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Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#141

Post by afandian »

rbanffy wrote: post #113
charlesdaniels wrote: post #48

The only BlackBerry I ever owned was the BlackBerry Classic, back when that was still contemporary. Best phone I ever had. The UX was very consistent between apps, everything targeting it natively tended to be quite speedy, and the keyboard was excellent. I also miss the "BlackBerry Hub" feature, which would aggregate your emails, BlackBerry messenger messages, and SMS messages into a single UI. It even pulled in not…

Blackberry Hub was a thing of beauty. A single message queue for things I need to be aware of would make my life so much easier.

I agree, it was wonderful on a Passport.

But I do wonder what a mess would result if it had collided with mass market Android and the shovelfulls of sofware that treats the notifications like a 90s systray. BBOS 10 not being Android might have been a bit of a moat against that.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#142

Post by dmitriid »

buro9 wrote: post #98
mushbino wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on what you're talking about? I'm having a hard time picturing it but I'm interested.

https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/2811346?hl=en-GB&co... Glide / Flow typing where you merely draw an approximate path of the shape that your typing would have followed. It allows for very quick typing on a screen keyboard without the hammering of specific letters.

And you have to double-check what you've written because it often guesses incorrectly

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#143

Post by Tepix »

_mhr_ wrote: post #47

No one has yet mentioned the Blackberry Priv, an Android phone with a quality keyboard sold as recently as 2016. I loved it so much, but it recently stopped holding charge among other issues, so I had to get a new Samsung. I type an order of magnitude slower now, and I write constantly. But there is no alternative. I don't know if you guys are aware, but https://www.onwardmobility.com/ is supposed to release a new An…

You don't have to get a new phone because the old one "stops holding a charge". You can get the battery replaced.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#144

Post by streamofdigits »

fsflover wrote: post #128
janekg wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BlackBerry licensed Onward Mobility to make another keyboard phone I would instantly throw away my IPhone (despite being happy with macOS/iOS) for a Blackberry like phone with LineageOS.

How about a GNU/Linux phone with a keyboard? https://pineguild.com/pinephone-keyboard-first-impression-is...

a linux phone is a blessing in it self, but this style of keyboard is not a blackberry substitute. it is basically turning the phone into a tiny workstation, which could be quite useful - but it can't be used when standing (or even sitting)

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#145

Post by RicoElectrico »

piaste wrote: post #140
alpaca128 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiftkey seems nice until you're not an english native speaker, which means you automatically write in 2 languages (native and at least some english). Now good luck having the keyboard guess which dictionary to use for every single word, which can even lead to mistakes if both suggest the same thing (capitalization). I care about not having a wrong word in the middle of every other sentence. And even that doesn't cha…

I have GBoard in three languages, it guesses the language from the first few words and then 'sticks' to it for the rest of the message. Occasionally it guesses the wrong language if the first word or two are ambiguous, but by manually typing out a word in the right language it quickly adjusts itself. Or if some languages are only used occasionally, you can just put them on a dedicated keyboard and switch with a long…

The greatest flaw of GBoard is that it doesn't treat space as just another character that could be mistyped, but as a delimiter that's always assumed to be in the right place. This makes the error rate ridiculous.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#146

Post by albru123 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #90
awinter-py wrote: post #64

I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. I can use a physical keyboard without looking, but the screen keyboard takes twice as long and consumes my full attention if I want any speed. The blackberry felt like an extension of my brain on the internet. Touchscreen devices feel like an extension of the internet in my brain + eyes, not as nice. I used my bla…

Do you use Swiftkey-like typing on your keyboard? On my Android phone I find I can type so fast with it, and I barely have to look at the keyboard.

I used Swiftkey for a few years and thought it couldn't get better... until I found Fleksy.

The autocompletion is just superb and nowhere near anything I tried before. It's made for typing without looking or worrying about hitting the right keys, so if you're not really comfortable with Swiftkey-like typing, you might wanna give it a try.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#147

Post by [deleted] »

_mhr_ wrote: post #47

No one has yet mentioned the Blackberry Priv, an Android phone with a quality keyboard sold as recently as 2016. I loved it so much, but it recently stopped holding charge among other issues, so I had to get a new Samsung. I type an order of magnitude slower now, and I write constantly. But there is no alternative. I don't know if you guys are aware, but https://www.onwardmobility.com/ is supposed to release a new An…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#148

Post by windmark »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #107
pjerem wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiftkey like keyboards (like … Swiftkey or the iOS one) are keyboards where you write your words by swiping your finger across the letters of the keyboard, releasing your finger between each word. Like this : https://youtu.be/D2XyP7iUErI at 00:17

iOS has swipe to type built in. I used Swiftkey for iOS recently, it’s no better than the built in option, and worse if you disable the spying “feature”.

SwiftKey is for some reason significantly worse on ios than android. I still use it because it has far better correction than the builtin keyboard and I haven't found any other that supports multiple simultaneous languages on ios.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?

#150

Post by encryptluks2 »

awinter-py wrote: post #64

I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. I can use a physical keyboard without looking, but the screen keyboard takes twice as long and consumes my full attention if I want any speed. The blackberry felt like an extension of my brain on the internet. Touchscreen devices feel like an extension of the internet in my brain + eyes, not as nice. I used my bla…

Reminds me of the Sidekick, but not the one that slides vertically but the one that spun around. God I wish they'd make a modern Android phone like it.
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