The new Google Galaxy Nexus is out in the market in the UK and weeks after the release a bug has been discovered called the Galaxy Nexus Volume Bug. The ‘Volume Bug – Debounce‘ results in a decrease or increase in volume with out user intervention. This is due to a interference in a 2G network specifically the 900Mhz band. This is a hardware problem and both Samsung and Google acknowledge the bug and will roll out a fix on this. The good news is that it can be fixed via a software patch rather than full recall of the device.
A British Systems Engineer – Lee Johnston explained the real cause and fix for this Galaxy Nexus Volume Bug:
I’m a Systems Engineer and also a Developer. I deal with things like this every day. What we have here is indeed a hardware issue, in that the radio interference is coming in through the radio hardware. However things like this can be fix fairly easily in software. It’s called debounce.
When you monitor an electronic input like the buttons on a phone there is always noise and flutter even when you just press the button. If testing by Google has shown that they just need to turn up the debounce time (the time which an input must exceed for it to be determined to be a genuine press) then it will more than likely just work and no one will ever see it again.
Like I said I deal with this kind of thing every day, it’s not a big deal as long as your debounce time is not excessive. But noise happens down on the order of 1 to 40 ms, real inputs when you press a button last from 100 or 200ms if you tap the button, up to seconds if you hold it down.
This is nothing like Apple and the iPhone 4 antennae problems that could not be fixed in software. I’m sure everyone will see in due time, the problem will be fixed, and the dust will blow over.
And people will be saying “wow, I was wrong, Google rocks!”
The explanation of Lee Johnston was supported by Google engineer Dan Morrill who reposted it in his Google+ and said completely accurate” description of a “very common phenomenon”, with the increase in debounce time being the “classic fix”.
The issue of the Volume bug is explained clearly and Samsung and Google will roll out a fix for the Galaxy Nexus and hopefully will fix this issue in the next batch of Galaxy Nexus.
Source: Android Central
Image Credit: Android Community
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