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Previous: Sign at Oakland Airport | Main | Next: St. Croix newspaper article
June 27, 2007 12:03 AM
Broken: Samsung cell phone message
Natasha Lloyd points out:
I got the message below when I wanted to delete a demo game from my Samsung C417 cell phone:
"All the JAR files will be deleted. A
re you sure you wa
nt to delete?"
This message is broken for two reasons.
One, most people probably don't know what JAR files are, so how can they be sure they want to delete them?
Two, there's really no excuse for not supporting word wrapping nowadays - "A re" and "wa
nt" break the reading flow, making you read them at least twice to get what they're saying.
did you dunk the phone in coffee? I mean, JAR does mean "java archive", right? HAHAHA. Actually, deleting all the JAR files would be bad: that's your programs!
As Kalthare pointed out, the message is terribly ambiguous and alarming. I've seen the same situation with uninstall of PC programs.
The problem is that the wording of the message was written relative to the point of view of the programmer. "All" to the programmer means "all of the jar files I installed", but from the point of view of the user, this is not at all clear.
And of course, it is completely broken to be asking the user of a cellphone this information in the first place.
Maybe its just that I don't expect a regular cell phone to be all that intuitive in the first place when it comes to games and such, but other than agreeing that most people wouldn't know what a JAR file is, and asking if they really want to delete them being broken, I don't see too much of an issue here.
Honestly, you are using a cell phone with a tiny screen and probably not that powerful of a "brain" in it. I would expect it to not be able to work as well in things other than actual phone usage. The word wrap thing doesn't seem to be a big deal to me, and at least to me, it seemed obvious that the only set of files it wanted to delete were related to the "bowling 2" game in the header, since that was the app you are working with.
Again, this is a cell phone you are dealing with (and not one of the Blackberry/Treo types either). If you are working with a game on this phone, I wouldn't expect it to be very good.
I'd also be interested in knowing how much you paid for the game... if it was free, then I would expect even less from it...
Memnon: This particular game was a demo that came with the phone, so I didn't pay for it. However, the message is not game-specific. It appears when you try to delete ANY game.
OMG, they shouldn't call them JAR files: they should call the games by their names. Also, the "A re" and "wa nt" should be typed/written properly (Are instead of "A re"; want instead of "wa nt")
BROKEN!
At least you CAN delete this stuff- I've tried getting rid of all the annoying ringtones and whatnot that I'll NEVER use that are just taking up space, and my phone won't let me. Talk about frustrating!
Just say:
"Do you want to delete Bowling 2 ?
YES NO"
There.
And ambrocked, you can delete those if they are part of RAM, go to the cell phone store and have them do it. if they are ROM, then you cant and don't worry you wouldn't be able to get more storage because you can't delete them.
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Previous: Sign at Oakland Airport | Main | Next: St. Croix newspaper article
This prompt is alarming for another reason: is it threatening to delete all the games on your phone?
Posted by: Kalthare at June 27, 2007 07:33 AM