Smartphones – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

So yesterday started out ok but then the day took a turn and folded in on itself. In the neighborhood of the Airbnb we’re staying in on this trip, the city is replacing the sidewalks. Inconvenient, but hey, infrastructure. That party started two days ago and ended just short of our digs and kicked off again yesterday morning.

A hand holding an unfolded black Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 display phone, showing the home screen with various app icons, promotional widgets like "Explore What's new" and "Switch from iPhone", and a product sign beneath it.

I stepped outside to take a picture and noticed workers all running away from the torn up hunks of sidewalk and then one frantically waving me back inside screaming “Gas! Gas!”

I jumped back in the house thinking this was bad. And that it could get worse. I assumed I would need to evacuate, so I began frantically packing a few things in a backpack when there was a knock on the door. It was a firefighter instructing me to shelter in place. That surprised me. Two minutes later he knocked again and said to evacuate.

Construction equipment working on a residential street during the day. On the right, a yellow John Deere excavator uses its backhoe to break up asphalt along the edge of a lawn and concrete sidewalk. On the left, a large red and white dump truck sits nearby, parked along the torn-up road where chunks of concrete and pavement are piled.

I grabbed my backpack and headed out for the day, calling the owners of the Airbnb on the way out the door. The good news on that part of the day’s unfolding events is that all turned out well, the gas company fixed the line, the sidewalk crew will have to wait until Monday to move on with their job. And in the end I met quite a few of the neighbors as we watched the gas company wrap up their piece of the action.

After evacuating, I had no idea how long I’d be out. I figured I’d run some errands then park myself at a Starbucks until I got the all clear. There’s a Best Buy across the street so I wandered over to see if they had any of the new folding phones from Samsung on display. They did.

I picked them up, folded and unfolded them, checked out a few things, and took the photos in the galleries below.

To be honest, I’m not that interested in a foldable smartphone from Samsung, Apple, or anyone. I’m certainly not that interested in one that costs close to $2000 or more. But given that the smart folks who make smartphones think this is worth spending tons of money on, I thought I’d check them out.

My limited impressions are pretty straightforward. The foldables from Samsung open and close. The action to do either required more oomph than I was prepared for. The store manager tells me that will change with ongoing usage. Somehow that doesn’t seem like an encouraging selling point. They are pretty devices to look at and all three feel surprisingly nicer in the hand than I thought they would. The construction feels solid and I dare say, premium.

There is a sort of Goldilocks and The Three Bears thing going on with the different sizes.

The larger Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is too tall in much the same way its name is too long. There’s no way it’s a one-handed device when closed.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in closed position

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in partially open position

The mid-sized squat rectangular Galaxy Z Fold 8 felt the nicest in my hand, surprisingly so. When opened it felt the most inviting. Given that what’s rumored to death about Apple’s upcoming foldable appears very similar, it will be interesting to see how this mid-size plays out in the marketplace.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 with the screen dark and a store display sign showing a price of $1899.

A hand holding the Galaxy Z Fold 8 with the screen showing the time and a store display sign showing a price of $1899.

The smallest of the bunch, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 feels like it could work if you’re looking for a flip phone, or the smallest smartphone of the bunch, but it’s not something that interests me.

A hand holding the Galaxy Flip8 in closed position.

A hand holding the Galaxy Fold8 in open position with a store display sign showing a price of $1199. The home screen is pink in color.

Much has been made about Samsung’s process to flatten out the crease. In both Fold models it certainly looks and feels less obtrusive than it has on earlier models I’ve taken similar cursory looks at. Time will tell how that works out in the real world of opening and closing.

That said, storeroom lighting isn’t going to help Samsung because the crease picks up light from most angles as you can see from the photos. Given that Apple is supposedly using Samsung’s foldable screen technology for its foldable I’m sure Apple will have the same store display lighting issues as well.

Of course software will also tell the tale. I didn’t really have the time to check out much in the way of software on the device and contrary to the WiFi symbol saying they were connected I wasn’t able to get on the Internet to check things out.

We’re heading into an interesting era with smartphones. As I said, I’m not that interested in a folding phone of any make, but it’s nice to have different size and shape options available. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

That said, with prices rising across the entire tech landscape, introducing or continuing to iterate on previous versions featuring expensive price points seems like a risky bet to me, even if the devices have a premium feel to them.

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I’ve written about the changes Apple made to the Phone app before. I’m writing about it again. Apple, other smartphone makers, and the telecommunications companies need to make detecting and deleting spam calls and texts more of a priority. Yes, there’s been some progress but to call it incremental is to insult the idea of incrementalism.

Apple now sends unwanted calls to a sort of purgatory. If they’ve been already identified as spam you may never see them thanks to the new features, unless you check for them. If it’s a new phone call you will have the opportunity to banish it yourself.

It’s an improvement, but it still takes too much effort.

For example if you receive an unwanted call, you see this screen:

New Shareshot.

Unless you know to hit the delete button or to slide the number to the left for more options the design of the screen offers you only the two options, Delete and Mark as Known. Nothing on the screen gives you any indication on how to mark or delete the call as spam.

Tapping on the Delete button gives you the following options

New Shareshot.

Swiping to the left reveals the following icons with the orange one giving you the option to block the number.

New Shareshot.

My suggestion would be to design that first screen so deleting and blocking spam calls was a first page priority instead of having to make an additional tap or swipe to get rid of the number. If you asked me, in an age when spam calls are so prevalent I’d put a Block and Report screen on the main screen when a call comes in.

I also wonder why if I delete, block, and report a number as spam the number hangs around in a list, forcing me to use an edit function to actually get them off my phone. It feels very email like, reminiscent of having to check your spam folder if you think you haven’t received a message. But in these cases, the number as already been identified as such.

New Screenshot.

Apple has shown that it wants to help with the improvements I wrote about in an earlier post. Apple and other smartphone makers need to go further in helping us rid our phones of these unwanted annoyances.

Of course the telecommunications companies can do better here too. Spam filtering uses databases they maintain of phone numbers reported as spam. All well and good. But if you’ve already identified them as a spammer, don’t let the number make the call or send the text in the first place.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Tag: Smartphones

Fondling The Folds Of Samsung

Smartphone Makers Need To Make Delete and Report Spam Buttons A Priority