Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Clicks Communicator

clicksphone.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 272 posts

Re: Clicks Communicator

#231

Post by rchaud »

meursault wrote: post #189
growt wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re aiming for the second phone market you don’t have to beat the iPhone. Probably the easier pitch.

This is 100% the reason. I watched BlackBerry fail from the inside and there’s always been an extremely vocal minority of former BB users who want to go back to a physical keyboard. This is a niche product for that audience at best, it will never have mass market appeal as a primary device. I don’t think it will have mass market appeal as a secondary device for the same reasons as others have pointed out in this thre…

Blackberry made regular slab phones too and they were massively outsold by the keyboard ones. Why would anyone buy a slab phone running an obscure OS that lacked any major apps, when Android and iPhone were available? The keyboard was always the selling point.

The fact of the matter is that the smartphone market could not support more than a few players. Blackberry was just one of several vendors without vertically integrated supply chains that disappeared: HTC, Nokia, LG and Sony all abandoned the market as well.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#232

Post by al_borland »

kh_hk wrote: post #125

My recommendation for someone considering a minimalist / dumbphone / detox / whatever is to avoid expensive products that over-promise their utility. There's no middle ground, it's either usable or it is not, so any in between will just become e-waste eventually. The alternative I went with, and which I recommend, is getting both a smartphone and a nokia shitphone (no internet). Then ask the carrier for a sim duplica…

I’m drawn to the idea of a dumb phone, but I can’t realistically move to one full time, as I need an Authenticator app for work. Also, losing mobile access to my password manager would be a nightmare. Going with a smart + dumb phone setup feels like a non-starter. That’s adding more complexity to life, not removing it.

I tend to delete apps from my phone if I find myself spending too much time on them. My “social” folder in the app drawer contains Phone, FaceTime, and Messages. Just the built-in stuff. It also helps to have a healthy level of distrust of these companies, so you don’t want to use their services in the first place.

This doesn’t make the phone “dumb”, but it does make it more of a utility device. I go through my apps pretty regularly looking for stuff to delete. I still have more apps than I’d like, but they are mostly boring (banking, healthcare, etc).

The only big issue that remains is the browser. I can’t get rid of it, but it is still a portal to YouTube, HN, and other such things. This has its pros and cons.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#233

Post by user_7832 »

al_borland wrote: post #225
weikju wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While holding it down, tap with another finger to start selecting text instead of just moving the cursor around.

I’m trying this, but it feels pretty buggy. I don’t feel like I have much control.

Not your fault. In the past it used force touch which allowed you to trigger it from anywhere on the keyboard (instead of the spacebar only). This made it far more powerful/flexible. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, removed it.

Source: an iPhone 6s in the family that was a joy for all the right reasons. My current SE 2020 is good, but the lack of force touch really sucks tbh. Do you know, for eg, you could open multitasking with force touch instead of the home button?

Re: Clicks Communicator

#234

Post by rchaud »

darthbanane wrote: post #222

I would recommend not touching pre-orders with a 10-foot pole. The leadership behind this project is f(x)tec. While they're not outright scammers they have a TERRIBLE track record in delivering products like this. Just look up the old fxtec community forums or the indiegogo pages for the pro1 / pro1x. It's just data points but so far the modus operandi was to take pre-order money and then take years to deliver a bad…

I had forgotten about FXTec. I think Clicks could be different though. For one thing they have already shipped keyboard accessories for the iPhone and the Moto Razr. The core technology is there. Additionally, a small company like Unihertz has shipped several variants of PKB phones reliably over the last few years.

The Fxtec Pro 1 tried to implement a sliding keyboard mechanism, which is mechanically complicated: the Palm Pre ran into problems with that design and the Blackberry Priv in 2015 discontinued that design after only one generation, switching back to integrated PKBs for the KeyOne and Key2.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#235

Post by al_borland »

user_7832 wrote: post #233
al_borland wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trying this, but it feels pretty buggy. I don’t feel like I have much control.

Not your fault. In the past it used force touch which allowed you to trigger it from anywhere on the keyboard (instead of the spacebar only). This made it far more powerful/flexible. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, removed it. Source: an iPhone 6s in the family that was a joy for all the right reasons. My current SE 2020 is good, but the lack of force touch really sucks tbh. Do you know, for eg, you could open multi…

I miss Force Touch as well. I think they rebranded it to 3D Touch, to avoid the jokes.

Press and hold works for some stuff, but it’s slower. The press and hold to get to the lock screen switcher feels very slow, and inconsistently slow on top of that. Some days it seems to work, while others it seems to take forever.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#236

Post by hecifato »

I’m hopeful for this product both becoming real and being good. No word on what Mediatek SOC they’re using on the spec sheet, plus what memory capacity we’ll be working with.

The people in my life I’ve shown this to so far have all shared my hopefulness. It seems to me that everyone who had a keyboarded Blackberry misses it for the utility of the device. I think Apple and the rest of the smartphone industry were correct on the direction mobile phones were heading. A big screen is great for viewing content but is not so great at doing things besides social media. This has become increasingly obvious as the iOS keyboard keeps on getting worse while more people use their iPhone as their only, or at least primary, computing device. I can’t speak to the Android space so I’m not sure if Samsung, Huawei, or Google devices are having similar on-screen keyboard issues.

One thing that is immediately disappointing about the product specs at this moment is the timeframe for updates. Two years of Android system updates plus 5 years of security updates is paltry compared to Samsung & Google’s recent change of tune on that front. It is pretty pathetic compared to Apple’s long-standing precedent of providing full OS updates for several years, even for phones that probably shouldn’t be on the latest version of iOS.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#237

Post by RajT88 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #223
RajT88 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of e-Waste: > Can Communicator be used as my primary phone? Without them making a statement of how long they will provide security updates for, this could easily go like past phones of mine. My work tightens their mobile security policy, and the device can no longer meet it. This is for both Android version and security updates. Happened to me a few times where I had to stop using a perfectly good phone whic…

Why don't you have a work phone? How can you let an employer rule over what you do with your personal device?

I do have a work phone - which works only in wifi mode.

If it's super important, my regular cell gets called. My regular phone has 0 work stuff on it. My employer couldn't access personal stuff on it if they wanted to.

Re: Clicks Communicator

#238

Post by jdalgetty »

kh_hk wrote: post #125

My recommendation for someone considering a minimalist / dumbphone / detox / whatever is to avoid expensive products that over-promise their utility. There's no middle ground, it's either usable or it is not, so any in between will just become e-waste eventually. The alternative I went with, and which I recommend, is getting both a smartphone and a nokia shitphone (no internet). Then ask the carrier for a sim duplica…

Can you elaborate on the sim duplicate thing - I've never heard of that before - how would I go about getting one of those?

Re: Clicks Communicator

#239

Post by solaire_oa »

Ezhik wrote: post #210
solaire_oa wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm, this is sensible advice. I backed the FxTec Pro 1x during a depressive period in depths of COVID. It took ~years of hamstringing for them to deliver, but they did eventually deliver the phone. Even aged as the phone is, it's really well designed, and I occasionally use it with Claude from my couch in the evenings. Being LineageOS capable is a strong selling point (for the Pro 1x), so if that's on the t…

Pro 1x also has pretty solid Droidian compatibility, so it can run a full on Linux.

I wasn't aware of Droidian, this looks great, thanks!

Re: Clicks Communicator

#240

Post by 827a »

darthbanane wrote: post #222

I would recommend not touching pre-orders with a 10-foot pole. The leadership behind this project is f(x)tec. While they're not outright scammers they have a TERRIBLE track record in delivering products like this. Just look up the old fxtec community forums or the indiegogo pages for the pro1 / pro1x. It's just data points but so far the modus operandi was to take pre-order money and then take years to deliver a bad…

I have a founders edition Clicks keyboard for the iPhone 15 Pro. Its really a fantastic piece of hardware; worked great since I got it, idk, maybe 14 months ago. Obviously this is a full device and much more complicated, but I wouldn't personally have any qualms taking a risk on it given that their track record for the other clicks devices is pretty solid IME.
Post reply on HN