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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Technology
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@alyaza Is it really that hard to dial 🇪🇺 112, 🇺🇸 911, 🇦🇺 000, or whatever the number in your country is?
There may be lots of problems with emergencies all over the world, but dialing the actual number isn't one of them.
In an emergency, unlocking a phone, accessing the dialing app, then dialing the correct number on a touchscreen all add considerable friction.
What if you're wearing gloves? What if the screen is broken? What if it isn't your phone? What if your hands are wet? What if the fine motor control of your fingers doesn't work well because you're injured/cold/burned/weak? What if you can't see well because of an eye issue or smoke...
Being able to tap an actual hardware button a few times can prove invaluable during these kinds of emergency situations.
A dumbass cousin of mine shot himself while all alone. It took him about 10minutes to call 911 because the blood on his fingers made it hard to use a touch screen. Knowing about the shortcut would surely have helped.
Every android phone I've had had a one-press 'Emergency' underneath the 0 on the lock screen, is it not the same for others? (although I'd argue that is too easy to hit)
I think this is common, but it still doesn't address the issues with using touchscreens and sight in emergency situations.
well, there's a couple benefits i can see to a quick-dial: in an emergency situation time is of the essence and you want as little hassle as possible in reaching emergency services. maybe for some reason you can't dial well, or at all--maybe you're panicking and a shortcut button gives you a less entropic way of calling emergency services.
Or a situation where you’re in danger and taking your phone out of your pocket isn’t an option.
Useful fact: You can dial 911 in Eirope as well. Android will forward your call to the local emergency service.
Got me thinking how awkward 911, 112 is to call on modern phones with one hand. 999 and 000 are much quicker to dial being only 1 number and at the bottom of the dial pad, 000 especially, being in the middle for left and right handers.
Fair, but that’s also on purpose, to reduce the chance of accidental calls. It’s why this 5-press system seems to have issues, there is no second validation. You should never be in a situation where you’re uncertain if you triggered an emergency call or not.
Yeah, pros and cons to it.
I have never heard of this being a problem until recently, the feature has been around a while. It should probably be disabled by default or have some other failsafe in place.