The Swiss Cheese model, pt. 4: The iPhone jump scare

(It’s Halloween Week on Unsung, where we’re sharing scary, spooky, and creepy stories.) The first time I encountered this bug, years ago, I jumped up my seat. I was listening to the music on my iPhone and suddenly, for no particular reason, the music got extremely loud. I frantically held the volume down button, calmed down the sound, and didn’t think much about it. But it happened again a few days later. And then again. And again. I slowly started paying more attention to this, trying to figure out what might have been causing it. I started piecing together that it wasn’t wholly random: I noticed whenever it happened, it seemed to be only when I started or resumed the music – but not every single time I did so. Then, I also noticed it only happened whenever I was putting the phone away. Eventually, I figured out the whole sequence of events. In 2019, Apple changed the design of the volume indicator so that it went closer to the physical volume buttons. Here’s before and after: I…