I swear, the number of times my mom and aunt have butt-dialed me is staggering. And my wife and I just sit there laughing hysterically while we listen to a 3-minute maxed-out voice mail that consists of scraping fabric and snippets of overheard conversation.
But what exactly is happening? I’ve asked them and they have no idea. They both have iPhones, and it’s just crazy that somehow their pants or purse or whatever is pushing the Home button, swiping the lock to the right, locating the contacts page, finding my name, and pushing the Call button, all without them knowing it.
It doesn’t seem to happen with anybody my age, which is not meant to be a criticism of older people, just an observation that may help. What is the deal, who are these people, etc. etc.
I know it took me a while before I installed a lock. Don’t think I’ve buttdialed anyone since. Never perceived a need for a lock, as I don’t do any banking or anything else terribly significant on my phone.
Or, I’d flip it and say young folk DON’T buttdial because they always have their damned phones out and are messing with them constantly!
Eyesight gets works, hands may tremble. So I don’t think it’s always ‘butt’ dialing, but more often a wrong number, or they where trying to do something else.
My wife just did this last night on her iPhone. Wanted to create a contact from the “recent call” screen, bit accidentally hit the number instead of the “i” circle - dialing the number instead of pulling up the call detail screen. Poor interface design, IMHO.
I’ve had an iPhone 6 for just over a year and still don’t know how to truly lock the screen (as opposed to turning off the phone) so that it will not react to touch. It’s something you have to actually install? Not something the iPhone comes with stock?
On the Blackberry I had before, it was a simple button at the top of the case (that only worked intermittently after a year or so).
Yeah, but in both those cases, they’re presumably aware they made a mistake and disconnected the call. In my examples, they literally have no idea the phone has called me and left a voice mail that consists of them talking to someone else. I definitely agree it might have something to do with the fact that never leaves the youngsters’ hands!
I think the most common reason this happens is not because the phone gets turned on in the purse after it’s off, but because it never got turned off in the first place. Many times I’ve seen people finish using their phone and then just stick it in a pocket or purse without turning it off.
I do exactly this. Turning it off and back on are both relatively time-consuming … I would much prefer to have something akin to “sleep” mode on a laptop, or the lock button on a Blackberry,
If I hit the upper right button on my i6, the screen goes dark and touching it does nothing. Of course, that does not prevent the Home button being pressed and I don’t have touch-ID. But it has only ever happened once to me. Mom OTOH just handles hers w/o locking it and does not keep her fingers off the screen so she’s constantly redialing a recent number.
This is why I hate cell phones, I realize the convenience and safety and tech-y ness of the thing. The world has gone crazy! I long for the days of being lost and away from any contact for awhile. To look at a person in a mall or airport who is not looking down at their phone. It just ain’t right! I know, I am a dinosaur!
My Android phone has a button on the side that darkens the screen and makes it inactive until I push it again and swipe the screen. It doesn’t have a physical home button, just a “soft” button that only works when the screen is on. I’ve never butt dialed anyone, mainly because I don’t sit on my phone, but I’ve accidently dialed a contact while looking up their info.
What kind of phone do you have? On every phone I’ve used (two iPhones, three Android phones), there is a physical power button that puts the phone into an inactive mode when you press it once. The screen goes dark and no longer responds to touches until you press the power button (or the home button, if it has one).
I have an iPhone 6. I just followed JRDelirious’s advice to lock the screen, and it worked.
I’ve Googled “how to lock an iPhone” many times in the past. Pressing that button never seemed to work before. I think I was holding the button down and thus bringing up that shut-off screen, which I was trying to avoid. A quick press of that same button puts the iPhone to sleep.
Why it took me until just now to figure that out, I’ll never know. :o
Gives me pleasure to know someone out there is more technologically inept than me!
Yesterday I was thrilled to figure out how to go into “settings” to change the time on my new car. Set it to change automatically via GPS. Only problem is, the best option they gave for IL was “Central America”, so now it gives me messages in Spanish!
This. Every time I butt-dial or butt-text somebody on my Android it’s because I forgot to push the “screen off/lock” button before sliding it back in my pocket.
Sometimes I’ll hear the gentle click-click-click of the keyboard merrily typing nonsense into a text message. Or randomly clicking who knows what on any / every app I have installed. Far more often the combo of ambient noise and my fading hearing makes that inaudible.
:mad: The most butt-dialing in our family was my son. Who as a teenager kept butt-dialing 911 when he was cutting class and in the park smoking dope with his buddies. You know, at the worst possible time. He must have skewed the data somehow. Actually he goofed and called me once under similar circumstances, and I heard the whole conversation, and I gave him hell, although apparently not enough hell.
I have never butt-dialed anyone* but I did mistakenly call my daughter-in-law when I was trying to program her number into my new phone. It was 2:30 in the morning and she had just gotten home from the hospital with my newest granddaughter, but fortunately, she knows how to turn her phone off at times like that, so I escaped having to make up for it forever.
I have called the wrong person. I just talk to them like I intended to call them all along. “Wrong number? Well, should I start dying my hair again? I should? All righty then…”
This might have happened because, at least on my iPhone, if you are at the unlock screen, there’s a spot on the screen for making emergency calls that doesn’t require you to unlock the phone to use it.
