Comment Re: So explain to me (Score 1) 215
Iâ(TM)m not sure you should rely on Harrison Ford movies for your understanding of history.
Comment My Personal experience (Score 2, Interesting) 394
Seems to be a faux paux to inject reality into a SlashDot discussion, but here are some personal experiences. I've owned an iPhone since day 1; tried other smartphones but they never quite cut it for me. Windows Mobile was just awful, which elminated a whole class of phones, and the Treo was just too clunky.
I could never type successfully on a Treo , buttons were too damn small and there wasn't any autocorrection. iPhone has the same problem, but the auto-correction works pretty good, especially on longer words. It's kind of weird watching yourself type gppndy and having the iPhone turn that into foobar. Is the keyboard perfect? No. In vertical mode, the keyboard is a little bit small for perfect targeting, in horizontal mode its a stretch for "thumb typing".
So if you just pick up an iPhone in the store, you're not going to think the keyboard is that great, but you're going to think the web browser and email client kicks ass. For me, that was enough.
After using the iphone for a week you'll like the keyboard a lot better because it seems like magic to type d;sdjfpy and have that turned into "slashdot". Someone else commented they couldn't even type the first letter correctly, and that's part of the iPhone zen you have to get over. English is only really about 3 bits/letter of information. Factor that into the fact that when you're typing, the iphone knows the general area you were trying to hit, and that that's what makes the autocorrection seem like magic. It's not, its probably just running through all the permutations for the letters near what you typed and ranking them against its dictionary. That's why it seems so magical for long words like "permutation" but doesn't do as well for short words.
So I wouldn't want to type a post like this on the iPhone, but for "Hey, where are you? I'm ready to go." in a store to my wife it's great.
Typing passwords REALLY, REALLY SUCKS unless you know the secret, which is "dragging" your finger and releasing when the key is right (type via key-up not key-down). Typing a 128-bit hex key for my WiFi network was really painful as a first iPhone experience.
So there's the good and bad. Is typing as good as Apple's new kick-ass super-thin USB keyboard? No. Is it pretty good when coupled with the auto-correction for a mobile device? Yes. The auto-correction in my opinion makes the keyboard better then the Treo. Is it better then standard phone keyboards? Much, I could never figure out how to get my phone out of its weird "texting mode" (which they didn't give me any documentation for) so I could send "No". So texting is a way better experience for me on my iPhone then my old phone.
Engineering is about tradeoffs. If I had to carry around my desktop keyboard as my cellphone, I'd leave it at home. Holding it up to my ear to make a call would look bizarre.
As for non-geek feedback: My wife never, ever sent a text message from her old phone. She's now a texting fiend and reads her email on her phone most of the time.
Come to think of it, I text more now as well.
I could never type successfully on a Treo , buttons were too damn small and there wasn't any autocorrection. iPhone has the same problem, but the auto-correction works pretty good, especially on longer words. It's kind of weird watching yourself type gppndy and having the iPhone turn that into foobar. Is the keyboard perfect? No. In vertical mode, the keyboard is a little bit small for perfect targeting, in horizontal mode its a stretch for "thumb typing".
So if you just pick up an iPhone in the store, you're not going to think the keyboard is that great, but you're going to think the web browser and email client kicks ass. For me, that was enough.
After using the iphone for a week you'll like the keyboard a lot better because it seems like magic to type d;sdjfpy and have that turned into "slashdot". Someone else commented they couldn't even type the first letter correctly, and that's part of the iPhone zen you have to get over. English is only really about 3 bits/letter of information. Factor that into the fact that when you're typing, the iphone knows the general area you were trying to hit, and that that's what makes the autocorrection seem like magic. It's not, its probably just running through all the permutations for the letters near what you typed and ranking them against its dictionary. That's why it seems so magical for long words like "permutation" but doesn't do as well for short words.
So I wouldn't want to type a post like this on the iPhone, but for "Hey, where are you? I'm ready to go." in a store to my wife it's great.
Typing passwords REALLY, REALLY SUCKS unless you know the secret, which is "dragging" your finger and releasing when the key is right (type via key-up not key-down). Typing a 128-bit hex key for my WiFi network was really painful as a first iPhone experience.
So there's the good and bad. Is typing as good as Apple's new kick-ass super-thin USB keyboard? No. Is it pretty good when coupled with the auto-correction for a mobile device? Yes. The auto-correction in my opinion makes the keyboard better then the Treo. Is it better then standard phone keyboards? Much, I could never figure out how to get my phone out of its weird "texting mode" (which they didn't give me any documentation for) so I could send "No". So texting is a way better experience for me on my iPhone then my old phone.
Engineering is about tradeoffs. If I had to carry around my desktop keyboard as my cellphone, I'd leave it at home. Holding it up to my ear to make a call would look bizarre.
As for non-geek feedback: My wife never, ever sent a text message from her old phone. She's now a texting fiend and reads her email on her phone most of the time.
Come to think of it, I text more now as well.
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