[HN Gopher] Daily-Driving a Blackberry in 2023
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Daily-Driving a Blackberry in 2023
Author : ColinWright
Score : 32 points
Date : 2024-04-13 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scd31.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scd31.com)
| freedomben wrote:
| I think nostalgia tends to corrupt our memories somewhat, but the
| peak usefulness of my phone really was my last blackberry. There
| are certainly modern conveniences that are game changers and I
| would not want to live without, such as Google maps and audio
| players (music, podcasts, audiobookshelf), but as far as a
| communication device for text messaging and email, my blackberry
| with keyboard was insanely productive. The soft keyboards on
| modern smartphones are just terrible. Google's latest speech to
| text has gotten pretty good, probably to the point where it is
| equivalent to where things were with the blackberry, but if you
| are writing something that can't be easily spoken or if it gets
| punctuation incorrect, it is a pain in the ass to fix it with the
| soft keyboard.
| afandian wrote:
| Before my iPhone my previous two phones were a BlackBerry
| KeyOne (android) and BlackBerry Passport (BlackBerry 10). Not
| enough time has passed for nostalgia to set in. Those phones
| were the high water mark. This iPhone is generally fine but the
| keyboard is an awful compromise IMO. I don't think I've ever
| typed a sentence correctly first time, or as fast as on a
| BlackBerry.
| walterbell wrote:
| Seen the Fairberry, BB Q10 keyboard + PCB + 3D holder for
| modern phones?
|
| https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry
| afandian wrote:
| I literally just bought one of these. It's still in the
| post. https://www.tindie.com/stores/zitaotech/
| ninkendo wrote:
| > The soft keyboards on modern smartphones are just terrible
|
| I find it's best to think of the iOS keyboard[0] as being a
| single big touch area with no distinct buttons, which you type
| into by tapping your fingers in the general vicinity of where
| the correct keys are, and let autocorrect do _all_ the work.
|
| I get confused by people who disable autocorrect, because for
| me it's the only way the keyboard works at all. Just as I'm
| typing this, _fully_ half the words I'm typing are wrong as I'm
| typing them, and the phone is figuring out my actual meaning
| only by looking back entire sentences and figuring out the
| correct words by looking at probabilities. I never stop to
| check whether it got the word right, I just keep typing. It
| figures it out eventually.
|
| (Side note, when it _does_ get it wrong, I can't imagine a
| worse system for correcting words than iOS has. I simply cannot
| ever get the cursor to go to the right place for correction.
| Whatever system is being used for placing the cursor in
| response to inaccurate taps, is fully and diametrically opposed
| to how I'd expect it to work. It's criminally bad.)
|
| - [0] probably android too, but I only have experience with iOS
| so that's what I'm speaking to.
| thomaskahabka wrote:
| To your side note: did you know you can use the iOS keyboards
| space bar as touch pad control for the text cursor? Just
| press and hold. That makes positioning the cursor very easy.
| natebc wrote:
| FWIW the default soft keyboard on Android functions the
| same way. Remembering to use it is the big trick!
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Trying to tap where you want the cursor to go is madness -
| hold the space bar and drive the cursor to where you want it.
| wswope wrote:
| I totally agree with your general point, but in case you
| haven't tried it, disabling "Slide to type" massively
| improves iOS keyboard accuracy.
|
| (Picked up the tip from another thread on here about how
| sloppy the iOS keyboard is, and have subjectively found it to
| be a big improvement.)
| patrickdward wrote:
| I thought "slide to type" was default off--and at least I
| was sure it was off at some point for me. But your message
| prompted me to check and it was on. Thanks!
| arp242 wrote:
| > I get confused by people who disable autocorrect
|
| I want to speak with my own voice, not Apple's autocorrect
| voice. Doubly so in casual jokey chats. I do agree that it's
| unusable without it, but I ducking hate it.
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| If you regularly switch languages or, even worse, use
| multiple languages in the same messages, autocorrect gets in
| the way more than it helps. In monolingual contexts it's
| almost always set to the wrong language (based on the one
| used previously) and what comes out is just a jumble. In
| multilingual contexts you just spend as much time on
| switching the keyboard language as on the actual typing.
|
| Also, I'm not sure how it is today, but 5-8 years ago I knew
| more words in my native language than iOS autocorrect and got
| tired of it "fixing" them.
| jeffbee wrote:
| My Blackberry was the first platform on which I ever used
| Google Maps. By the way a Blackberry user need not go without
| GPS. They can pair with and use a standalone Bluetooth GPS
| peripheral that is about the size of a pack of chewing gum.
| VelesDude wrote:
| This is something I highlight with the trend toward dumb
| phones. The input system on them sucks, it makes smart phone
| input look eloquent even though it is clumsy.
|
| The idea that a lot of the time the opposite of one bad idea is
| another bad idea.
|
| The Blackberry form factor is a reasonable middle way that
| could be explored again. Blackberry input systems but with the
| expanded functionality of smart phones - just adjust the app
| quantity/quality to your needs. There have been companies that
| have tried but their efforts have been clunky and with out
| native OS support and apps developed with it in mind, it is an
| uphill battle.
| madmaniak wrote:
| I went that path. At first my smartphone stopped working for no
| reason. I thought it's great moment to downgrade to dumb phone.
| After about a year I lost my sim card... Then I thought it's
| great moment to get rid of my phone at all. I needed to detach
| all services related to my phone - which sometimes is tricky.
| After all I'm phone-free since 2018. In the meantime I was
| traveling a lot, working for different companies and I was in
| touch with friends. I'm known in my circle that I have no phone.
| At work they don't even ask.
| ColinWright wrote:
| Recently I went into the bank to sort out a small issue. They
| said:
|
| Them: "We'll send a code to your phone."
|
| Me: "Currently roaming isn't working on my phone, so I can't
| receive SMSs."
|
| They stopped and looked at me, and said:
|
| Them: "Well, we can't proceed."
|
| There are some services that assume you have a phone, and
| simply will not work without. And some of them are effectively
| essential.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| "Ok, then let's cancel all my accounts right here and now.
| Cut me a cashiers cheque for the remaining balance".
|
| That'll get them to move.
| ninkendo wrote:
| It won't because they can't verify that you are who you say
| you are in first place, so to them you're just a scammer
| trying to socially engineer them. (Or at least that's how
| they should be treating you if they were trained
| correctly.)
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| They're in a bank. In person. How can an SMS be
| considered safer than that?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| The bank took photocopies of my id when I opened the
| account. Surely they can match that with the three valid
| government IDs I carry with me and that should be more
| trustworthy than a phone which might have been changed in
| the meanwhile, stolen or imei-spoofed.
| switch007 wrote:
| It's 2024. Here in Europe standard customer service would
| be: sure, need any help packing your bags?
|
| Unless your account has a few million in it
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| How do you know it doesn't :)
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| My Grandfather did that (he was 80 at the time), he got
| upset that his bank would not take a cashier's check from
| another bank, even after calling the other bank to confirm
| it was valid.
|
| He asked for his 60k worth of deposit in cash, apparently
| there are laws from the 30s that if you ask for cash they
| have to give it to you.
|
| The bank ended up calling in police officer, who then
| confirmed that my grandfather was in the right, and they
| gave him the 60k. He stuffed it down his pants and drove to
| the other bank he used, with the police officer kind enough
| to follow him.
|
| Funny story, but he is definitely on a list of people that
| that bank will not do business with.
| walterbell wrote:
| If a bank teller doesn't know that multiple pieces of
| government-issued identity documentation are a stronger form
| of authentication than insecure SMS, ask for a manager.
|
| TOTP 2FA is more secure than SMS and it works on an offline
| iPod Touch. There are also VOIP-based SMS services.
| VelesDude wrote:
| All the other comments here make a good point but this is a
| core problem that I really worry about. Assumption of
| technology usage. And that eventually you are forced into
| usage of something you might not want. The amount of
| businesses and even government divisions that just assume the
| following.
|
| 1) You have a smart phone
|
| 2) It is either Apple or Android and nothing else
|
| 3) You are happy to use their proprietary app/setup.
|
| I started to become aware of this over a decade back when
| using Windows Phone. And while I am on an up to date Android
| phone now, that you are forced to participate.
|
| This is also why Ted Kaczynski was fascinating, An absolute
| insane lunatic that made some good points about the nature of
| technology. While his idea about this was a lot more broad,
| the requirement of phones is just another inch being taken to
| get to mile took.
|
| "127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten
| freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later
| on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man
| formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace
| without observing any traffic regulations, and was
| independent of technological support-systems. When motor
| vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's
| freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no
| one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and
| anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much
| faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction
| of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as
| to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. "
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I really wish that Kaczynski had found better (i.e. not
| completely insane and immoral) ways to raise awareness of
| his ideas. He definitely had some insights into the
| problems technology causes for society, but I feel like his
| ideas became tainted by the utter madness he pursued for
| the sake of his ideas.
| arp242 wrote:
| If he hadn't done what he had done then we almost
| certainly never would have heard of him and his
| manifesto.
|
| "The Kaczynski paradox" is a problem for a number (not
| all) of terrorists or terrorists groups, where
| fundamentally they have a good point, but also use
| unacceptable means to bring attention to these points.
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| Definitely. It applies to multiple levels as well. The
| massive adoption of banking cards created the expectation
| that you use one, which then caused cash to not be
| universally accepted everywhere anymore. Now it's expected
| that you use an Android or iOS app for said bank. Next up,
| your banking app expects you to have specific AR smart
| glasses to use it properly.
|
| It's also an issue with "e-Government" platforms in some
| European countries. There's this default expectation that
| you want to use it, which has in some cases made certain
| tasks more difficult for those whom prefer using regular
| paper forms. The next _layer_ is those platforms requiring
| Android /iOS apps, which could very well mean that being
| able to use healthcare or filing your taxes indirectly
| requires either a Google or Apple account, and agreeing to
| their agreements.
| extr0pian wrote:
| Wow, no phone since 2018? I'm curious how you're able to live
| in the modern world. I can immediately understand some of the
| benefits. I myself use a degoogled Pixel 4a and only have a few
| basic apps installed. However, going completely without a phone
| must have some significant drawbacks. Care to elaborate a bit
| more? Do still have a phone number like VoIP?
| santoshalper wrote:
| I am always torn when I read posts like this. On one hand, I have
| very mixed feelings about smartphones. It alarms me that we have
| become so intensely dependent on a device that is so new. I have
| vivid memories of navigating the world without Google Maps and
| not feeling constantly tethered to a device.
|
| On the other hand, these posts often feel incredibly precious,
| like the author has an unbelievable amount of free time to waste.
| It's similar to the feeling I get when I meet someone with an
| old-timey handlebar mustache. It's hard not to roll my eyes.
| talldrinkofwhat wrote:
| Where exactly are you accounting for wasted time? On
| navigation? On posting about not having a smartphone? The
| amount of time saved not having a smartphone (interacting with
| the internet using a computer [keyboards, adblockers, multiple
| screens, user vs owner dynamics]) outweighs any extra costs in
| my opinion. Navigating around town becomes second nature once
| you stop receiving turn by turn directions from Google-et-al.
| The only argument I've ever heard of that rings true is not
| having access to ride shares (ironicly named to boot).
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(page generated 2024-04-13 23:00 UTC)