I have to agree. I HATE the new dialer, and it's not just for the colors. Here are my reasons why I think the new dialer is a complete fail:
1. First and foremost, the number pad has gotten smaller, a LOT smaller. It's useless. Has anyone seriously tried to dial a complete 10-digit number quickly? Try it... FAIL. If you get your numbers perfectly correct, you're not dialing fast enough. Dial faster. Before the update, I could dial with one hand. Now? Ya, forget it, I need two hands. Not only do I find it awkward to dial, and I have great motor skills, but can you imagine how a disabled person feels? Ever think of people with cerebral palsy? What about Parkinson's? What about older people with bad eyes? Come on.
2. I totally get WHY the dialpad is smaller, and this is a complete FAIL as well. They made it smaller to allow for the auto-complete area at the top. As you dial, it starts to show you contact records that match. What? Why? What for? If I wanted to dial like that, I would have gone into contacts and picked a record! What good is this? What's that you say? It's because it's handy? Well, let's just try that theory out. I have over 1300 contacts in my list. Even IF I liked this feature, which I clearly do NOT, it doesn't work. I could see it working if I only had 25 contact records. I tried about 10 favorites and NOT ONE came up with the suggestion I wanted until I was on the LAST TWO DIGITS. Seriously? You took away big dialer numbers for this "feature?" It's not a feature. It's not even interesting.
3. There are no button divison lines. Where does one button start and another end? Do I push on the big number? Where is the center? Where is the correct place to quickly press so I can rip through the numbers with the least chance of error? I have no idea? Do you? Does the developer of this dialer skin know where to strike it?
4. The dialer does NOT come up first when you press dial. When I press dial, I expect to get... bingo... a DIALER. Not the frequently called number list. If I wanted a frequent list, I would ask for my favorites, or ask for a frequently called list.. not the dialer.
5. SECURITY FLAW: How do I turn off the frequent list feature? I do NOT want my phone to track this information. It's ONE MORE LOG I have to clear out if I'm going to hand my phone to someone to make a call. You don't do this? I do.. it's a courtesy. I have enough logs to clear out and worry about. Why is this even here? If I wanted a frequent list, I'd make one.
6. Colored tiles. SERIOUSLY? I do NOT have a Windows-based phone for a reason: I don't like tiles. I don't want tiles. If I wanted tiles, I would have bought a Windows phone. What's with all these child-like colors? And why are they different for the SAME letters? If I liked tiles, and I do NOT like them, then it might have at least made sense that all the "A" records were the same color tile. They're not even similar shades.
7. Left out customizations AGAIN. This is open-source, right? It's supposed to be community driven right? I'm alone in all this? What about adding a few SIMPLE checkmarks to the settings to make everyone happy? How about a checkmark to disable the auto-complete and yield big numbers instead? How about a check mark to USE MY OWN SKIN. That's not a security risk, it's not a dialer replacement. How about a checkmark to disable the frequent list for security purposes? How about a check mark to ALWAYS show the dialer first, or a drop list to PICK which part of the dialer I want first - that would be even better. What about a custom color set? These are all SIMPLE interface changes. If "setting" show this page, if not, show that page. It's not like it's going to change the whole codeblock. How about a checkmark for "display dialer button division lines."
8. Saaaay, here's a thought. How about a way to dial a contact record and EXCLUDE parts after an undialable character. Stay with me here, because this one is HUGE for us people that actually call a lot of people in an office. Let's say I want to call Joe, and his number is 416-555-1212 ext 257. So, in my contact record, in the "work phone" entry, I put this: "416-555-1212 ext 257" and when I dial it, guess what.. it dials 4165551212257. WHAT? How about dialing the number and leaving off anything after undialable characters. AND... it would sure be nice if it showed the full "work phone" entry in smaller characters above the dialed number so that when I get the "Hello, thank-you for calling XYZ company, please dial the extension of the person you would like to reach" prompt, that I can actually REMEMBER?...no I would like to SEE the extension that was in the contact record I dialed in the first place.
Honestly, do the developers think any of this through? Now, if all you read was RANT RANT RANT, well that's a shame. The dialer keeps getting less and less useful and more and more “eye candy.” The one thing a phone has to do is DIAL A NUMBER with some level of reliability. I believe that all this feedback is actually useful information for good reasons. What I got when I updated to Android 4.4.4 was ... a much LESS useful dialer than ever before, and I was pretty annoyed. So sure, some of it is a rant. But at least I've taken time to think things out and give you some real reasons and feedback. Maybe more people will read this and say hey, Google, this makes sense to me too. Maybe. I hope so. What ever happened to creating an intuitive interface with user testing and feedback foremost in the design, and then consider things like “pretty” and “fancy” and “coooool” and not sacrifice USABILITY.
And, on a side note... I searched .. and searched.. and searched for SOMEPLACE to try to provide this feedback to the team responsible for the dialer, and guess what? I came up zilch. Can't find it. All I could find was "this forum is not for.." and "don't post this stuff here" and .. basically we don't care to hear from you. So, I posted here in desperation. Hey, if someone knows where to post this stuff, feel free to write me back, I would love to know.
Le sigh,
Chris
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