The Speaker (Or: why the iPhone's speaker is on the bottom of the phone)

From a Time Magazine story from 2007:<p><pre><code> 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. </code></pre> <a href="http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00....</a>

Okay, Dustin. I have one for you to investigate next.<p>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.<p>Am I nuts? Wife says I am.

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.

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: <a href="http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/lg-env-touch-open.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/lg-en...</a><p>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.

<i>Even when you place the Nexus S on a flat surface, its speaker becomes almost inaudible.</i><p>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.<p>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).<p>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.

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.

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.

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

I never noticed this! But now, I do:<p><a href="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/TechRadar/Gadgets/Mobile%20phones/Nokia/Nokia%20N900/Nokia_N90004-420-90.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/TechRadar...</a><p>on both sides too!

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.

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.

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

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.