To be fair to Jeff, early touch screens fucking sucked ass. It wasn't until capacitive touch screens came on the scene that they became usable, and then multi-touch was a huge step forward too.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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Had no trouble with my Palm and Treo - they worked fine (with a stylus of course, but you could also use your finger for touches and swipes).
Capacitive was a huge improvement though, I wouldn't want to go back. Though I do want my Treo keyboard, that thing was amazing.
I wanted a palm pilot soooo badly back in the day, but I was basically just a kid, and my parents couldn't understand what I would want with a PDA as they were called back then!
BlackBerry Storm was awful.
Nah Jeff was right touch screens were a terrible idea, bring back physical buttons.
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Yeah, I really miss spelling things out like this. Those were the days.
Missing the pauses needed to start the next letter sure stumped my translation progress.
I stuck it into chad:
Looks like classic phone keypad (T9-style) text 😊
Decoded message:
“yeah i really miss spelling things of like this. those were the days.”
(There are a couple small typos in the sequence—“ov lile” → “of like”)
Chad did a bad job. Fuck AI.
I loved this because I was able to text without looking. When T9 was an option I would always turn off. Those indeed were the days
My phone had a keyboard because I was just so darn cool.
Released two years later, expensive as hell, still had a touchscreen. The blackberry was always an option.
Touch screen were a terrible idea as a keyboard replacement.
My Treo had a touch screen and a killer keyboard. Stylus was only required for certain things - I'd do a grocery list in the store without the stylus because you just needed to hit one button on the screen.
Best laptop I ever had was an HP with touch screen and Ubuntu. Anything I couldn't easily do with basic keyboard controls I'd just tap the screen. Had my start bar up the right side so I could poke with my dominant hand to me very between progams. It was accurate enough I could tap to set my typing course when I was editing documents and rarely have to arrow key around.
I didn't realize how much I'd miss it until I built my current desktop. If I knew how to DIY the two 32in TVs I use for monitors into touch I would in a heartbeat.
I had an envy touch, I never used the touch screen for anything more than answering the phone other wise id flip it open and use the keyboard for most everything else.
Jeff was right and instead of the problem getting fixed, they set a release cycle of one year to distract us from it.
Touchscreen phones are much better than touchscreen car settings interfaces
"Dont use your phone while driving, its super distracting and you can kill people while not paying attention!"
Also: "change your AC fan and temp settings by clicking on this app, popping open the menu, then touching these precise button areas on the screen"
Touch is valid. Touch has its place. Touch on a phone is okay. Not great, okay. Better than buttons in some use cases, worse than buttons in some use cases. Modern phones are massive compromises and lifestyle gadgets. I like them, but wish they were different and would evolve in different ways, not all the same way. Where's the milspec chonker phone? Like a big pack of cigarettes and with modularity and built to last. Like a mouse-atx format where I can shop for components and at home I have a phone workbench where I can repair and work on my phone that has a nice lens and a sweet hearsink and two giant batteries and a custom sealed port bay with the ports that I want, and it runs straight up linux. This baby is a custom analog camera and holds a roll of 35mm film in a module, has laser radar autofocus, front facing, nice sounding speakers, and can last for a two weeks on one battery charge, but I have a couple extra batteries that I can swap out to either battery port if one gets low without turning it off.
I want that phone too. But if I'm honest and someone created it, it would cost more than flagship phones do now, and I already don't spend money on expensive phones.
hearsink
Microphone.
Having experience from a resistive touchscreen smartphone (Sony Ericsson P800), I was exactly like this guy. It wasn't as bad as pocketpc because at least they put some thought in designing a "touchable" UI and didn't assume that the user is always using a stylus like on pocketpc, but typing on the keyboard fucking sucked for any word with more than 3 letters.
Then, one day, in an electronics store they had a kiosk with the iPod touch (Apple skipped the iPhone 2g in my country) and I tried it with superiority "let's see how the typing experience fucking sucks".
For the first minute I was like a monkey. Unable to type anything. My experience with resistive touchscreens condutioned me to touch the screen with the tip of the nails, so the presses didn't register.
Then I realized that I could just touch the screen with the finger. My mind was blown. I HAD to buy it, I bought it on the spot, without any research. I even bought a Philips alarm clock with the iPod dock. Spent too much money that day.
And from that day I started to hate Apple with passion. The demo unit had the email client installed so I justified myself "well at least I can read emails on this on WiFi, it's not only for music and playing the Happy Orange game" but the fucking assholes put that behind a 18 euro DLC. And the assholes even charged for iOS updates! They had the courage to ask me 8 euro to update to iOS 3! The worst part were all the fanboys on the forums defending Apple saying that they were forced by some obscure American law, because being sold a "music listening device" it would have been illegal for them to give free software updates and they HAD to charge the customers. (?????)
2007 still feels like a year or two ago to me. I hate this
still hate touchscreens and want physical buttons
Solid points.
My modded Cingular 8525 wasn't too bad 🤷♂️
Probably about as good as Jay from the 90s who complained about CDs being a terrible idea, dude turned into a bitter old man by the time he was 38.
I miss being able to use the proximity sensor on my N900 as a button.
One of my teachers said something like that in class once. Something about how it's much easier to sneak a text during class since you can feel the buttons.
Yeah, that was a sad day. I remember sneaking texts under the desk or while driving (I know, not a good idea) without looking away.
Perhaps not as bad as the following from Lord Kelvin
"... but ‘vector’ is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature."
Jan. Iphone was launched June. Wondering if he thinking about dumb phones or BlackBerry with touch screen.
Someone with a grudge playing the long game here. Respect.
Raised on computers, still don't like touchscreen interfaces. Still have a phone but I don't use it much for visiting the Internets