Obsolescence

[rowyn]

I didn't try to get Pokemon Go when it came out, but as more and more people on my Twitter feed talked about it, I decided to take a look.

It turns out I can't run it on my phone: my model is too outdated.  This is not a huge shock: I first got this phone three or four years ago, and the model was first released in June 2010. It'd be silly to upgrade just to play Pokemon Go, but it has struck me that my phone is no longer particularly good at doing the things I have always done on it. Twitter "upgraded" its native app to a version that runs so slowly on my phone that most of my Twitter usage from the phone now is "replying to direct messages".  The app can handle this. It can't really cope with reading my feed any more.  No client Twitter apps will run on my phone.  Evernote runs but loads slowly.  Google Docs is even worse. The browser is painful to use, too. I don't even like to read books on it any more. I did a factory reset a few months ago and only reinstalled the things I use all the time, but it didn't help. Everything is slow and crash-prone.

So I did a cursory web-search for my primary and inflexible requirement of a smartphone: a side-slide keyboard. One article dated June 2016 turned up ten "current" models, and I was briefly heartened.

Then shaterri pointed out that only one of those was more recent than 2013. The one that's from 2015?  Has a physical keyboard, but it's a vertical slide, not sideways.

A less-cursory search did not turn anything more recent up.

I type at 45 wpm on my smartphone. I write books on my smartphone. I have tried using virtual keyboards and found them painfully, horrifically slow.  Maybe if I practiced with Swype or something I could get up to a reasonable speed? Because 10-15 wpm is not a reasonable speed.  That is a give-up-and-do-something-else speed.

But it's kind of horrifying to think that a signficant part of my work process is dependent on a style of device that's fallen so far out of favor it may never be manufactured again. I guess, in a year or two when my smartphone's performance goes from "bad" to "unusable", I will have to learn to get really really good with Swype or tote a laptop everywhere or something.

But I can't use a laptop while waiting in line at the store or taking a walk or using my exercise bike.

Ugh. -_-

Comments

[canis-lupus03.livejournal.com]

Uh... well, i don't know how exactly you use the keyboard, but would tablets with a virtual keyboard be an alternative? They're kind of like an oversized phone, so there's room on the screen maybe for a keyboard and your writing, and aren't as big and heavy as a laptop. I type with ten fingers, so I need a physical keyboard of reasonable size, but if you can type on a mobile while standing in line I assume that's not a constraint for you, ;-)

[rowyn]

The problem is not that virtual keyboards are small: it's that they are terrible. They offer no tactile feedback, so I can't touch type on them (yes, I touch type on my phone's physical keyboard). Making them larger doesn't really help. I type mainly with my thumbs when I'm using the phone keyboard, and with a virtual keyboard I'm much more likely to (a) miskey (because I can't feel the boundaries of the keys, only 'see' them) and (b) not know that I've miskeyed. A bigger screen does get rid of the problem where the virtual keyboard takes up the entire screen (I will honestly never get over this whole "why do you want a physical keyboard taking up screen space" objection -- (a) a side-slide keyboard does not occupy screen space and (b) that terrible virtual keyboard DOES ARGH), but tablets are pretty much the exact wrong size: they're too small to ten-finger-type and too large to type with thumbs. :/

I may end up trying them and perhaps I will learn to love Swype, but my experiences with these things have not been promising. v_v

[canis-lupus03.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand. Yes, sounds like maybe a bluetooth keyboard like Terrycloth suggests down there might be more the thing. What app do you use to write in? Google docs? I've my writing on the google drive, but in odt. files, and it doesn't seem like libre office has a proper mobile app yet... <.< no writing on the go for me, I guess!

[rowyn]

My current process is to write scenes in notes in Evernote, and then copy them into a master file in Google Docs. Evernote handles disconnection from the network better than Google (Google's offline mode does not work with my phone, I think because Google assumes your offline device will have enough memory to store your entire drive) and neither program is good at files of more than a few thousand words when open on the phone, so this way I don't end up with my Google drive full of a hundred tiny files.

It's not graceful, but it works for me. -_-

[canis-lupus03.livejournal.com]

Hey, as long as it works and gets books written, that's the important thing, right? :-)

[archangelbeth]

You might be surprised at learning touch-typing on a virtual keyboard. The other day, I was discovering my typing ability was faster if I wasn't looking at the iPad's screen keyboard, but was watching the screen to make sure autocorrupt was doing what I wanted it to. And I was thumb-typing! And it was faster! And didn't have that many errors! I was, frankly, kind of boggled that it was working -- but it did.

I dunno -- go futz with one of the iPhone 6-bigs sometime? Big enough for screen real-estate, but maybe small enough to thumb-"touch"-type.

Alternatively, fingers crossed that there's a bluetooth phone-keyboard that can be made to work for ya!

[rowyn]

The trouble is, I think that "typing quickly with virtual keyboard" is a skill that would take days or weeks to achieve, based on how much I have hated every one of several virtual keyboards on different devices that I've tried. I don't think I'm going to be able to tell while in a store that "sure, I can do 35 wpm, this is fine". :/

[archangelbeth]

True -- it has taken me a lot of time twittering to get to that point. I suppose if you do the "type on this one, do everything else on that one" option, you might be able to practice on the screeboard in question for Twitter and such, till you get good enough to switch? O:(

[danceswithlife]

Well, you could get a new phone and use it for everything but writing. Keep your old phone (which will still have storage, and which will still connect to the internet), and carry it around to write on?

[rowyn]

I'd have to pay for another phone line if I wanted both phones to be usable online simultaneously. Or pay for a mobile wifi hotspot, which was more expensive than another phone line, last I checked. -_- I mostly use my phone in places that do not have wifi. Switching the phone chip back and forth between models would be prohibitively annoying.

Anyway, the big problem is that the current phone no longer works well *for writing*, because the apps I use to write now want more memory and/or CPU and/or whatever else 6-year old phone model lacks. Probably the handheld keyboard for a new keyboardless phone will be a better solution, when the phone becomes unusable for writing (as opposed to its current 'borderline functional' state).

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Minor point of order that doesn't solve the software problem, but FYI: IME smartphones come with "use this as mobile hotspot" capability. It's how I've been playing Pokemon Go on my new phone even though the SIM card doesn't fit: I used the old phone as hotspot.

[rowyn]

Ah, I guess that's a new* feature. My model of phone does not support it, but presumably some new phone I might buy could.

I did not have good luck with getting my phone connectivity through a friend's mobile hotspot when I was in Europe a couple of years ago, but I suppose that could be different in time, too. I'm guessing the mobile keyboard is still a better bet. -_-

* ie, more recent than my 6-year-old-phone.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with a vertical slide? Does the keyboard end up being too small or something?

Looking on Amazon, I do see a lot of Bluetooth keyboard options, some of which are really teeny.

This one clips to your phone and slides out, but it looks like it's only for iPhones: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Bluetooth-Pocket-Keyboard-iPhone/dp/B00KFSNOUA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1468691406&sr=8-3&keywords=phone+keyboard

There are generic ones but you'd have to figure out some other way to attach it:
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Wireless-Keyboard-Computers-android-Windows/dp/B00LFHCUPA/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1468691406&sr=8-8&keywords=phone+keyboard
https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Playstation-Smartphones/dp/B00H88HC4Y/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1468691406&sr=8-5&keywords=phone+keyboard

There's also some generic ones that clip to the phone but they're pretty huge and might be too clumsy to use standing up.

[rowyn]

Anke just pointed me to one of those! I knew there were bluetooth keyboards around, but I didn't realize there were handheld versions. I may try that approach at some point. I don't think I'm yet desperate enough to justify the expense of a new phone.

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

I looked around a bit more and found that there are phone cases with bluetooth keyboards that are the size of the phone, or that simulate a slide-out keywoard. They seem to be specific to one make of phone each, and made only for very few models, though.

[rowyn]

Cool! Something to bear in mind whenever I decide to give up on my current phone. :)

[rowyn]

Oh, and yeah, the vertical slide keyboard is just too small. It's only four rows (so no number keys/punctuation). The buttons are tiny and they are jammed right next to each other. There's a T-Mobile store along my usual bike route, so I stopped in and had a look at it today, and when I tried using it I found my fingers constantly hitting multiple or the wrong button. It's probably intended to be used one-handed, which is slower, and it's awkward to try to use both hands on it.

I am sad about this, even if the bluetooth handheld keyboards offer hope for a workaround.

[cairtirnin.livejournal.com]

I miss the slide out keyboard on my old phone a lot. I went from a non smart phone to a smart phone in my last upgrade so everything has been a learning process. I'd go back to a physical keyboard in an instant though, between a terrible keyboard and autocorrect most of anything I write is incomprehensible.

[rowyn]

I am sorry to hear that virtual keyboards have been as awful for you as they always are for me. :( Some people do get to like them, somehow. I hope you eventually become one of them! If not, well, Amazon has some handheld keyboards that Terry linked to, maybe one of them will work for your phone?

[elbren]

my phone is pretty modern, and it's still having trouble with pokemon go.

[rowyn]

I gather the servers are terrible and the game is crashy, so I'm not sure if that's your phone or intrinsic to the game. :| (My phone cannot install the game -- I'm on like Android 2.2 and it requires Android 4.6+ or somesuch.)

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Swype is actually kinda reasonable once you get some practice with it and it also comes with Dragon Naturally Speaking, so you can bypass typing altogether.

However, if these options don't work for you, many smartphones can utilize an accessory keyboard which can be connected via bluetooth.

[3rdragon]

Yeah, I like Swype MUCH better than iphone keyboards. I had an iphone for three years, and several friends commented on my much-increased willingness to hold conversations over text when I switched to an android phone. It does produce some weird typos, though.

Alternately, have you played with a blackberry? It's not slide-out and it's vertical, but I had one at my last job and liked the keyboard pretty well. (Wasn't super enamored of the phone itself, but I did miss the keyboard when we switched to iphone.)

[innerslytherin]

This isn't an immediate solution, but I have ordered a TextBlade bluetooth keyboard, and it is supposed to ship either this month or next month. (They're in the beta-testing phase, which has gone on longer than expected.) It's supposed to be small enough to put in your pocket (probably man jeans pockets, rather than woman jeans pockets) and has tactile feedback. If mine ever shows up, I'll weigh in on it, but the reviews so far have been good? https://waytools.com/