

The Speaker (Or: why the iPhone's speaker is on the bottom of the phone) - chrysb
http://dcurt.is/2011/10/12/the-speaker/
Ever wonder why the iPhone's speaker is on the bottom of the phone?
======
tzs
From a Time Magazine story from 2007:

    
    
        The iPhone is a typical piece of Ive design: an
        austere, abstract, platonic-looking form that
        somehow also manages to feel warm and organic and
        ergonomic. Unlike my phone. He picks it up and
        points out four little nubbins on the back. "Your
        phone's got feet on," he says, not unkindly. "Why
        would anybody put feet on a phone?" Ive has the
        answer, of course: "It raises the speaker on the
        back off the table. But the right solution is to
        put the speaker in the right place in the first
        place. That's why our speaker isn't on the bottom,
        so you can have it on the table, and you don't
        need feet." Sure enough, no feet toe the iPhone's
        smooth lines.
    

[http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00....](http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00.html)

~~~
rottencupcakes
Because rubber feet have friction and hold a phone on a surface much better
than the iPhone's smooth back does.

Also, putting my iPhone down without scratching the front or the back glass on
a piece of sand or dirt is an art.

Yes, the iPhone 4(s) is pretty, but you sacrifice function for that beauty.

~~~
tptacek
If you want little rubber feets on the back of your iPhone, put little rubber
feets on the back of your iPhone. The back of the iPhone is, properly, inert
and ambivalent to your modifications.

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joezydeco
Okay, Dustin. I have one for you to investigate next.

Does iOS watch your use patterns for the phone and mute alerts when it thinks
you're asleep? It could be just me, but I know I'm not the only one with a
Pavlovian response when I hear the mail dinger. And the phone is abnormally
quiet until just around the time I normally get up, then I hear the morning
mail ding in.

Am I nuts? Wife says I am.

~~~
alttag
I swear mine does it too.

I suspect it mutes alerts after a period of inactivity (but it could be
something sneaky like a combination of the photosensor and accelerometer
reporting dark and no movement).

~~~
X-Istence
It doesn't do this with alerts from apps on the iPad for example... those
still go off, so I am not sure.

Although I may have become so used to the sound that I can tune it out ...

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rudiger
Between the speaker and the 3.5 inch screen, I believe there is some sort of
logical fallacy in Dustin Curtis' reasoning: the existing design is X, then we
figure out some justification for X.

~~~
nextparadigms
A lot of tech reviewers seem to do that in their reviews, I've noticed. Since
they like the iPhone and they are used to it, they treat it as a reference
point, and then anything else that deviates from that _must_ be the wrong way
to do it.

~~~
shaunkoh
Notice how dcurtis didn't start with "This is how the iPhone is", "This is
Android", and "This is why the Android way is wrong".

Instead, he shared a problem that he had with his Android – not that it wasn't
like the iPhone, but that it didn't wake him up properly.

The rest of his piece put across a hypothesis that builds upon the problem.

------
Shenglong
This may be a little old, but this really reminds me of the LG EnV Touch - the
phone I had before my iPhone4. Here's a picture:
[http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/lg-
en...](http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/lg-env-touch-
open.jpg)

Worse than putting the speakers on the back, the LG team actually stuck the
speakers on the INSIDE of the phone. Yeah, it's fine and loud when you open it
up, but you can barely hear the phone ring when it's closed and in a pocket.
Things like this really bother me. Thanks for pointing this out.

------
there
_Even when you place the Nexus S on a flat surface, its speaker becomes almost
inaudible._

i just put my nexus s on my desk and the speaker worked just fine. the whole
reason why there's a little bump over the center of the speaker is to raise it
off of a flat surface and let the audio get out.

putting the iphone in a dock probably muffles the audio coming from its bottom
speaker (though maybe apple's dock accounts for this, maybe 3rd party ones
don't).

there's probably not a perfect way to solve this for every user. if you know
the speaker is on the back, don't rest it on a blanket. if it's on the bottom,
don't use it in a dock.

~~~
adolph
Yep, Apple's docks have little cut-outs. Some 3rd party inserts for various
cases have cut-outs too.

------
rvschuilenburg
You know, nothing is perfect. Ever played a landscape game on the iPhone,
watched a movie in landscape, or whatever? Ever noticed how you somehow always
cover the speaker with your hand without noticing it? I do. It's driving me
nuts.

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driverdan
The iPad design team could have learned from the iPhone team. The speaker is
on the back which makes it very quiet when watching a movie. You have to put
something behind it to reflect the sound.

~~~
dpark
My guess is that they didn't want to put holes in the glass. It'd be less
sleek. But it would sound a lot better.

~~~
cpeterso
Why not put speakers on the left and right edges of the iPad?

~~~
dpark
There are no edges on the iPad 2. Putting a speaker on any edge amounts to
putting the speaker on the back.

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Splines
What I don't understand is why the earpiece couldn't also double as an
"external" speaker. They're about the same size.

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nebaneba
I never noticed this! But now, I do:

[http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/TechRadar...](http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/TechRadar/Gadgets/Mobile%20phones/Nokia/Nokia%20N900/Nokia_N90004-420-90.jpg)

on both sides too!

------
sardonicbryan
I use a Galaxy S2 as my alarm clock and have never encountered this problem,
even though I typically leave my phone on my bed by my pillow as I sleep.

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eam
I think it would be better if it were on the top. When I hold my phone upside
vertically sometimes I manage to cover the speaker with my hands.

------
grimborg
The HTC Desire has the speaker on the back and it doesn't have this problem.

------
parasitius
Dude's blog is driving me nuts overall. No commenting, and the article about
why iPhone is 3.5 inches the other day because "Galaxy S II" is too big to
reach whole screen with your thumb... Yeah maybe for a child or small-bodied
(non-American) woman, but I actually borrowed a friends to CHECK, and I can
easily reach beyond every bit of the screen with one hand.

~~~
parasitius
Down rating :( ??

~~~
pluies
Well, you don't address the post content but attack the writer directly, also
implying that he's a child or a foreign small girl (why "non-American" by the
way? Do American women have bigger hands?), which is not really good form.

