Apple has been trying to address the ongoing Foxconn suicides with increased transparency. Articles are simultaneously appearing that attempt to explain the migration of manufacturing jobs as being rooted less in wages (and the accompanying “cheap” products that go with low cost labour) and more in government regulations that facilitate the industry.
I have an iPhone, among other Apple products. I’d pay more for the next one so that people don’t have to be woken up in the middle of the night, given a cup of tea, and sent to work on an assembly line. Or maybe Apple—who made $400,000 in profit per employee last year—could kick in a little.
@miguelcarrasco @darrenosadchuk How do we create demand for socially just production if we don't talk about about bad conditions?
It’s glorious that society is post-physical alarm clock, with its unsightly power cords and demanding digital display, glowing up your darkness and inexorably marking the passage of precious sleep time with its anxiety-provoking accuracy.
None of that was very relaxing.
But now that we all have iPhones under our pillows, fumbling and buzzing our way through 6 snoozes is pretty obnoxious to any habitual sleep partners.
How can we be the least irritating with our iPhone alarms?
How much you disbturb others depends on your alarm sound and how much vibrating is going on.
If you’re phone’s set to vibrate with notifications as a rule, you’re going to vibe the heck out of people.
I kinda thought going ‘silent’ would fix that—it doesn’t. You still get full-on vibe & tone (it is intended to be an alarm, after all.) If you have headphones in the jack, the tone only goes through the headphones, but your bed is still rocking with the vibe.
The one thing you can do to make this setting contain less shock and awe is to turn down the external volume on your phone. You probably don’t need it full blast to wake yourself up, what with the vibrational earthquake in effect.
Think about if you really need that vibration in the supposed silence.
When is this beneficial? To announce your general importance in meetings?
Turning off ‘vibrate’ like this (Settings > Sounds) will give you a more peaceful wakeup and you’ll still get an attention-grabbing vibrate in meetings should a vital tweet come through (if the phone is not set to ‘silent’). Good compromise.
The reverse of this setting, btw, will wake you up sans vibe, but is up to you for meetings—you’ll get a tone for messages if volume is on, a buzz if volume is off.
Liking your newfound seismic stability? Go on ahead & shut of the other totally-not confusingly name ‘vibrate’ setting, and notice peace multiply.
One last kindess you can enact to keep your wakeup minimal for your partner is to either turn snooze off (Clock > Alarm > Individual Alarm settings)—too ambitious for me—or set yourself several alarms & pick the one that’s actually realistic.
I’m going to try this whole ‘no-vibe-at-all’ thing for a few days & see if I miss anything critical. Next stop in my quest for mental health: turning off push notifications! (Just kidding).
Your alarm options
Alarm on, phone on buzz, ‘vibrate’ on – tone and buzz
Alarm on, volume on, ‘vibrate’ on – tone and buzz
Headphones in – tone only in headphones, buzz
Individual Alarm Sound ‘none’ – seriously nothing, no buzz, whether volume is on or off
Phone on Sounds > Silent > Vibrate – Off – tone only, no buzz
Phone on Sounds > Ringer & Alert > Vibrate off - tone & buzz
Phone with both ‘vibrate’ settings off – blissful buzzlessness
One of the peculiarities of human/computer interaction is that we humans apply the “appeal to authority” argument to robot communications pretty liberally. When they tell us something, we tend to believe it (assuming they’re smarter than us) or surrender to it as inevitable (because we’re powerless to argue, unless we’re programmers).
The Decim8 iPhone app keeps giving me artistic advice. I appreciate the tone this robot is setting with regards to its expectations of the quality of my work. Makes me try harder.
While I’m kinda past reviewing every QR code campaign that happens, I’m interested in the spread & convergence of mobile, marketing & smartphone adoption. As such, I gotta report the QR code counter topper spotted whilst purchasing the most darling Roxy purse at Boathouse.
I mean, frankly, yes, I’m curious. Mainly because you didn’t tell me anything and you put it right on the d@mn counter where I have to scan it in front of the staff. #awkward
I’m immersed in man vs. machine thinking right now, and couldn’t help but notice the stark philosophical contrast in branding between 2 of the leading smartphones.
In the “go-robots” Kurzweil corner we’ve got Android, glibbly embracing all that is machine about communications technology. One of Android’s original founders, Andy Rubin, spills the semantic-web beans, admitting he planned to develop
…smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences.
This, as we know, is the core of the robot’s plan to keep humanity busy with quicker Starbucks transactions while they quietly take over our planet.
On the other side of the ring is Postman‘s nutritious Apple, with its humanisty Enlightenment connotations. Apple’s flagship product, iPhone, is most pointedly branded to be about people—not just any people, I—and revels in glorious user-centered design. They didn’t call it RobotPhone, kwim?
Get to the goods. Who can outdance whom?
Android’s contribution to the world-domination dance-off:
And busting a move for humanity: MMA lightweight Genki Sudo, who I suspect is the guy in the Android suit anyway.
What do you think? Does a man in an android suit outdance an android in men’s suiting?
Should an errant toddler delete your “phone” icon, you’ve got yourself an iPod Touch with a hefty monthly bill.
I’m a-googlin’, but if anyone has a handy solution for this problem, please text me. I was feeling like such a hero for intercepting my iPhone on its way to the toilet.
You know you’re at the dawn of a new age in human-computer interaction when a 9-month-old baby can operate—and get a kick out of—an iPhone app. Look at that pinch-to-tickle gesture!
Zomg, my husband finally got a new iPhone, so we can go GPS crazy! I’ve got an experiment all lined up for us.
In my generalized paranoia over personal #privacy, I thought I’d just run screaming in the other direction and force myself into exposure therapy with some location-aware mobile technology.
2010 is the Year of The Mobile, dontcha know. There’s been a lot of buzz about using the data that’s lying all over the place to make life more interesting, exploiting social networking to have more fun IRL, marketing to people in context, and coming to terms with never, ever being off the grid again.
That all sounds neat, so I fired up the ole’ App Store and downloaded me Where the Flock. This app does one thing: let you and whoever you authorize see where each other are on a Google map.
As I’m not a bar-hopping teenager, the only person whose whereabouts concern me on a regular basis are my husband‘s, so I installed the app and invited him to share. Would he think this coolio idea was convenient or creepy? I was like Hey, if this is too privacy-invasive, we can uninstall, man.
But he totally got it. Just as text messaging was a boon to those who’s lives are too time-sensitive to bear the pleasantries associated with a phone call, now no one has to be bothered answering the question “Are you still at work?”
The app not only shows you where your previously uncharted spouse is, it tells you how fast they’re moving. This is, in theory, so you know if they’re driving, stuck in traffic, ambling along procrastinatorily, or speeding (which I assume is reported instantly to the police. I hope I’m kidding). The practical result I can see of broadcasting my velocity is getting mocked mercilessly for my incredibly slow pace when I’m out for a run.
The Mr. did have a condition for using the app: that our location data was only shared between us. That’s cretainly my preference too, and my assumption. I turned on the app and saw that I had to log in with my Google account. Not to worry, the app assured me, only Google’s servers would have my information. Oh, just those guys, eh?
A little paranoid, I emailed the developers for clarification. I don’t have a Google Profile or use Google Buzz, on purpose style, and I didn’t want to suddenly find out the universe could see me flashing like a neon sign every time they used a Google Map. I’m famously, pointlessly stingy with my personal data where The Goog is concerned.
Troy, the app author, swiftly informed me that the hilariously-acronymed WTF doesn’t, in fact, actually share your location with Google, so we were all set.
While this was happening, I got a nice message from a Twitter followee, welcoming me to followerhood. I clicked through to her website, only to have it tell me exactly where I was located.
Well, that’s a pretty weird WordPress plugin or whatever, I thought, and unnecessary from a mar-com standpoint. There I am though. Little Canadian flag.
Not that I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, but this location pwnage on the day of my long-awaited husband-tracking experiment reinforces to me what I already know but refuse to admit: #privacy is dead, get over it.
I googled that, looking for a reference. Lots of YouTube results. I clicked through. And bloody spying bloody YouTube told me (based on the evening’s clickings) I might like to check out some Daft Punk, or perhaps my current flavourite Gogol Bordello, and maybe a drugged-up kid after the dentist.
Not because I’d watched the high kid video since 1985, but because recently I’d read on CNN that the dad who filmed poor David had retired on the YouTube ad income. “They” don’t admit that they watched me read CNN. “They” say it’s because I like Daft Punk.
Admittedly, I stay logged in to Google all the time. I have to; I’m a GoogleDocs turbo user. That’s how YouTube knows what I was reading on CNN. Now I realize that’s akin to asking Google to stalk me. I might go check out that “Sziget” song, though…
Good thing it’s Earth Hour & I’m blogging by candlelight. I have a powerful urge to go off the grid and go fabricate me a tinfoil helmet.
Nice to meet you
Thanks for the comments & the kind words. Best place to get my immediate attention is Twitter, but you could also email me.
