing it as a worthy replacement to act as one's "main device". If that's the mental model one uses, then yes, I completely see the issue – and yes, the upcoming do not disturb settings will be an all around blessing. However, the big take away isn't whether the designers at Apple were right and the do not disturb settings will be just an added feature or if the author is right and the lack of a do not disturb setting is a huge failure. The point is, instead, that we need to be better about understanding and predicting alternative mindsets on the part of others. From a design perspective, this is pretty obvious... but from a consumer/critic's standpoint, it's a necessary one as well. Failing to see this subtle issue makes your criticism much less impressive and much less valuable if you're in a place to be influencing future development because seeing the more abstract difference in mindsets will (often) help you see other issues (good and bad).
- roee 14y ago
  Exactly! By the way, when I talk about "sleep", I didn't mean clicking the lock button, but rather "closing the lid" of my iPad cover. And you're absolutely right I didn't mentally treat my iPad as a smartphone but rather as a laptop. What right and what's wrong? I'm not sure. Just shared my thoughts and immediate insights, and as always - open for criticism.
dutchbrit 14y ago
You can't just put it on mute?
- rjd 14y ago
  Thats what I was thinking... it comes with adjustable volume controls... it comes with configurable sound menu... he has an iphone so knows the process.. seems like someone bought into hype so much it blinded him to the obvious.
bmelton 14y ago
I put my iPad to sleep to save battery more than for any other reason. I often find that not only do I prefer it making noise, but I've grown to rely on it to let me know if somebody sent me something that I might need to respond to. Of course, I have different use patterns than the author I guess. I do everything I can to get the least amount of mail, for one. In lieu of just dealing with a lot of mail and getting upset when I'm notified of it, I prefer to limit the amount of mail I get by limiting newsletters and the like the I subscribe to. I suppose if he's more famous than myself, that might be more difficult, but I think I'd try to work on a high-volume /public mail account that wasn't auto-polling in order to keep my personal/low-volume email account more usable. My iPad also sleeps in a different room than me, so that might be the biggest difference maker. I think Android's solution solves his particular problem better (but is suboptimal in perhaps other ways) in that it only dings on the first notification of each event type. I'll get a ding for 1 unread email, but the second and _n_ after emails don't bother me until I've checked and cleared the active alerts.
- roee 14y ago
  I waited all my life for someone to think I'm famous :) But seriously - as part of my job I get hundreds of emails every day that I need to review or respond to. It's a reasonable usage scenario I think.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    I'm not saying it's unreasonable. But you have very easy fixes: 1) mute your iPad, 2) Don't sleep in the same room as your iPad. In addition to more complicated ones being offered elsewhere in this thread. I was just posting to point out that it isn't necessarily a design flaw just because it doesn't fit your use case as, to the contrary, I would be very upset if my device didn't notify me of something just because it was sleeping.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Ok, this reminded me of the HACTRN : http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00117.html http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00117.html I too find it annoying that calendar event notification doesn't honor the mute setting.
leephillips 14y ago
The first paragraph was incomprehensible to me; I stopped reading there. This is no criticism of the author, whom I assume is not writing in his native language. But so many links here seem to be to articles that read as if they were written with a crayon while the author was talking on the phone and watching TV.

11 points by roee 14y ago

Isn't this what the new Do Not Disturb feature in IOS6 addresses? http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ Also, all iPads have the switch above the volume button as a mute button already for notifications like this. (Note: yes, I know most people have changed this setting (back) to be an orientation-lock, but this guy's new to iPads so I'm assuming he didn't change the setting)

deleted 14y ago
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deleted 14y ago
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phren0logy 14y ago

This is an actual beef, but is this seriously the the biggest criticism this guy could come up with? If so, it would seem the iPad is pretty well designed.

josteink 14y ago

On Android it is solved by simple installing a app which controls the devices sound profiles based on times you prefer. It probably took the developer 5 minutes to cook up with an ugly UI, but it works. I guess in the Apple world you need to wait for Apple to do it. And this feature has been missing since iOS 1. Yeah. Not missing iOS one bit.

CubicleNinjas 14y ago
Or just turn off sound notifications for emails in settings.
- roee 14y ago
  That's exactly what I did as I mentioned in the post
  - CubicleNinjas 14y ago
    My note wasn't for you. You solved your "problem" in a Google search, but used this article as a trojan horse to soap box about two unrelated tangents. My note was for everyone here who was wondering how to fix it, but weren't willing to look in the second lines of the sixth paragraph.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- koeselitz 14y ago
  That's exactly what I do. Every night, I carefully set the settings on my iPhone so that I won't be disturbed by email notifications or other stuff. Every morning, I carefully set the settings on my iPhone so that I'll know when I get emails or texts or other messages. If I forget to do this, I miss a lot of stuff, but I really have no choice but to rely on myself. Does it really make sense that it takes so much effort? These are otherwise such effortless machines; it just seems weird that I can't make this part of using them easier.
  - kingnothing 14y ago
    If you mute your iPhone, alarms will still make noise. I mute my phone when I go to sleep and un-mute it when I wake up.
  - glhaynes 14y ago
    I think it's exactly this pain that iOS 6's Do Not Disturb mode is meant to alleviate.
    - koeselitz 14y ago
      I hadn't heard about that until this thread - nice! I am looking forward to that. Seems like a great thing.
jshen 14y ago
I've never found the abstract argument about more control a compelling reason to choose a product. Does product A or product B provide me more value? iOS is a much better user experience for me, and the people that point to "user control" of android never show anything that is of such value to me that it would overcome the better experience of iOS. I'll give one huge value iOS has over android in my life. My 2 year old can use an iOS device without needing assistance. She can't do the same with an android device.
- Ineffable 14y ago
  More control is a big source of value for a lot of people. Personally, I don't need a 2 year old to be able to use my phone, but I draw great enjoyment from being able to customise it to my tastes very easily. Don't like the stock keyboard? Chuck it out. Don't like the app launcher? Download a new one. If you want a more consistent UI and smoother animations over that, then great - there's a polished, well made device for you too on iOS. Different strokes for different folks.
  - jshen 14y ago
    I agree with you, but let me rephrase one sentence. "More control is a big source of value for a [minority of people]"
    - josteink 14y ago
      Given Android's rampant popularity, you would have to come up with a source for that claim. I know here on HN the mantra is that people buy Android because it is cheaper/"they cannot afford iPhones", but in the real world people deliberately choose things not made by Apple. Despite the Apple fandom on this website, there is no universal truth in Apple being a superior platform. In fact, I say the lack of customizability speaks of it being poorly engineered.
      - jshen 14y ago
        So your argument is that quality is a function of sales volume?

chrisdroukas 14y ago

Wait a few months for Do Not Disturb. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/11/do-not-disturb/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/11/do-not-disturb/

prezjordan 14y ago

Just out of curiosity, why not hit the mute switch when you're going to sleep? That's what I do. It takes a tenth of a second and allows me to control when I hear notifications just the way I want. I guess if you want the notification sounds but not while the device is open, then yeah you've got a bit of a problem (you would have to hit slide down and then slide the switch back up once you opened it.

objclxt 14y ago
I put my iPhone in airplane mode when I go to sleep - my alarms still work, I don't get disturbed, and because the radios are all powered down the battery barely drains at all (I charge mine in a dock at my work desk during the day).
- cglee 14y ago
  I used to do this until I started missing important calls/texts because I forgot to turn it back on. An airplane/sleep mode with a timer would be nice.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    It is nice. And it's called 'Do Not Disturb', and is part of iOS 6. It has plenty of other features (like letting a call through, if the caller has calling twice in a row. It could be urgent).

incongruity 14y ago

"Second, if you ever build a product that can go to sleep, ask yourself: when my owner puts me to sleep, does he think I’ll make unsolicited noises unless they were explicitly requested by him (eg alarm clock)?" I think what's at issue here is the mental model at work on the part of the designers vs. this user (and other users, clearly) For the designers/Apple, locked is clearly not synonymous with "sleep" – any device that can receive push notifications or perform background tasks isn't really asleep... it's just not the focus of my attention. Would you say your smartphone is ever asleep? Mine never is. If it's not powered off, it's constantly working in the background, for my benefit (presumably). It checks email, weather alerts, waits for calls and everything else. It may not be the focus of my attention, but it's certainly not asleep. The author clearly wants to treat it like a traditional computer not surprising given his opening statement about not viewing it as a worthy replacement to act as one's "main device". If that's the mental model one uses, then yes, I completely see the issue – and yes, the upcoming do not disturb settings will be an all around blessing. However, the big take away isn't whether the designers at Apple were right and the do not disturb settings will be just an added feature or if the author is right and the lack of a do not disturb setting is a huge failure. The point is, instead, that we need to be better about understanding and predicting alternative mindsets on the part of others. From a design perspective, this is pretty obvious... but from a consumer/critic's standpoint, it's a necessary one as well. Failing to see this subtle issue makes your criticism much less impressive and much less valuable if you're in a place to be influencing future development because seeing the more abstract difference in mindsets will (often) help you see other issues (good and bad).

roee 14y ago
Exactly! By the way, when I talk about "sleep", I didn't mean clicking the lock button, but rather "closing the lid" of my iPad cover. And you're absolutely right I didn't mentally treat my iPad as a smartphone but rather as a laptop. What right and what's wrong? I'm not sure. Just shared my thoughts and immediate insights, and as always - open for criticism.

dutchbrit 14y ago

You can't just put it on mute?

rjd 14y ago
Thats what I was thinking... it comes with adjustable volume controls... it comes with configurable sound menu... he has an iphone so knows the process.. seems like someone bought into hype so much it blinded him to the obvious.

bmelton 14y ago

I put my iPad to sleep to save battery more than for any other reason. I often find that not only do I prefer it making noise, but I've grown to rely on it to let me know if somebody sent me something that I might need to respond to. Of course, I have different use patterns than the author I guess. I do everything I can to get the least amount of mail, for one. In lieu of just dealing with a lot of mail and getting upset when I'm notified of it, I prefer to limit the amount of mail I get by limiting newsletters and the like the I subscribe to. I suppose if he's more famous than myself, that might be more difficult, but I think I'd try to work on a high-volume /public mail account that wasn't auto-polling in order to keep my personal/low-volume email account more usable. My iPad also sleeps in a different room than me, so that might be the biggest difference maker. I think Android's solution solves his particular problem better (but is suboptimal in perhaps other ways) in that it only dings on the first notification of each event type. I'll get a ding for 1 unread email, but the second and _n_ after emails don't bother me until I've checked and cleared the active alerts.

roee 14y ago
I waited all my life for someone to think I'm famous :) But seriously - as part of my job I get hundreds of emails every day that I need to review or respond to. It's a reasonable usage scenario I think.
- bmelton 14y ago
  I'm not saying it's unreasonable. But you have very easy fixes: 1) mute your iPad, 2) Don't sleep in the same room as your iPad. In addition to more complicated ones being offered elsewhere in this thread. I was just posting to point out that it isn't necessarily a design flaw just because it doesn't fit your use case as, to the contrary, I would be very upset if my device didn't notify me of something just because it was sleeping.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Ok, this reminded me of the HACTRN : http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00117.html http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00117.html I too find it annoying that calendar event notification doesn't honor the mute setting.

leephillips 14y ago

The first paragraph was incomprehensible to me; I stopped reading there. This is no criticism of the author, whom I assume is not writing in his native language. But so many links here seem to be to articles that read as if they were written with a crayon while the author was talking on the phone and watching TV.