Fucking stupid OS assumptions

and poorly-thought-out control interfaces.

Yes, I could be talking about just about any piece of computing equipment and its operating system, but today I’m talking about the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.  A very nice phone, by the way, but still a phone with quirks.

My wife upgraded to one some months back.  By all accounts she likes it very much.  Except that it would randomly buzz or ring on a fairly regular basis for what appeared to be absolutely no reason at all.  She’d look at the notifications bar after it did so and there’d be nothing there waiting for attention.  And this went on all the damn time.  All day and all night long.  So I’d be lying awake for whatever reason at 2 or 3 AM, and I’d hear “bzzzzt” from her nightstand as the phone vibrated for no discernible reason.

This past Sunday morning, I had finally had enough.  I googled “samsung s7 edge beeps no notification”.  Now, mind you, we’d googled this like mad, taken the phone back to the store, talked to young friends who know more about these pocket computers that we do, and EVERYONE has been stumped.

So then I found this blog post.  Which was really for the Galaxy S6 Edge, but the same fix worked for the S7.

Turns out it’s a notification reminder.  It goes off to remind you that you have unread notifications (which is a lie, because THERE WERE NO FUCKING UNREAD NOTIFICATIONS).  And it is set BY DEFAULT to go off EVERY FIFTEEN FUCKING MINUTES, DAY AND NIGHT.

WHY?  Samsung, spare us the goddamn nannying.  We don’t need it.  What do you think we are, millenials still living in our parents’ basement?  Geez.

And what’s worse, the setting for this isn’t in the normal place in the settings where you deal with turning notifications on and off, it’s hidden away in the fucking Personal/Accessibility section — where NOBODY WHO ISN’T HANDICAPPED IS GOING TO LOOK.  Because, believe me, we LOOKED.  And we never in a million years would have figured out that the setting was in an accessibility area.  Because it makes NO FUCKING SENSE TO HAVE IT THERE.

But, like I said:  Nice phone.  And at least it doesn’t blow up like the S7 Note.  And I am a godlike hero to my wife, because I finally made her phone stop blowing her shit.