On. Would prefer the bar not even be there and just have numbers only.
post
Number off is utterly useless.
It's actually very easy to have the number off and still get full functionality.
I just made a 100 page booklet that shows each battery level graphic alongside the percentage, so when I want to check my battery level, I just pull out the book and flip back and forth until I find the right icon, and bam! I know my exact battery level in less than 5 minutes.
I just take a screenshot and upload it to Grok and ask it to tell me how much battery I have left.
I don’t care until it gets to about quarter full, that’s when I check to see what actual percentage it’s at. I’m rarely on my phone enough to drain the battery on a normal day.
Hey get a load of this loser! Interacting with the real world! Ha! Everyone laugh! Hahahaha!
cries in terminally online
Yeah, the only reason I would need the number always visible and not just visible on down-swipe would be if it ever ran out during the day. Probably would be necessary for people who stream videos a lot.
counterpoint: these numbers are guesswork anyway. why pretend, you just want to know that it's not red
Counter counter point: I want to know whether it's at 90%, 75%, 60% or 45% without counting pixels
Can you not just glance and see approximately? Can't think visually, must convert to numerical?
Yes, if I give the screen a lil' kiss with my eyelids I can probably see that the icon has 8 pixels in height instead of 11.
That is not what I would call a "glance" though; I can, however, just glance and see approximately, by looking at the first digit of the number.
Why glance and see approximately when you can glance and see exactly?
On, because I want information, not art.
I don't mind the one without the number, what i do mind is that SOME FUCKING ASSHOLE decided that no number is bettter and forces his FUCKING DUMBASS decision on everyone else.
SO FUCK OFF WIHT YOUR NUMBERLESS SHIT AND TAKE ALL OF FUCKING MATERIAL DESIGN WITH YOU!
Sorry. i have strong feelings about this topic, don't know if you noticed.
My personal rage at the moment is this square time format with the two digit hour over the two digit minute. Obviously designed for a smart watch but Android decided it needs to be on the phones as well. I keep turning it off but every few updates it comes back -- because the designers know better than me what I actually want.
Try needing Julian day. If you're coding then strftime() has supported it since 1989. All you need is "%j" and there it is, with leap year handling, etc.
The end goal isn't a good/flexible/powerful user experience for the person who bought the device; it's a larger user base that can be marketed to The Machine for more money out the back end.
I don't get the connection, could you elaborate?
Sure.
For a while now, if you needed the time from your computer, and it was running UNIX or a variant, you'd use something like gettimeofday() (it's clock_gettime() now) which would hand you seconds since the epoch at midnight January 1, 1970 in UTC and microseconds/nanoseconds depending. You'd take the seconds, wash it through localtime_r to adjust for the local time zone, and you'd have a struct you could feed to strftime() for formatting.
So my beef with time formats, and what I presume ChickenLadyLovesLife's beef is, is that when the time format is "wrong" for whatever reason, given the similiarity between the backends of modern time systems, it's "wrong" for reasons other than technical limitations. You've got a count in seconds since the beginning of time, and a function that's been around for decades that can do whatever stupid stuff you want. Military time, month printed out, day of week printed out, two character years, four character years, seconds, julian day, Doing something silly like day of year, hour of day, and am/pm ("%j %I %p") is just as easy as something practical like a large fluffy timestamp, or a minimalist four characters military time ("%H%M"). The hard part was getting the time from the GPS or cell phone tower or wherever. The easy part is the time format. Windows also exists, and uses something similar. Modern programming with C++ or Python will have libraries ( and datetime, respectively) that work the same way, and both those examples use strftime() semantics.
So, if you're unhappy with the way your device prints out time, the reason behind it isn't the clock part of it, it's the display part. There was some rationale on Android's behalf for adopting the hour over minutes style, but it wasn't because their available horizontal character limit dropped from four (five if you count a colon) to two. Maybe they can get more data widgets displayed around the time in a little halo? I don't know, I don't use android stuff anywhere. If it was apple I'd assume they did UX testing about half height characters and readability.
So, now to the "end goal" part of what I wrote before. The hard part is done and a solved problem, and most time formats work fine for what they do. tmux is giving me ("%H:%M %d-%b-%y") which works fine, and my desktop environment (DE) is using ("%a, %b %d %H:%M") which is fine. The other DE is using ("%b %d %H:%M") which is fine. All perfectly usable, all used the three character representation of the month avoiding problems between dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy, and all of those are adjustable to an extent with two of the three kicking back to strftime() if I needed it. So what did android get when they paid developers to make the change to hours on top of minutes? Is there a study I missed that of a group of people who'd never seen a clock before and had no concept of time found the "%H\n%M" style more easy to read? If that's true, then was it worth irritating the subset of people who are going to care about the change to pick up the other group? I personally don't see a point in paying to make the change unless they're expecting to make more money from it, which at the core of a lot of things in the world these days. Here's something that worked fine, but now it's being changed to work differently but no better.
Oh ok I thought they were some sort of weird person who doesn't want to use the gregorian calendar…
Oh my god yes. Why the hell do I have to open the notification shade to see the number, especially when it gets low?
It shouldn't be that hard to say, automatically show the number under a certain percentage. If it's 10% I have around an hour left of medium usage. If it's under 5% I have anywhere from 30 minutes to 5.
Just show me the number motherfucker, at least when it's important!
This is true and real righteous anger. I love it.
Yeah it's BS that you have to find detailed instructions online to turn of developer mode just so you could have the number
Never turned it on after the last reset. I have less anxiety about it now.
The number of people that have it on surprises me.
I'm reminded of the 24 hour news channels who love to put ultra detailed timing. If there is a press conference at 9pm they don't just say it's at 9pm, at noon they'll start a 9 hour countdown.
So if you watch the news at any point that day you'll know it's 8:43:22 until the press conference. It's 6:12:43 until the press conference. It's 5:24:46 until the press conference.
Those numbers don't mean anything.
When I started writing this comment I had 92% battery left. Now I have 91% battery left. If I ramble for too long what if it goes to 90%? At the rate it's dropping am I going to have less than two hours of battery life left? Where is my charger?!?!
Or, I can just look at the list mostly full icon. I'm good.
Wow look at you mr 90+ lol
Without numbers, 30 and 40 are indistinguishable. Is it time to go find a charger yet?
The difference between 21 vs 20, or 16 and 15, or 6 vs 5 is pretty big. Especially when people have battery saving features kick on at a specific percentage.
Or i can just peek at the first digit only if im not that concerned?? Idk that's probably something i do thousands of times a day, looking at data and only pulling the info you need, or even in school when i read prose more, scanning and skipping through unnecessary details to get to the relevant info quickly. I guess i never thought that some people struggle with that even when looking at two digit numbers.
Brother, my phone is almost never charged higher than 70%. I need the number to differentiate between 6% and 2%. I don't even think about my battery until the battery saver mode prompt.
I used to worry if it were at X percent at Y time. But the truth is my phone lasts all day 99% of the time so what’s the point of worrying? So I have it off. All I need to know is roughly how much power it has, if it dips below 20% it warns me and I turn on low power and there’s still enough power for up to a few hours.
same, the number is inaccurate when it really matters anyway. worst update Samsung made recently was to remove the option to hide the number... smh
Number. If I glance twice just a couple minutes apart, I know there's an unusual drain going on and know to look for problem apps/processes I forgot to disable when done with them.
Also the number just feels like more direct communication to me than a graphic and is easier to make choices with. It's not quite the same thing, but when I look at a clock I don't want to see "5:30ish", I want to know if its 5:28 or later so I can start my end of workday process.
So, number because spectrum.
This is like when cars went from oil pressure and temperature gauges to "idiot" lights. One let's you see trends in situations and be prepared for maintenance, the other tells why your car broke down.
😀 yeah it made sense to me because I grew up in the changeover.
But here's the Wiki entry.
The "idiot light" terminology arises from popular frustration with automakers' use of lights for crucial functions which could previously be monitored by gauges, so a troublesome condition could be detected and corrected early. Such early detection of problems with, for example, engine temperature or oil pressure or charging system operation is not possible via an idiot light, which lights only when a fault has already occurred – thus providing no advance warnings or details of the malfunction's extent.
Yeah, my car doesn't have either of those and I was not happy when I realized it.
"A light will come on if there's an issue." 😡
Fun fact the gauges were also made to be idiot friendly. They report the average over a period (or similar) because if they reported the live reading users used to panic and think their car is breaking down seeing the gauge move.
Maybe my vehicles were old enough before that electronic averaging. 90s. The oil pressure and temperature would respond as the engine warmed, or as you revved it. Sitting in traffic on a hot day and you could watch the temp gauge climb, and then drop when you started moving.
If you have a newer car, it's worse.
Your car can say check engine and turn off a lot of features in your car if you're external thermometer in simply malfunctioning.
Your newer car will also tell you EXACTLY which sensors are showing bad data and whether it's an electrical fault in the sensor's circuit or implausible input, etc. Unfortunately you need a scan tool for it, but depending on the make you might find a decent free or cheap app to use a generic ELM327 or better, STNN1110 based OBD2 tool, that lets you scan all the modules rather than just OBD2 standard stuff.
So rather than playing parts darts or verifying every sensor by multimeter using known resistance ranges or putting up with bad fuel economy and low power... You just scan the thing and it'll tell you.
I've owned cars from the '90s, '00s and '10s (2019 being the latest) and while my cars from '10s didn't have sensor issues, I'll tell you that I'll take the complex and super hated '00s German cars over the early '90s one ANY day of the week. Super easy to diagnose.
My 2014 kangoo probably have like 3 sensors. I already changed an expensive turbo sensor and the one detecting if your seatbelt is making it beep for 3 minutes whatever you'd do before stopping every time I drive. I wonder if it's rational to fix it, costwise.
Oh it has significantly more sensors than that, trust me.
As for the seatbelt sensor, honestly depends on the cost and how long you plan on keeping it. Without knowing your car, I can't say for sure, but I suspect it's a simple switch. The issue may very well also be in the wiring, or the switch could've broken loose or something (in which case you'd likely need the belt buckle receptacle thingy).
Personally I'm so annoyed by things like that, I'd fix it. It probably annoys you, and if you do end up selling it rather than keeping it, it'll annoy the buyer.
Yeah I know, it's just very very not modern, which is good, but it also breaks down all the time which is less cool.
The French know exactly how to make a car last 10 years and start breaking down after that unfortunately.
I honestly don't know what would be a good replacement if you do need to get rid of it though. That type of van is a market dominated by the French to the point that "Berlingo" is almost a universal term for them IMO.
Yeah, as a swede I'm not used to the shaky quality 😅
The Berlingo is the Citroen version, and also an old french candy used for getting the bad taste of hot spring water out of your mouth (it's supposedly good to bathe in and drink but often taste of sulfur)
All that information is available in the cluster lmfao.
There’s far more information that needs to be readily apparent to a driver than the oil pressure.
Oil pressure tells you if the engine is dying or if the Oil is breaking down or overheating. I'd take it over an RPM gage.
A lot of vehicles dont have it in their cluster menus these days.
I drive a 10 year old Vauxhall and it definitely does not have it. I wanted to know my oil temp and had to resort to a Bluetooth obd plug paired to my phone.
How does that work…? That’s quite obviously not how you can get that information. The engine needs to be off and the vehicle in accessory for OBD2 ports to work, the oils not moving so there’s no pressure or temp involved.
How do you access your trip milegage information? The oils data is in that same menu.
OBD2 absolutely works while the engine is on, what are you smoking?
OBD2 primarily works when the vehicle is running. It can be used to tune some vehicles while they are on. What car do you have that doesn't have the OBD port on while its running? It would be illegal in most states in the US.
What's more important than oil temp?
Speed is only relevant when there's a cop around, otherwise im driving safely with the flow of traffic, the speed in mph is irrelevant. The RPM are important but I can hear it, don't need the number really. But the oil, i need to know because i would have no idea if it was overheating until something already went wrong and requires an expensive repair.
Is your vehicle in state of constant disrepair where it’s leaking oil? You check the dipstick before you leave for your drive, and if it loses enough pressure during the drive to be an issue it will be noticeable. Either a lights gonna come on, it’s gonna make a smell, leave a drip under it, etc. There’s always physical evidence, the gauge does nothing that a petrip inspection won’t find.
And if you’re curious, spend 3 seconds finding the information in the cluster. It’s not something that’s ever had to be checked 24/7 while driving like you speed and rpms and other actual important information. It also prevents the dash from being clustered with superfluous data and have the constantly needed information Readily apparent. 3 gauges vs a dozen.
It’s not an issue for your owned car, but people lend cars out, rentals etc.
I literally have just the number
On. I don't understand why it always seems to be off by default.
Low power mode all the time, damn phone doesn't need to be doing fishy stuff in the background anyway.
Both, although I probably dont need the icon

Ugh, I don't understand why it usually defaults to no number. Then I have to go and change the setting, show me numbers - I actually want to know how much battery I've got left... I don't understand why would anyone want it off, but to each their own.
I have out of because I don’t need to know exactly what my battery is on. I’m good with the graphics and if the indicator is amber or red, I really need to think about charging soon.
yeah, that's fair. I can't tell just by looking at the graphics and then I just feel anxious (especially in situations like when I need to be reachable or when navigating around a city). I understand everyone's brain is different
It’s been a while since I ran out of battery, so that probably makes it more relaxing for me. Also, I like that the screen is as simple as possible.
I make sure my phone has enough charge for whatever I’m doing or on rare/special occasions have a power bank with me.
Nunber gang. That said it doesn't change a lot for me. If I had a bar and it looked half full I'd be charging same as if the nunber read 55%
We have the number, it’s very beneficial
It depends on what kind of user you are. The ones that charge their phone whenever near a charger don't need a number. The ones who only charge when the phone threatens to shut down absolutely need the number.

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