You are definitively right about the meditation timer keypad, that works great and I will update the review.
I will do my best to explain a few things that might be unclear after reading your article, however, it appears that you might not have done the first update, as you didn’t use the Mudita Center app for some of the features. We had recently released a new OS version (1.1.5 to be precise) that addressed a lot of bugs and errors found during the internal tests, including fixing the audio quality, which might be the biggest concern.
I updated to 1.1.5 the other day and updated my review after doing so. I had a long phone conversation today (70 minutes) with bad audio on both ends. A lot of “what did you say?” and distortion (remember the sound of placing a 90s cell phone near a speaker?) Could be codec/antenna/reception related, sure, but I live where I live, I’m not gonna move for a phone, and I am comparing to other 3g phones. The ringtones are also still bad on 1.1.5.
You are right that the center button might be confusing at first, especially when you are used to a more classic approach. There were quite a few design decisions that pointed us in this direction - the most important one was following the rule of “non-distraction phone” - while we were heavily in the R&D phase of the general UX approach, this pattern was proven to have the least needed artifacts on the screen and the best consistency and usability.
So to clarify what I want.
Currently, when there is one thing, center button does it, and left button does nothing. This is good.
Then, when there are two things, currently center button does the big dramatic thing and the left button does the local, specific thing. This, I would want to switch.
I said as much while I was testing the OS on the simulator, but your team was able to convince me that it would feel better on the real phone, which I believed. In hindsight, I should’ve been adamant because it’s worse and I hit the wrong button often.
(Also, hardware-wise, the directions and center key are hard to use. All the other 14 face keys are a joy to use, absolutely amazing and well beyond expectations. The switch on the right is also great. The volume keys are slightly under par but I give them a passing grade. The directions and center are error prone and I make a lot of misclicks with them, and the creakiness associated with them doesn’t feel great. Unlocking the phone to read a message is an ordeal because of the center and directional keys are so bad. I need to hit center, #, center, right, center, center and that usually takes three or four tries. That’s indoors, with bare hands, in a warm and comfortable room.
This is software fixable: if the left context key takes over the role of the center key and if we could use num keys to open the messages, for example, it could be LCK, #, 6, LCK to open a message. Super easy even with mittens.
In that case, of course, I think the left key should remain the “small and local” key and the center key be the “big and dramatic interaction” key: in accordance with my precious issue that the key I use all the time to select apps should be the same key that selects fields in a contact, not the same key as the key that saves & exits that contact.)
True, there is no such option. The design decision here results from our concern for security, however, we don’t rule out changing it in coming patches. We will gladly look into it, thanks for pointing it out!
This was a bigger issue before I found out how to manually lock (which isn’t obvious. When the only way to lock was to wait for it to lock, but I couldn’t avoid it eventually locking, that was a bad time; that was worst of both worlds. Too short of a time and it’s a hassle to use the phone at home, too long of a time and I’ll accidentally call my ex from my purse. So knowing how to manually lock (hold #) is great.
If there comes a way to disable autolock, I will, but I can live with how it is.
Speaking more generally about UI decisions where discoverability is bonkerskly low (autolock, mediation time, add new conversation, add new note, scroll a truncated text message) I’m generally OK with all of these (although we do need to add a visual cue so we can see that messages are truncated). I’m OK with “simple to use” taking precedence over “simple to learn”. (Ideally one wants both, of course!)
As I mentioned - the audio quality should be greatly improved in 1.1.5. We are constantly trying to catch all of the flaws and drawbacks during internal tests, and having community responses in our heads, we are prioritizing the most crucial problems on our roadmap.
I love you guys and here is my chance to save face for all of us to say something like “yeah it’s better on 1.1.5”. But honesty is the policy that makes the most sense long term for a happy customer relationship (once people get their phones they’re gonna hear for themselves), and my honest take is that 1.1.5 still has bad audio (curse these “princess and the pea” ears of mine!) I do hope it can improve although it might be hardware limited.
That said - as you are a quite active contributor, you can create an issue with the audio quality - it should speed up possible R&D.
I will. Feel free to create Jira tickets for all of this stuff in addition to what I’ve already raised on GH.
As I talked with our QA engineers, they confirmed that it is possible to set the timer to 20 minutes. I’ve also tested it and it works - you just have to write the desired interval using the keypad.
You are right! Mea culpa on this one! I love 20 minute meditation!
Audio mixing is actually in the research stage, but you can get the notification during audio playback/calls via a vibration. As you disabled it, you’ve lost the notification - definitely a big thing to consider - we’ll take a look at this and see what’s possible.
I just really, really, hate vibrating phones.
Did you try to use up/down buttons around the center button? I had no problems with scrolling the larger blocks of text (such as EULA), although it might be an issue in particular cases. We’re working on it.
Yes, and your colleages helped me walk through this on GH. I thought I updated my review about that already. Additionally, it needs to become visually clear that a message is truncated (perhaps only show the upper halves of the letters on the last line?)
I have a message right now in the inbox on my Pure that looks like the whole thing at first glance but as I nav to it and scroll to it, there’s more.
You actually can! [go back to main screen easily] Just press and hold the back button (the right one) - you should be able to go to the desktop within one click.
As reported on GH, this freezes and then restarts the phone on 1.1.5. Additionally, that’s also how to turn the phone off, isn’t it?
[Tablet tethering is] a topic for another thread .
Agreed!
It is actually a business decision - we have a headphone Jack on purpose as it will give you an advantage of using the built-in audio codec.
The internal 3.5 DAC is fantastic, yeah. Love it. But, being able to optionally use USB C headphones would be good in case the 3.5" jack breaks, as happened within a month on my Doro 5517.
Please be so kind to address meditation timer as specific as you are able to. I.e. if you have issues with how the screen looks like - one look is worth thousands of words.
So three things.
- It defaults to “chime every two minutes” instead of remembering what I want
- I couldn’t discover how to set custom times (which is OK, see general note about discoverability)
- The time is jittery during mediation as reported separately on GH.
Or is it just the button assignment issue?
Yes, in addition to confusion between backspace being lower right or upper right.
Bad for low-vision users
The biggest problem here is the lack of a “return to main menu, centered” keyboard sequence, which is in the works. The 1–9 shortcuts for the icons (and their sublist items) will also help.
we’re happy that you like your new daily driver, even if it does not fulfill all of your expectations
I do
I love it.
Listen, I’m a designer too, and a nitpicker. If I were to write a similar list for the iPad, it would be ten times longer, or for the Switch it’d be about the same length as for the Pure. Good things can have flaws. The audio quality is the biggest problem, the rest is fixable.
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