[rizzom5000]

> I recently overheard a very smart user struggle to find how to mute a group > you end up having to search the internet for a recipe as to what place to click to find which flydropping menu

I remember when software was supposed to remove pain points in my life, but now I'm not so sure. I often contemplate whether switching from Spotify to the CD player in my car will save me time, but I'm fairly certain it will save me aggravation.

[Aerroon]

I've had the same thought about alarms.

Back in the day I had an alarm clock. I set it to go off at a specific time and it did. The only failure mode was the battery running out.

Then I got a Nokia phone. It worked the same as the alarm clock, but I could even set myself notifications and what not. Worked great!

Then I got an Android phone and sometimes the alarms just wouldn't work.

And now today I'm using another Android phone and I give it about 80-20 odds that the alarm works correctly. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. Sometimes it does a quick alarm for a few seconds and stops. And I don't know why.

Notifications on this are even worse. Sometimes the notifications are so unnoticeable that sitting next to the phone with headphones on will not actually alert me to the notification.

I don't see others ever complain about it so I feel like I'm somehow missing something big but I don't know what. Notifications and alarms on modern phones seem extremely unreliable to me.

[jvanderbot]

My father was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. We were staying with him in shifts, and when I was "off", I watched the last episode of succession. I made sure my phone was on the chair next to me and the notification / volume was all the way up.

After the episode he was dead and I missed the whole thing b/c somewhere along the way "press volume button at home screen until it was full" did not actually turn notifications on anymore. I've never been so mad at UI/UX.

Turning on ringer / notification volume requires pressing volume button once, then clicking the equalizer, then dragging the notification volume up to desired level. There's no indication anywhere that notifications are silenced. I have a google pixel 4.

[MrZander]

I have been using the stock alarm app on an Android phone daily for at least 10 years and I've never once had it not work as expected.

I can't fathom how it could possibly be failing that often for you.

[jspash]

If I had a choice between my mom's 30+ year old windy-uppy egg timer vs. the abomination that is the digital interface on my stove, I would take the egg timer every single time.

Unfortunately my sister keeps stealing it (back) every time she visits!

[marcosdumay]

A long time ago, on my first Android phone, the alarm used to fail on me.

Since then, all of the failure modes I knew about were fixed. Now I think the only thing that makes an alarm fail on Android is if you run out of battery charge. Of course, that doesn't make me any less paranoid about it.

But anyway, the notifications seem to only get less reliable with time.

[Forgeties79]

The iPhone alarm app is an oddly circuitous process as well. I just don’t ever trust that I’ve set it correctly. Just let me type the time and move on. It’s also unclear if silent mode will override the alarm having sound.

[_carbyau_]

I had the other issue. I was at a standup comedy show with my phone appropriately silenced because I knew I could ignore the alarm this once.

And the alarm still went off making noise. I managed to turn it off superquick such that the comedian got as far as looking in my general direction and saying I was lucky I was fast because he couldn't pick me out exactly.

[bongodongobob]

You must be missing something. I've never had my alarm fail. Are you accidentally muting the alarm volume somehow?

[spoonjim]

I hope you do understand that a system that can play almost every song ever recorded is going to have a more complex and error-prone user experience than a static 50 songs.