Clicks Communicator

I bought their Clicks phone case for iPhone and was very disappointed. The keyboard was dismal to type on and slowed me down significantly.

If they're using the same keyboard in this phone, it won't be of interest to me.

This is very exciting to me, I have been reluctant to upgrade from my Pixel 4a because I've been looking for a small form factor phone, and those seem to have gone extinct. Now here comes a product that both provides a small form factor, and even better, is aimed at reducing distractions and provides features to that effect.

It's running regular Android with a custom version of Niagara launcher (which it seems I need to try), and seems like it's a product built by people who want to use it. Which makes me hopeful that a lot of care was put into designing it. It seems like they're aiming it towards people that want a second device for work, which -in my mind- means there might be some compromises, so I'll be waiting for reviews to decide if it can hold up as a daily driver or not.

It should be noted, they claim that the keyboard is touch sensitive and can be used for scrolling, so it might actually solve some of the usability issues that immediately come to mind.

TBH, I'm a little surprised by all the hate. This might not be a product for you, or it might not speak to you for other reasons. The fact is that this company has seen success with their phone cases (I don't get it either), and has now announced two new products that should reach more of the market (the other is a magsafe slide out keyboard, it's very cool). If you don't like it, fair enough, but that doesn't mean it's a bad product.

Indeed. I am highly skeptical of kickstarters (and their ilk) outside of a small subset which is mainly forms of art. Art is something you ought to know for sure if you can achieve it before launching your kickstarter. (And even if the album/photo book/whatever doesn't turn out exactly how you imagined it, you can still give the backers some art of equivalent value.)

Electronics are the exact opposite. Coming up with an idea and getting some renders done is at least 1,000x easier than the remaining work from idea to shipping 10,000 units, therefore it's reasonable to expect that at least 90% of kickstarters for such products will fail to deliver, leaving backers holding the bag, since all our money has been spent already on the failed attempts.

Furthermore, I tend to think that if, due to some combination of their existing reputation + the amount of the work they've already completely finished, the project were a safe bet, then they'd be able to get investors to front them any further needed startup funds the normal way.

The Gmail app on Android supports 3rd party email servers via IMAP and has done for as long as I can remember (I have Gmail accounts but my primary account is a self hosted one and I use the Gmail app for all the accounts)