https://www.techradar.com/phones/the-first-android-is-15-years-old-and-it-is-the-opposite-of-everything-we-want-in-a-smartphone-today
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It's crazy how the authour keeps shutting on the phone, being like "wow we've learned so much since then", but physical keyboards were the fucking best.
Touchscreen keyboards are super error prone and you need to physically look at it as you type. It used to be the case that you could write and send messages without needing to look at your phone at all. Under your desk while you kept eye contact and a verbal discussion with your teacher and they wouldn't even know.
You’re assuming the bulk of the interaction with your phone is producing content instead of consuming.
That's an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered.
I'm not big on doomscrolling, I don't have Facebook or Instagram or Twitter... I MOSTLY use my phone for activities that involve dialogue. I'd never really considered that this maybe isn't representative of broader behaviour.
Has this always been the case? Did the phone changes meet existing behaviour, or drive people to a fundamentally different behaviour?
Idk I can still type without looking at it as long as I take a quick glance when I first start typing. But it is easier with a physical keyboard for sure.
For one second, I'm sure most people would do this with a physical key word too. being pedantic about this is just dumb but thanks for the "lol" it added a lot to the conversation. Also you had to change my wording to make it work for you, fuck right off.
So many morons on this planet lol
Physical keyboards have markers on home row so you don't need to look. They existed on the phone keyboards too.
The guy is right about being able to do things without looking. I remember using speed-dial to open a text conversation and send a message without ever looking at my phone. It was pretty great.
I'll try to type without looking: this is me round without looking in a phone keyboards. Yeah, it just doesn't work as well without knowing where exactly I'm pressing.
It would be hard to make a phone slim enough and handle a physical keyboard again, but it would be awesome. It would make writing code on mobile a possibility again. Today it's too tedious.
Not bad this us me not l99king at the keyboard and just at what I'm typing on screen above and of course auro correct correcting a hunch of things as I go
Edit: Its better than I expected but still not great
i was running the last keyed blackberry until android 9 became incompatible with some necessary apps.
I had practically no errors in my writing. Now on the touchscreeb i keep making constant mistakes even after half a year of being back on a touchscreen.
Fuck, a quarter of the time i have to repeat typing in my unlock code because it didnt recognize the jeystrokes properly.
Physical keyboards can break much easier, also if you speak more than one language they are impractical.
I have broken way more screens than I have physical keyboards. I have found that when using the typical alphabet the keyboard was just fine for Tagalog and Spanish. I could see it being an issue if you spoke Ukrainian or something with a different set of characters.
Who else would love to see a phone similar to the G1 get released again? Modern specs, larger screen, but a similar housing design, just less clunky.
I'd love to see a modern Xperia Play phone with a sliding gamepad! I even considered buying a Surface Duo when it was released but gave up because well, Microsoft...
Give me a modern Nokia N900 form factor and I'll buy it in a heartbeat. Better yet if it can dual boot Android and Linux.
This would make me as happy as a kid on a Christmas morning.
This looks perfect! A pitty the price with the currency conversion is kinda prohibitive, but the product is just perfect. I'll take a hard look into it. Thanks a lot for the heads up!
My god, the memes that will drop when Android 18 releases. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised I haven't seen any for Android 13 or 14.
I still have a G1 in a drawer, every couple years I find it again and spend a few minutes flipping the screen open and shut. What a fun mechanism.
What happened to those doomsayers who claimed fragmentation will kill the ecosystem. And yet here we are.
The other side of fragmentation is making accessible a usable smartphone for those who might not otherwise have access.
I think the availability of Android does lead to more affordable devices.
My first Android phone was a Samsung Galaxy S, and the main reason I picked it back then was that some apps, mainly Anki, were free on Android but you had to pay for them on iOS (even when both are from the same open-source project), and I thought it would be cool to be able to go through my flashcards during my commutes. Oh and you could remove the back cover and easily replace the battery on that one.
Yeah that was my first too. I remember that I found the S2 ridiculously large when it came out. Also I was super jelous for the build quality of the iPhone 4 which was released at the same time. Glad that these times are over.
I think I returned mine and stuck with the HTC Dash for a year or two more until the software was better.
I got my first Android, a G1 from a store in Downtown. It was the best transition to a smartphone from a Sidekick LX (the brown one). Wow... it's been 15 years since then. That's nuts.
LG Optimus Black is my first. At that time I was a long time Nokia 6267 user, about to upgrade to Asha. My dad decided to give me his instead. Android user ever since
Wow... 15 years of mobile corporate surveillance and erosion of privacy already. How time flies...
