5 ms·

> Shame that few companies have the guts to break the monoculture. It is vaguely ridiculous that most phones look identical. You are describing cars. There is

> Shame that few companies have the guts to break the monoculture. It is vaguely ridiculous that most phones look identical. You are describing cars. There is no market for cars which are driven with more complex mechanisms than steering wheels. The world has percolated around the optimal solution, and it is a touch screen.

onli 9y ago
It's not either or. The optimal solution is a phone that has a touchscreen and a keyboard. I had a HP Veer, and that one was way better for typing than all smartphones I ever had. Touchscreens suck for typing. A smooth glass surface without haptic feedback can never be an optimal solution for that. It is only better for pure media consumption, if having only a touchscreen means having a bigger display.
- 91bananas 9y ago
  Have you ever considered that maybe you're just bad at typing on a touchscreen, and some practice could help? I can type on my iPhone without looking at it, quite quickly, the OS's autocorrect fills in for my slight inaccuracies with pretty damn good accuracy. The size a device must be to have both a keyboard and usable touchscreen puts it squarely out of the optimal solution category.
  - afandian 9y ago
    Not parent, but in the comment ancestry. Yes, as I said, I find typing on a screen difficult and I've put plenty of effort into trying. To draw a close parallel, dyslexic people have been forced for years to use conventional mass market writing equipment and told that they were stupid for finding that difficult. Mercifully people have stopped doing this. Same applies to left-handers if you want a broad example. I find this dogmatic "everyone must be the same" and "there's only one way to make a phone / writing tool" quite bizarre and a bit paternalistic. We're not all clones. We don't all have exactly the same needs, or requirements for 'optimum solutions'. I'm happily typing this on my BlackBerry Passport, which wider than some other people's phones, and sometimes draws comment. But it does the job I need it to so I'm happy.
  - qu4z-2 9y ago
    > The size a device must be to have both a keyboard and usable touchscreen puts it squarely out of the optimal solution category. The Motorola Droid managed to do it, and fit in my pocket. Scale it up a little to keep pace with modern phones, and you get screenspace and an even roomier keyboard.
  - lunchables 9y ago
    Respectfully, I've been using iPhones exclusively for ~7 years and I can still type faster on a Blackberry after using it for five minutes. I type WELL over 100 wpm on a computer keyboard, up into the 140wpm for short periods of time. I really don't think the problem is more practice.
    - onli 9y ago
      I don't have 7 years of practice, but a few, and it is similar for me. It's not even close. For me that's absolute intuitive: Of course one types faster when having haptical feedback. Very intelligent auto-completion and typing by swipe gestures maybe could come close some day, but doing that blindly will take an enormous amount of practice time. I'm not even sure humans can learn that at all, despite what parent said.
afandian 9y ago
If this has to be a car metaphor, surely it's automatic vs manual transmission. And there have been no mass market cars with joysticks but there have been a number of phones with keyboards.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  And the manual transmission is also almost dead, at least in the US. And soon self driving cars and electrics will make the whole question moot, just like voice and gestures and mental control will make keyboard preference obsolete.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    > at least in the US They are alive and kicking everywhere else.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Not for long :)
Karunamon 9y ago
I'm not so sure about optimal. Touch screen input devices always come with software that tries (and often fails, to humorous effect) to correct your typing because typing on a slick surface with no tactile feedback, to coin a phrase, fucking blows. I think it's got more to do with negative perception. Keyboards found their way onto cheap (read: awful) Android phones and better (but app-less) Blackberry phones and the mindset carries the perception home. If Apple were to come out with a keyboard phone, the rest of the industry would be doing it overnight before the sales numbers were in.

onli 9y ago

It's not either or. The optimal solution is a phone that has a touchscreen and a keyboard. I had a HP Veer, and that one was way better for typing than all smartphones I ever had. Touchscreens suck for typing. A smooth glass surface without haptic feedback can never be an optimal solution for that. It is only better for pure media consumption, if having only a touchscreen means having a bigger display.

91bananas 9y ago
Have you ever considered that maybe you're just bad at typing on a touchscreen, and some practice could help? I can type on my iPhone without looking at it, quite quickly, the OS's autocorrect fills in for my slight inaccuracies with pretty damn good accuracy. The size a device must be to have both a keyboard and usable touchscreen puts it squarely out of the optimal solution category.
- afandian 9y ago
  Not parent, but in the comment ancestry. Yes, as I said, I find typing on a screen difficult and I've put plenty of effort into trying. To draw a close parallel, dyslexic people have been forced for years to use conventional mass market writing equipment and told that they were stupid for finding that difficult. Mercifully people have stopped doing this. Same applies to left-handers if you want a broad example. I find this dogmatic "everyone must be the same" and "there's only one way to make a phone / writing tool" quite bizarre and a bit paternalistic. We're not all clones. We don't all have exactly the same needs, or requirements for 'optimum solutions'. I'm happily typing this on my BlackBerry Passport, which wider than some other people's phones, and sometimes draws comment. But it does the job I need it to so I'm happy.
- qu4z-2 9y ago
  > The size a device must be to have both a keyboard and usable touchscreen puts it squarely out of the optimal solution category. The Motorola Droid managed to do it, and fit in my pocket. Scale it up a little to keep pace with modern phones, and you get screenspace and an even roomier keyboard.
- lunchables 9y ago
  Respectfully, I've been using iPhones exclusively for ~7 years and I can still type faster on a Blackberry after using it for five minutes. I type WELL over 100 wpm on a computer keyboard, up into the 140wpm for short periods of time. I really don't think the problem is more practice.
  - onli 9y ago
    I don't have 7 years of practice, but a few, and it is similar for me. It's not even close. For me that's absolute intuitive: Of course one types faster when having haptical feedback. Very intelligent auto-completion and typing by swipe gestures maybe could come close some day, but doing that blindly will take an enormous amount of practice time. I'm not even sure humans can learn that at all, despite what parent said.

afandian 9y ago

If this has to be a car metaphor, surely it's automatic vs manual transmission. And there have been no mass market cars with joysticks but there have been a number of phones with keyboards.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
And the manual transmission is also almost dead, at least in the US. And soon self driving cars and electrics will make the whole question moot, just like voice and gestures and mental control will make keyboard preference obsolete.
- tomc1985 9y ago
  > at least in the US They are alive and kicking everywhere else.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Not for long :)

Karunamon 9y ago

I'm not so sure about optimal. Touch screen input devices always come with software that tries (and often fails, to humorous effect) to correct your typing because typing on a slick surface with no tactile feedback, to coin a phrase, fucking blows. I think it's got more to do with negative perception. Keyboards found their way onto cheap (read: awful) Android phones and better (but app-less) Blackberry phones and the mindset carries the perception home. If Apple were to come out with a keyboard phone, the rest of the industry would be doing it overnight before the sales numbers were in.