Comment by daxfohl

18 hours ago

Blackberry. Back in the Blackberry days I never pined for anything resembling a smartphone. Other than built-in GPS, I'm not sure my life is improved or worsened by having a computer on my person 24/7.

That wasn't the case pre-internet or pre-cellphone, when I remember pining for something resembling those technologies.

Agreed, and it’s not just the hardware keyboard (on which I could comfortably have written an entire novel) that I miss. It had just enough access to email that I could reply to things when necessary, even if it required a bit of typing (something very uncomfortable on a screen keyboard), and later on it had access to maps and enough web browsing to be able to look something up quickly. But the lack of an enormous app ecosystem and limited Internet access meant it didn’t become a doom-scrolling device to nearly the extent my current smartphone has, so I was more inclined to either pick up a laptop and do something deliberate or put it down and go do something useful like reading.