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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?

#211

Post by myself248 »

afandian wrote: post #135
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really am surprised that with of all models of Android phones in the world, no one is making one with a keyboard. Even if it was a niche product, you'd think there would be an audience...

I'm typing this from my Unihertz Titan Pocket, which was very successfully crowd funded recently. It's a good little phone. Prior to that I had a Blackberry Key2 whinch was pretty much the perfect Android phone IMHO. I have a Gemini PDA which is a great concept but the hinge isn't practical. Before that a blackberry Passport which ran BBOS. Loved it too, at the time. These devices do exist, and the niche is strong en…

I've been drooling over the Titan, but the lack of an AOSP-derived ROM for it is an absolute blocker. I do not trust manufacturer's firmware one iota, no matter what, and this is only getting worse over time.

The best thing Unihertz could do in my mind would be to dump a bunch of support and money at LineageOS and get their phones supported. Especially the one with the DMR walkie talkie; the lack of third-party support for those is crippling them.

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

#213

Post by Timpy »

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 try to use this but I reliably end up getting the wrong word, which leads to some strange swypo typos. Here's a quick test, what I wanted to type on top and what came out on bottom:

"I'm a good singer"

"In a good dinner"

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

#214

Post by TacticalCoder »

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…

> I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points.

This precisely. I don't miss "BlackBerry the ecosystem" but I do really miss "BlackBerry the form factor".

For someone "into" keyboards (as in: taking the time to evaluate different switches to see which one I like best, for example), having to input anything on a smartphone is a really sad joke.

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

#215

Post by stevage »

bgro wrote: post #204
smcl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved my blackberry's keyboard, but I adjusted to iOS on-screen keyboard (starting circa the iPhone 4S) pretty well. Last couple of years though iOS autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong (incorrectly changing were->we're, ill->i'll for example. and today changing "Torvalds" to "Torshavn" or something when I was talking about Linus and not the Faroes). If someone has a nice pho…

There appears to be some speculation about something changing on the iOS keyboard / autocorrect, causing it to get worse in the past few years. You're not alone!

Meanwhile I think Android's has gotten a lot better.

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

#216

Post by mattbee »

I miss my Nokia E61.

I maintain that in 2007 I fell into a parallel & incomprehensible reality when people started valuing slightly bigger video screens over self-expression.

Back in the original universe, everyone is happy with a variety of keyboard sizes on their phones, they are more eloquent online, and so the internet there is much less full of misunderstandings and rage.

I hope the next leap ... will be the leap home :(

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

#217

Post by piaste »

RicoElectrico wrote: post #145
piaste wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I always swipe with very few exceptions, so spaces aren't an issue.

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

#218

Post by eitland »

smcl wrote: post #157
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…

I loved my blackberry's keyboard, but I adjusted to iOS on-screen keyboard (starting circa the iPhone 4S) pretty well. Last couple of years though iOS autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong (incorrectly changing were->we're, ill->i'll for example. and today changing "Torvalds" to "Torshavn" or something when I was talking about Linus and not the Faroes). If someone has a nice pho…

SwiftKey is getting buggier but is still a massive step up from the default since it:

- works with more languages

- can be configured to suggest completions and corrections but not auto-apply them

(If anyone from MS/SwiftKey team wonders: these days if I delete a word and start on a new it shows both the original word and the best predictions for the new word. Thankfully it only inserts the new one - but sadly it inserts two spaces.)

And since this is a startup forum, some advice if anyone else reads this:

1. don't skimp on testers. Good testers are extremely valuable.

2. give us users a way to give you feedback! You get a lot of rubbish (I know, I am a dev who sometimes work on products with easily available feedback channels) but without it feedback like this ends up on open forums like here - or we are just silent and mightily annoyed and ready to forgive quite a lot from the next app/keyboard/service that actually fixes the stupid thing your product didn't fix.

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

#219

Post by volkl48 »

janekg wrote: post #115
dddw wrote: post #36

Yes I miss it everyday, I feel so clumsy typing on a piece of glass, and make soo many typos. I could type BLIND without typos whole emails while maintaining a casual conversation (much to the annoyance of my girlfriend). There are a lot of BlackBerry-stans still on crackberry.com holding out on older and newer BlackBerry phoned (key2 being the latest). Really loved my Q10 with bb10os and my Keyone running Android! S…

> 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.

Depending on what you define "Blackberry like" as, the F(x)tec Pro 1 is that. Physical keyboard (slider style, though) and officially supported for LineageOS.
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