On cell phones. Assuming you ever hated them in the first place, of course. If you took to them right away, then I envy you and your kind.
So I bought a new phone online and considering the only two criteria I screened by were price and keyboard, it’s pretty hilarious that I still managed to screw it up. I’ll blame the DayQuil Coladas I was hopped up on all day for the oversight. My first thought was to just exchange it since I have a 20 day return/exchange buyer’s remorse period. But then I remembered this is an online only deal, so I’d have to send it back, wait for shipping time, and since I’m switching carriers and my current phone isn’t unlocked, I don’t have the old phone to use in the meantime. Days without a phone? No.
So I said, “Ah, fuck it, I’ll just keep it.” Plus the one I ordered is, according to the internet, a much better phone than what I planned to swap it for. But fucking ay, I really do hate touch screen keyboards. If you want my phone number and you have a touchscreen keyboard, don’t hand your phone to me to punch it in, because I’ll hand it back. It takes me a half hour to enter my name. My name is three letters! I end up screaming at the phone and hating technology and then I start reminding myself of my mother who seriously at one point thought someone had uninstalled her Facebook.
M… no, not N. M! Damn it, not K. I said M! No, Jesus, come on! Okay, backspace. Shit, what did I just do? Did I just Tweet something?
Shit drives me nuts. But everyone else figured it out, so it can’t be that hard, right? It’ll just take some getting used to? How much getting used to? Will I be texting a mile a minute within the first week?
Never had a problem w/ 'em myself. Perhaps because I went directly from a RAZR with the worthless numpad approach to entering text to an iPhone. It was heaven sent. And on the iPad… heck, I can touch-type fairly well on it, except for the occasional stray carriage return.
My first smart phone I insisted on having a keyboard, it worked well and I liked it. It also has the added benefit of leaving the whole screen visible when typing, but it added more moving parts and bulk, which was ultimately part of it’s downfall in making it more fragile.
I’ve had a couple at work that just have the screen touch typing and, frankly, it’s still terrible. It’s actually slower than predictive text on a num pad. I hate it and I won’t ever use a phone like that again.
The phone I have now has swipe, which I quite like. So far, it seems like the best compromise of both worlds. I can swipe at roughly the same speed I could type on the keyboard, and it gets smarter the more I use it so it’s even faster. I really don’t miss my keyboard anymore other than when I have to type in things that swipe isn’t good at figuring out, but it’s rare enough that I’m okay with it.
I’ve been using one for several months now and I’m still not over it, I’m afraid. One of it’s biggest disadvantages is that with a numpad (a proper one with actual keys, not a touch one) you can text while walking along without having to stare at the screen. Can’t do that with a touchpad. Haven’t tried Swype so I won’t dismiss it out of hand, but it wouldn’t really help with that issue and I’d be amazed if it actually worked properly. On the other hand, it hasn’t bothered me enough to actually change it, probably because I don’t use it much at all - and perhaps if I were sending 5-10 e-mails a day on it, I’d get used to it.
I will say that I find my wife’s iPhone much easier to use in this respect than my crappy Samsung, the predictive text is far better and the screen is bigger.
Not sure which device you are using, but if you’re diving into the virtual keyboard pool, might as well see what style fits you, aside from hunting to tap-type.
Swiftkey has proven to be rather popular with some family I’ve introduced it to, as they found the ability to enter information one-handed, via gestures, to be more fun than tapping. With word predictions, you can even do entire sentences, without hitting individual letters…perhaps it can ease that transitional pain.
I had a smartphone with a keyboard back in 07-09 (a Windows Mobile 5 phone.) It was…pretty terrible, all things considered. And massive.
Then I got an iPhone and liked it for the most part…except typing. I just could not get my fingers to hit the right letters, and the iPhone’s predictions were rarely what I wanted.
So I then upgraded to an Android phone in 2010, and I went with one that had a keyboard. I liked having a physical keyboard, but again, it was a little bulkier than my iPhone, and from other Android options. Then my friend showed my Swype, and it was a world of difference.
My next two phones after that have been touch-screen only, and I have off and on switched from Swype, to Swiftkey X, and now just the built-in Android 4.2 keyboard (since it does swipe-typing,) and I couldn’t be happier.
BUT my 70 year old mom just bought a touch screen phone on my advise, oh good god what a disaster! She spent 4 HOURS in the store being shown how to use it and now she can’t even make a call! She keeps freaking out about how to turn the phone off, she wants to turn it off after every call! She also almost seems to be afraid of it, complaining that the screen cuts light to save power after no touch, then she refuses to touch it to bring the light back instead turning it off and then on again. Also she has long nails and can’t touch it with anything aside from her pinkie, she did not tell me this ahead of time.
She wants to stop using it and go back to her 10+ year old cellphone that only works when plugged into the wall, oh boy!
All right. My main concern is I’ll just stick with it because I’m too lazy to exchange, assuming I’ll just get used to it, then three months later, long after my exchange period is up and long before my contract is, I’ll be cursing my existence. “Why, God? Why did I not just exchange it at the beginning for a real keyboard? The days of inconvenience would have been a small price to pay in order to escape this personal hell!” This being screamed toward the heavens while I’m on my knees, crying.
Yeah, these are “third party” keyboard apps you can download if your phone is Android. Is it Android? Or is it just a normal cell phone that also happens to be a touch screen?
Swype, with a “y”. You’ll go searching and never find it, otherwise.
You should follow-up to this thread, 1-2 months from now, and tell us how you’ve come along and embraced virtual keyboards. I have a friend who used to curse them, having long nails, and she adapted pretty well within that time.
Something to consider, is that you also have the flexibility to choose the layout and other options to suit your personal tastes, when it comes to virtual. A bad physical keyboard is a nightmare, with no way out.
Okay, I’ll learn to spell Swype. And yes, it is an Android.
I could just exchange it right away without activating it and hang out with my current provider until I the replacement arrives. I also want to try it because it’s possible it won’t be so bad, plus there are de-suckifying options, but then if I don’t like it, I’m stuck with the hassle of returning and the phone-free downtime. This requires some thinking bourbon.
I’ve had my iPhone for over a year and I still hate the keyboard. I have small, skinny fingers, so it’s not like it should be hard to use, but somehow it is. I wish it had a real keyboard like my old enV2.
I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Express (AT&T) phone. It’s my first smartphone. It took me only a few days to get used to Samsung’s virtual keyboard. Predictive text is pretty good too. The phone has haptic feedback which can help to type more accurately but I have it turned off.
Similarly, I’ve had my iPhone over a year and still hate the keyboard. But in my case I have fat fingers, so a good percent of the time I think I’m typing one letter but actually I’m hitting the next key over. Very frustrating.
For people with long nails - why not get that goop you use to dot the end of a glove finger and put a tiny dot on the tip of your nail? Or get a stylus?
I have a droid first gen with slide out keyboard that I will use until it dies an ugly death. I don’t understand the burning need to replace a perfectly good phone for something new. I have no issue with 3g, works well enough for what I use a phone for - calling people and reading ebooks.
6 months in, and I still hate mine. I use an older version of Android with Swype. Swype sucks for a number of reasons, although it’s light-years better than the ol’ hunt-and-peck. I can’t wait to switch to a physical keyboard, though. I’d pay like an extra hundred bucks for a decent goddamn keyboard.
