WP7: Insomnia when inside pocket

Many of us may have experienced this frequently, specially those who carry your phones inside your pockets.

When inside the pocket, a WP7 can be turned on accidentally(camera button or power button) or by reminders, alarms or SMS. So it is very likely that a WP7 will wake up without us knowing or noticing it.

But that's not the real problem, the real problem is that the auto sleep timeout (30 secs, 1 min or whatever) is reset every time the lockscreen is touched. Now, can you imagine with which frequency the screen is rubbed inside a pocket? If you are walking or running it could be just every second. The result? Phone keeps on for a long period of time, draining battery and warming up.

Note: Capacitive screens are supposed to ignore clothes rubbing, but if cloth is thin enough or tight enough, capacitive will react upon skin rub or hand in pocket.

Sometimes you don't notice it because luckily you freezed and you gave time for the timeout to happen, but it could have been ON for hours. You notice that when you take it out for use and see the battery meter and think why the heck the phone drains so much battery. And it's just that: WP7 phones have insomnia.

Then comes a second problem, that rubbing inside the pocket can also unlock the phone because the lockscreen will slide up with a very short flick (2cms). Once unlocked the touch party begins, a lot of apps will be opened, emails written, calls answered/rejected, etc, etc. Don't believe it? See this email was written from scratch by my pocket while me walking half a block:

(click to enlarge)

One good option should be the ability for the user to setup how long to flick to trigger the unlock.

Some people will enable PIN protection or get a hard case to prevent this. But not the idea. Many use the phone just naked, and if a phone has a lockscreen then it must meet its purpose, it should not be just a screensaver, it must be touchsaver and batterysaver as well.

We developed PocketShield back in the WM6 era, and users loved it mainly because it solved these kind of problems.

I think battery life is one of the most important aspects on mobiles, and the big cons on peoples mouth about phones is always battery life. So I hope Microsoft(if anybody reading) puts a big effort so resolve this on the next update. If helps, I have filed a request in uservoice so anyone can vote.

Regards,

JDB

http://jdbp.mobi