Comment by Silhouette
2 years ago
As someone a bit older I find these stories somewhere between amusing and sad. How much time do (mostly) young people now waste trying to do substantial work on unsuitable mobile devices with toy apps when they could have been using a proper computer with real peripherals and the right software for the job?
The point is that an iPhone is a very powerful computer. With Bluetooth. So you could attach it to your HHKB like I did with my smartphone. Screen small, true. Don't know about iPhone video output but Android recent usually work with USB-C. You can do same with STB, except the video output is dealt with via TV. Insane.
But then again any old, second hand laptop would suffice as long as it is at least x86-64. In UA kids love to use these for (remote) school/teleconference. Many old ones got send from West.
Yes, agreed they are monstrously powerful compared to the computers that were commonly used to first write papers, but they are still lacking a lot of the raw UI/UX speed. We’ve (hopefully) all seen someone navigate a UI so fast that it’s hard to follow, or seen someone work through a text file after they’ve put in the hundred hours to discover all the shortcuts and “power user” tricks. You just cannot do that on a phone, especially not an iPhone with it’s forced animation delays and keyboard-second design patterns.
I see youth do things on their touchscreens in lightning speed :) both IRL and in movies/series. Sure, I am much slower. And for me, the UI is too big / screen too small (regardless of 7" smartphone or 6" or 5" the touchscreen takes too much space but it is a godsend that you have it with you 24/7).
Nokia back in the days of Hilton (touchscreen GTK) was trying two horses, resistive touch with pen UI and then same but for finger. Capacitive finger UI won, and capacitive finger needs a bigger UI.