The Paternalistic Galaxy

June 3rd, 2013

Yesterday, I finally put down my Droid Pro, which still had the unlimited 3G Data from Verizon. That phone was long past its prime. In it’s place, I upgraded to a brand new 4G Samsung Galaxy S4. So far, I love it. The screen is amazing, it is lightning fast, and the onscreen keyboard is not as bad as I thought. The battery life sucks, as expected, but I already bought two spare batteries, which I carry around with me wherever I go.

However, (so far) there are two paternalistic features I don’t like.

First, when the phone is fully charged, the screen lights up, and a notice pops up telling me to unplug the phone. As far as I can tell there is no way to disable this. This may seem like a useful feature that probably saves energy, but generally, the only time this message pops up is when I am sleeping. Last night, the bright light woke me up (yes, that stuff bothers me, as the AMOLED screen is super bright). And, in light of the crappy battery life, why would I unplug it overnight? When I woke up in the morning, it would be depleted. Anyone know how to stop this?

Second, it seems that whenever I plug in headphones, or my car’s auxiliary cable, it automatically drops the volume by half, and displays some message how it is not safe to play music loud with headphones. I don’t like this. Every time I get in my car to plug in my phone, the volume drops. Sure, it only takes a second to adjust the volume, but I don’t care for the fact that Samsung has decided what my ideal volume level is. Anyone know how to stop this?