Which is literally extremely frequent, since we often need to do stuff on the go. Which is why an article like this is so important -- we should improve, not give up. There's no reason to think text editing on a phone has reached its final form.
In another topic on HN people are discussing how software gets more bloated over time, because throwing more powerful hardware at a problem is easier than optimizing the software.
As mobile devices aren't likely to get much bigger or get equipped with a mouse and keyboard anytime soon -- in other words, we don't seem to have a hw solution -- isn't it the perfect moment to try something novel and different?
Sure, it isn't a given someone will come up with a great, new approach soon enough. Still seems worth it looking at this as an opportunity.
You weren't kidding about it being small, though—in hindsight the 320 x 480 screen resolution was a bit rough.
Meh. I remember thinking "but why?" when the "high res" screen phones came out. It did the job, and I didn't really see the point in a higher resolution back then. Honestly, if I had the choice, I'd go back to that device in a heartbeat, low-res and all.
The problems are with editing only -- precise cursor positioning, precise selection, and then access to basic cut/copy/paste/undo operations that doesn't mess everything up.
My hunch is that we need a button on mobile keyboards to switch to a kind of "edit gesture mode". Some kind of swipe area to move the cursor, some kind of swipe area/mode to extend/contract a selection, some method to handle scrolling as necessary, some kind of magnifying zoom to select tiny things like narrow punctuation, and separate larger button areas for cut/copy/paste/undo. Maybe instead of swipes there are gestures in a kind of dedicated trackpad-type area of the screen, I don't know.
But I definitely think there's a ton of area for experimentation that hasn't been explored yet. The hold-spacebar-to-turn-keyboard-into-trackpad-to-move-cursor mode was a first step the iPhone took towards this, but I think it can go 20x further.
I think it's something that only Apple and Google are capable of developing right now though. I don't think there are enough API's exposed for third-party keyboards to directly control things like text selection, zoom, scrolling, cut/copy/paste/undo, and the like.
Now that 'work from anywhere' seems more prevalent than a decade+ ago, I wonder if such a design could find enough success in today's environment.
Do we though? It is a fair assumption, but I urge you to stop and inspect. We didn't "need" to do most things we do on the go 20 years ago, do we now? If we're being honest, most people using their smartphones on the go are not for critical situations.
It was written pre-iPhone, and talked about the brutal necessity of reducing mobile UX to the very barest essentials.
I find that I am revisiting a lot of this stuff, when writing Apple Watch apps.
[0] https://jenson.org/The-Simplicity-Shift.pdf (Downloads the entire booklet as a PDF)
[EDIT] And, since I have you on the horn, There seems to be a PDF error, where the first page (The Challenge) is repeated twice.
except for bottom-of-the-barrel androids, most drcent smartphones cost equivalent to a decent computer. I refuse to accept the garbage UX on an equivalent device which charges me such money and then dumb it down with tracking and ad shenanigans over usefulness.
P.S. My own opinion and it is very OK to 150% disagree with me.
I was just offering it as a counter point (from as recent as last year) to the onscreen keyboards necessitating huge phones that the comment I replied to was suggesting. Plus an option that is still modern enough to use. Using the mini keyboard isn’t much worse than the pro. It’s feasible, these minis type well, I don’t think it’s the reason for bigger, thinner phones with cameras popping out. I’d blame content more.
I honestly miss the OG iPhone size.
I usually use Whatsapp web and the Signal desktop app at my desktop when I want to write more than sentence or two. A physical keyboard makes it so much easier. For example, I left making my comments here today until I sat down at my desktop.
If you must use a phone for typing more than a tiny bit, buy a keyboard for it. Even a little bluetooth keyboard is a lot better.
I am tempted by phones with keyboards. I used to have a Blackberry a long time ago and there are Android phones in similar formats.
They are better music players. They are better GPS nav systems.
Turns out different form factors are better at different things.
They're not better music players. Sound quality can be identical because phones support USB DACs, but again, everything else is worse. On a real computer I can easily search my library just by typing. There's no way to find specific tracks that fast on mobile.
My phone has 128gb. How is that not enough for photo editing?
Assuming 24 bits per pixel, that's 1 Gigabit (128 MB) per image, or ~1,000 images on 128 GB storage.
Dedicated cameras have removable storage and professional photographers will carry multiple 500 GB -- 1 TB+ storage cards, swapping them out through a shoot.
I'll note that the iPhone 15 Pro specs list a 48 MP sensor, which is similar, though storage tends to be as jpeg rather than raw. Compression varies but sizes of 1/2 to 1/15 RAW at high quality are common.
Edit: Corrected GB -> Gb. Bytes are 8 bits.
1Gb, not GB. And in practice it's not that high. Most digital cameras use a Bayer filter, with the pixel count specified as the number of grayscale pixels behind the individual filter elements. Raws are most often 12 or 14 bits per pixel, so about 68MB or 79MB for a 45MP sensor. This can be further reduced with lossless compression. Still a lot for a 128GiB phone, though.
Thanks for the additional detail, I'd wondered about the bpp and individual colour-sensing elements.
Point remains that RAW images are large.
The precision of using a stylus and pen/pencil grip rather than a mouse, trackball, or trackpad is the primary win.
And yes, cropping is in fact a major function for graphic artists, though painting directly with the stylus + tablet is another option.
Same reason I listed them as the best music players - I don't want to carry around a laptop to hear tunes. And while some audiphiles claim that they can hear a difference, I have never seen evidence that this is the case.
Fortunately, good DACs are cheap now, e.g. the Apple USB to 3.5mm adapter [1].
[0] https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/
[1] https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
For playing music when I'm at work, etc., my phone sounds MUCH better than my laptop that's sitting at home.
Also, even if we really did compare apples to apples, I'm not sure how the sound hardware on a laptop is going to be any better than that on a phone.
Android even supports access to raw pseudorange data from the GNSS chipset now. Today's phones support all the constellations and new technology like GPS L5. There's even a way to turn off things like duty cycling to maximize accuracy at the expense of battery consumption. Should be possible to set up centimeter precision relative positioning with these things.
Plenty of battery life, like 6 hours on full bright. Not hard to find ways to plug it in, draws like 20W from my Jackery 160 which is the smallest model yet big enough to charge it a few times. The computer is not much bigger than a big iPad. I just have a little backpack to carry it in, too small to look homeless (tho I am homeless).
Not that my experience will change the opinion of mobile addicts. It's an IYKYK kinda thing (if you know you know).
(Largely targeted at tablets, though it also applies largely to smartphones, and has a specific comparison including them.)
Even a minimal notebook computer vastly exceeds any smartphone or tablet.
When I am lying on a couch or in bed, I could use a laptop or tablet, but for just surfing a bit, a mobile phone is just more handy. But sure, smartphones or tablets are not really useful for anything productive.
Editing photos in lightroom mobile works fine. Interfaces that are about swiping and sliding - from match 3 games, through tinder, to scrolling feeds - are very responsive.
Do you really want to carry a Walkman around along with a backpack with a Rand McNally map to guide you so you don’t get lost in a neighborhood you’ve never visited? Maybe watch a portable DVD player on your way to/from work on the subway to pass the time? Carry some quarters so you can call someone at a pay phone or pay for a parking spot?
The above poster did acknowledge that smartphones absolutely win out in portability.
Obviously you're stuck with mobile UIs for things like navigation, directions, location information, and a lot review apps, ordering a car, etc. Consequently, the user experience for those things is often better on a mobile phone than it would be on a desktop (if a desktop UI is even provided)
For anything involving typing more than an address, you're almost always better off with a Desktop application. There's nothing "lazy" about pointing this out
The "etc" in your statement could be expanded to 100 additional useful things in everyday life. Given that, how can you agree with their original posters statement that mobile devices are terrible for everything except portability? It's such a ridiculous understatement.
Smartphones are way better platforms for something like TikTok or Twitter than desktop. Or an alarm clock app