beak wrote:

... 30 seconds web research revealed that the phone 'app' system was likely based on a simple magnetometer, and that it had to be zeroed before every use.... 

Aha! That would explain the strange rotate the phone until it buzzes maneuver! Manufacturers do a poor job of communicating with the user, for while every phone now has this feature I never recall reading the caution that it must be calibrated before every use. But maybe the people who write the user's manuals don't really understand this either.

As for effort in using technology - my experience is that many users put a lot of effort into using technology - you use this app, and you use these settings, and etc... but are weak on forming abstract models. The person who has some abstract model of what he is doing is always miles ahead of the person who is finding their way through the maze with a string, and is lost when the string breaks. The person who does not model lives in a blooming buzzing confusion where the person who does has seemingly magical powers, and can often accomplish what others believe impossible.

beak wrote:

30 seconds web research revealed that the phone 'app' system was likely based on a simple magnetometer, and that it had to be zeroed before every use.

That's interesting. I never use a compass app, so I was unaware of how they work. I would have guessed that it was based on the phone's GPS information and therefore would be indicating true north, which if used with a map is the better route.

Using cell phones for actual navigation would require a better understanding of how they work, but the same could be said for a magnetic compass; hand someone a map and a compass, and if they don't understand how to compensate for declination they're going to be just as lost.

In your case there wasn't any navigation involved, so I'd imagine that even with a thirty degree variation between the phones that the general direction of north would have been established, and a rough idea of the sun's movement across the terrain understood. I know very little about film lighting, but are the demands such that an exact direction needs to be known?

beak wrote:

...or the couple of hundred it would cost to have a native English speaker proof read the text before committing their buffoonery to print!

Couldn't agree more about the typical translated manual, but I don't think that the criteria of simply being a native English speaker is quite high enough. I know too many native speakers who would only compound the written buffoonery and have no sense for such things. I recently wrote a number of English documents both for print and online use for a company that used to rely on Google Translate for such things. A proper manual requires a good writer, one who can communicate instructions clearly and effectively because he has a full understanding of what needs to be explained, and has placed himself in the shoes of a person that understands none of it.
 

You will perhaps have noticed the same lack of manufacturer's commitment to the writing of software intended to help you operate their products. 

Have just replaced kitchen microwave that ran well on switches and mechanical dials. That considerable expense presented me with an electronic operating menu written either by a sociopath or a moron. - in fact, I guess, written by someone who could easily have made a much better job of it had their employer cared to pay them for the time this would have taken.

I recently had the opportunity to review a users' manual for a new system we will be using extensively.  The developers had created it to be a 200 plus page bullet list with no page navigation!!! How in the world were we supposed to make heads or tales of it? Well, I took some time and formatted it such that it would at least be navigable and read as something that wasn't in computer-eze.

Bill Hume?