Galaxy Note 5 Pengate tartışması mekanik ve insan kusurunun bir karışımıdır

Görünüşe göre teknoloji eleştirmenleri bazen çok seçici olabiliyor. Bazılarının o kadar çok boş zamanı var ki (bir teknoloji gazetecisi olarak bunu söylemekten nefret ediyorum) oturup cihazlarıyla oynuyorlar ve daha sonra bir haber hikayesine dönüştürebilecekleri çılgınca bir şey buluyorlar. Tanınmış bir Android sitesinde çalışan bir yazarın bir cihazda Galaxy Note 5'e ait olduğuna inandığı bir kusur bulması ve bununla ilgili bir video hazırlayarak viral hale getirmesi de böyle bir durumdu. Küçük düşürmek amacıyla ismini ifşa etmek yerine, gazeteciden sadece "o" (ismini değil cinsiyetini belirtiyor) olarak bahsedeceğim ve daha çok söz konusu "tasarım" kusuruna odaklanacağım.

Teknoloji gazetecisine göre, Samsung'un en yeni cihazı Galaxy Note 5'in alt kısmındaki bir yuvada bulunan dijital kalem S Pen'in bir tasarım hatası var: kalemi yuvaya önce üstten (tükenmez kalem gibi tıklama kısmıyla) yerleştirebilir ve kalemi yuvanın içinde sıkıştırabilirsiniz. S Pen kalemi genellikle önce alttan girer ve kalem ucu genellikle yuvaya kayan ilk şey olur. Galaxy Note 5'teki S Pen yuvasının amacı, dijital ucu her türlü hasardan korumaktır.

Bu gazeteci, dijital yazma kısmı yuvanın alt kısmında kalacak şekilde ucu ilk olarak yerleştirmeye karar verdi. Sonuç mu? S Pen kalemi kalem yuvasına yanlış şekilde takıldı ve çıkarılması zorlaştı. Sonuç mu? Galaxy Note 5 kullanıcısının çocuğu varsa ve çocuğunun cihazla oynamasına izin verirse, küçük çocuk kalemi yanlış şekilde yerleştirebilir ve kullanıcının Samsung'a kızmasına ve Koreli üreticiden sorunu çözmesini talep etmesine neden olabilir.

But the problem with the journalist’s claim is that 1) he assumes the Galaxy Note 5 stylus issue is a design flaw for which Samsung is guilty, 2) the issue is real because users will find themselves in situations with children or will place the S Pen in wrong while not thinking, and 3) therefore, Samsung needs to fix the issue immediately and find some way to correct it. Before tackling the issue and giving my own response, however, I should point out that the Note 5 user who places his or her stylus in its slot the wrong way will find that the S Pen detection software feature becomes automatically disabled and is never rectified. The journalist who discovered this supposed “flaw” by way of a commenter at an Android site found that the pen detection is disabled and can’t be re-enabled — even if the user chooses to do a factory reset and restore the device to its out-of-the-box setup.

Well, it seems as if Samsung’s got some explaining to do, right? After all, not only can the stylus get stuck in the slot, but it can disable the pen detection feature. Surely, this is Samsung’s fault, right?

Yakın bile değil. Geçmiş Note cihazlarının kalemi yanlış yerleştirmenize asla izin vermediği doğru olsa da, Note kullanıcılarının kalemlerini yuvanın içine nasıl yerleştireceklerini bilmeleri gerektiği de bir gerçektir. Cihazı satın alan en sadık müşterilerin Galaxy Note 5'ten önce bir ya da iki Galaxy Note'u vardı, bu nedenle sürpriz olmamalı. İkinci olarak, Samsung aslında kılavuzunda S Pen'i yuvasına yanlış yerleştirmediğinizden emin olmanızı ve bunun kaleme zarar verebileceğini ve yazılımı bozabileceğini belirtiyor.

O halde sorun Samsung'da değil. Şirket, Galaxy Note 5 kullanım kılavuzunda olabileceklerin tehlikelerini zaten belirtmiştir. Başka bir deyişle Samsung, kullanıcıyı sorun ve dikkatli olmaması halinde doğuracağı sonuçlar konusunda uyarma görevini yerine getirmiştir. Samsung ne yapıyor değil responsible for, however, is the negligence and forgetfulness of the user. That is not Samsung’s problem, nor is it a design flaw on the Galaxy Note 5; instead, the problem is a human one.

What many human users want in this world is something idiot-proof, and the iPhone, prior to the Galaxy Note 5, has contributed to this. One of the main selling factors of the iPhone is that you need not be a tech-savvy person to use it. It’s simple, easy to setup, and works well right out of the box (for those whose devices don’t run into a problem, that is). But the iPhone is also famous because it teaches individuals to use the home button should they ever run into a problem. The home button now doubles as a Touch ID fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 6, but the iPhone is set up to help you “find your way home” no matter where you are. In contrast, it’s been said (somewhat incorrectly) that Android and Windows Phone devices are too complicated to use because they allow for a much greater customization of your device than that of an iPhone.

However I despise it, the iPhone treats me (and everyone I know) like they’re idiots. In other words, the iPhone doesn’t expect you or me to know anything about using a phone, or to try out a solution when we get stuck in a rut and don’t know where to go. But the problem with this “idiot-proof” setup is that 1) it assumes we’re idiots, which is not true and 2) it enables us to continue not thinking about how to use our phones, or to continue not trying to get out of problems ourselves.

If you’re going to spend so much money on an iPhone, or a Galaxy Note 5, you shouldn’t expect the manufacturer to make a device idiot-proof. No human is an idiot, because each human born has a measure of intellect that helps him or her learn how to use devices. Smartphones are smart, but they’ve yet to surpass human intelligence (after all, we have to program them to do our bidding, do we not?).

if a person does not use his or her Galaxy Note 5 manual out of the box to learn how to setup his or her phone, is that Samsung’s fault? Not at all. If a construction group is working on a given bridge, and you come up to the bridge spot with a sign that says “go back, huge sinkhole here,” is it the construction group’s fault if you proceed, rather stubbornly, and find your vehicle being swallowed up by the sinkhole? No, not at all. If you leave your food at home on the stove all day, and the food catches fire and destroys the oven, is the oven designer or manufacturer responsible because you left your food on the stove? If you drop your Galaxy Note 5 into five feet of water, but the device was never advertised as water-resistant, is Samsung responsible because your phone died? I won’t insult your intelligence or mine with any new examples. I think we all get the point here: there is no substitute for human responsibility, not even with tech devices.

To assume that any device made, including the Galaxy Note 5, must be idiot-proof is to give too much responsibility to Samsung and too little responsibility to users. Mobile devices are made for teenage and adult users who know how to preserve their devices. None of these devices are child-proof (just ask my brother-in-law’s sister whose niece dropped her non-water-resistant smartphone into her bowl of cereal and killed it), and that has never prevented users from preserving their devices. The same thing applies here.

It is a sad sign of the times, though, when users expect idiot-proof and child-proof Galaxy Note 5 models, when humans should learn how to think and take responsibility, and protect their devices from their children. We just want to live in a world where we don’t think, and, if our smartphones are moving us to not care about our own negligence and responsibility, then maybe it’s time to put our devices down, go outside, and reclaim the human intelligence I think we’ve lost.