Samsung Galaxy S4 - Nice features that are really badly implemented

[Kilgore Trout]

The S4 has a few nice features in the software that seem like they are great ideas, but are so badly implemented that they are practically unusable.

Some examples:

Blocking mode: Great idea, but must we have yet another annoying little icon at the top of the screen? The bar up top is already insanely busy. I wound up going with a third party option for this feature as a result.

World clock: Takes too many swipes to reach, and is too limited to be of much use. Again, wound up going with a third party option.

Call blocking: Phone has a nice feature where you can click on a number and tell the phone to block it. This works pretty well, but the phone then alerts you that you got the call with an icon, and allows for a voice message. For some reason, United Healthcare became convinced that I am their customer (I am not) so they started robocalling my phone. The S4 blocked it, but gave me various alerts and recorded a VM each time.

Frustrating, because these are all good ideas.

 

[ScottsoNJ]

I'm sure that the blocking mode icon on the top is so people who enable it don't forget that it's activated. Like my ex gf

 

[Chief G-Hawk]

I'm sure that the blocking mode icon on the top is so people who enable it don't forget that it's activated. Like my ex gf

For me I set a specific time so i.e 10 PM to 7 AM is when I have it set to enable automatically (scheduled). At those time yes it should be on the top indicating that you have it enabled. But when it's not in use, it should NOT be in the top nor in the notification.

My ipad mini does this, where I have it set to automatically turn on DND (Do Not Disturb, this is what Apple calls it), so during the day it does not appear on the status bar on top, and only appears when it is enabled (10 PM) and disables itself at 7 PM.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I totally agree. And, btw, many third party apps function just as you are describing.

 

[anon(631408)]

What are some of these 3rd party apps?

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

World clock: Takes too many swipes to reach, and is too limited to be of much use. Again, wound up going with a third party option

Thanks for this comment, with which I agree. It stimulated me to go looking for third-part apps, and I found Clocks around the world. It actually includes Albuquerque (where I have family) in its list of cities. It lets you rename clocks anything you want (e.g., "Home"); and it has a slider to advance the time up to 24 hours to deal with questions like "If it's 3:30 here when I call them, what time will it be there?"