I only had a Blackberry for a short while -- a BlackBerry Bold 9000 (got it in 2009). It was my stop-gap between plain cell phones and my first Android phone (a Droid 2, got it in 2010). Then I moved to touch screens with the Samsung Galaxy S4. I'm currently a Pixel 7 user.
Nothing ever matched the typing speed of the Blackberry Bold 9000. I was slowed down a bit by the slide-out on my Droid 2, and slowed down a TON by switching to touch.
But I could actually "do email" on my Blackberry. At essentially the same speed as my laptop. Even today, with many years of practice -- including swipe, text prediction, and all the rest -- writing a mid-size email on my phone is excruciatingly slow vs my physical typing and thinking speed. Even more frustrating is that when people observe me typing on my touchscreen, they'll say, "my goodness, you type SO FAST." And I'll just think, this is half-speed for me.
As a simple example, sometimes I try to transcribe text from a podcast I'm listening to on my phone. It's basically impossible -- I have to go back frequently, slow it down to 0.7x audio speed, etc. But, if I transcribe text on my laptop, I can do it so fast that I type ahead of the speaker, even a fast talker. It makes a difference. I could have transcribed a live speaker on my Blackberry Bold. I could even type short notes at thinking speed, which was awesome.
It's true that modern iPhones and their Android competitors (e.g. the Google Pixel line) do way more than my Blackberry Bold 9000 did. But I still lament the fact that these portable devices shifted from mobile high-speed read-write machines to mobile high-speed read with quite-slow write. For many people, these devices are essentially read-only.
And with so many people living so much of their digital lives on touchscreen smartphones, it also means the entire digital world is biased for consumption rather than a nice create-consume balance. Alas. Two steps forward, one step back.
I think it's curious that you consider typing speed the obstacle for handling email on the phone.
For me, the problem is that I struggle to find all the info needed to answer an email when I'm on my phone. Answering emails often incolves cross referencing something from the email with a document stored somewhere, or something I need to look up on a website, etc.
I can do most of these things on my phone, but it takes me 10x as long as on my Macbook.
It seems that people use email very differently than I do when the typing speed is what's holding you back.
Agreed. Typing speed is rarely my limiting factor. Switching apps/webpages on mobile (or iPadOS) is so limiting that I don’t use them for much more than consumption devices. My MacBook is where real work happens. The ability to have multiple windows visible or just the speed at which I can switch tabs/windows/contexts on the computer beats the pants off my phone/tablet.
Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started a task on my phone or tablet only to say to say “screw this” and I just walk into my office. I’ve even considered buying an M1 Air or similar to leave in my living room so I can just grab it, do something, then close it and put it back in a drawer/sleeve/etc. I can’t quite justify the cost for that but I’ve come close.
And I’m not even talking about writing code. Just doing minor “research” or responding to a text/email/comment where I need to reference something online (either to link or just to confirm my knowledge). I feel like I’m in a box on my phone/tablet compared to the wide open spaces of my laptop.
In all fairness, even if my phone/tablet had a full OS running on them I’d feel the same way without my mouse/keyboard. So I don’t really think it’s a UI/UX limitation but a combo of screen size/real-estate and input devices. My fingers just aren’t precise enough for even things like copy/paste let alone window management. I’ve used enough VNC-type apps to know having a full OS available to me doesn’t really make things better when limited to my fingers for input.
I mentioned email only because Blackberry excelled at this, and not much else. (The Blackberry OS was an awesome texting & email client, with sub-par apps for everything else, including web browsing.)
I am a writer and programmer so that perhaps makes it less surprising that typing speed does affect my overall creative speed.
Everone forgets that the reason Steve wanted a touch screen was so that the interface could better adjust itself to what as needed at the time. A few apps gets this right, and funny enough when you need to type a phone number into an <input> that is correctly labelled as such it is pretty fast, and your browser can do intelligent things like making it trivial to scroll through your contact lists.
While typing text is easier on a keyboard phone, the cost is that it cannot adjust as easily.
Sadly I don't know of any app that takes advantage of this and tries to create an entirely new interface for email (Apples builtin sure does not) and so we are stuck with this situation you have described so well.
I do wonder if the ideal email inteface for the iPhone is just a connection to ChatGPT? Maybe a couple yes/no buttons and then it gives you a draft to send?
I'm not saying that touchscreens are an altogether downgrade from physical keyboard devices. I totally get why Steve Jobs did what he did. An iPhone is not an altogether downgrade from a Blackberry. And likewise an iPad is not an altogether downgrade from a laptop. But, both are downgrades in terms of ability to write text quickly. And, it turns out, when you can't write text quickly, day-to-day computing fundamentally changes. It changes to be more consumer-oriented, rather than creator-oriented. That's why I said "two steps forward, one step back."
ChatGPT has a particular default way to write, that is true.
But you can so easily get it to write in a different style - it could learn the normal style of your email in a few minutes.
I had it write a PR commit in the style of Trump and it was both hillariously on point and had not a trace of how AI typically write.
Anyway, that was just an example. The truth is I don't know what the best interface for email on the iPhone is, and I don't suspect Apple cares enough to find out.
I think the shift from blackberries to iphones/touch-devices is symbolic of what phones were used for.
Blackberry was a work device. So the keyboard was uncompromisable so you could send emails.
But the iphone is a consumption device. So you need to fit as much screen as possible on it. And you're only supposed to absorb information, not put it back out there.
Well stated. And my point is only that day-to-day computing changes in character when your primary computing device is a consumption device. This was a big shift from desktops/laptops to smartphones as primary computation devices, but Blackberry showed a "working prototype" of a form factor that might not have guaranteed such a shift.
I find dictation slower than typing. the number of mistakes it makes means I essentially have to delete half of the message and retype it manually. which takes longer than typing in the first place
I've tried voice to text in various forms over the years. I agree that it has come a long way but still hasn't nearly matched my thinking or typing speed. The best implementation I have seen is in the Descript paid app. I also occasionally record voice memos with Google Recorder but find the transcripts are only good for jumping to a specific point in the audio, not for an error-free text document.
That's what I do now. I'll start typing and then realize "you know, I should just dictate this" and it's way easier. It's still far from perfect, and the interface to fix mistakes isn't great. But compared to typing it all out, it's still way faster.
Nothing ever matched the typing speed of the Blackberry Bold 9000. I was slowed down a bit by the slide-out on my Droid 2, and slowed down a TON by switching to touch.
But I could actually "do email" on my Blackberry. At essentially the same speed as my laptop. Even today, with many years of practice -- including swipe, text prediction, and all the rest -- writing a mid-size email on my phone is excruciatingly slow vs my physical typing and thinking speed. Even more frustrating is that when people observe me typing on my touchscreen, they'll say, "my goodness, you type SO FAST." And I'll just think, this is half-speed for me.
As a simple example, sometimes I try to transcribe text from a podcast I'm listening to on my phone. It's basically impossible -- I have to go back frequently, slow it down to 0.7x audio speed, etc. But, if I transcribe text on my laptop, I can do it so fast that I type ahead of the speaker, even a fast talker. It makes a difference. I could have transcribed a live speaker on my Blackberry Bold. I could even type short notes at thinking speed, which was awesome.
It's true that modern iPhones and their Android competitors (e.g. the Google Pixel line) do way more than my Blackberry Bold 9000 did. But I still lament the fact that these portable devices shifted from mobile high-speed read-write machines to mobile high-speed read with quite-slow write. For many people, these devices are essentially read-only.
And with so many people living so much of their digital lives on touchscreen smartphones, it also means the entire digital world is biased for consumption rather than a nice create-consume balance. Alas. Two steps forward, one step back.