51 replies
18h29m
It's a bit too small, but I like that it's a thing. However, for my own use, I want something in-between. A 4" phone would be ideal.
I'm still confused how there aren't any phones for people who still use a computer as their primary means of accessing the internet. Even for this one, the media review section makes it look like it's "to distract oneself from social media". As if a phone's primary purpose isn't to be a communication device for when you aren't near your computer.
Just give us a commbadge then.
Star Trek had it right all along. Commbadge (or flip communicator) is for talking. A PADD is for reading, writing, media consumption. A tricorder is for recording, remote sensing and remote operating needs. You always have at minimum the first one when in the go. When working, you usually have all on you. But then, at home and work you also have proper computer terminals available and then some.
10 years ago, I thought this was a quite obsolete vision, given how our smartphones are so multifunctional. These days I feel it was prescient, and that our phones are a bad idea, for human nature reasons.
I tend to feel the Commbadge and communicator are tropes to make it easy to communicate to viewers. Given the technology in real life, I prefer text over voice for quick, rapid messages.
I'm a text person too, but I suspect we're not the majority, and definitely not the entirety of the smartphone-using population. I recently noticed my wife is increasingly often exchanging voice messages on Messenger instead of text messages, with increasing number of her friends. I queried about this several times, she says they all find it more convenient. It sounds unbelievable to my text-first sensibilities, but apparently it is.
This is very prevalent in the expat community where I have many friends. I hate it. At least the current AI developments made it possible for messenger apps to transcribe the messages to text (and back, though I haven't seen that feature yet) - we both get what's best for us.
And same with voice calls and voicemail - I mostly don't accept calls and let them all go to voicemail. iPhone transcribes what they're saying in real time and I can decide to pick up.
I'm really looking forward to an AI-first total overhaul of communication UX.
Speech to text doesn't require AI. I've had it on my Google keyboard for a very long time. Its always been accurate too.
*grumpy old man shakes fist at ever-changing meaning of words*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
https://www.kurzweiltech.com/kai.html
In my case, it always been garbage. Speech to text doesn't require AI when you do it like Microsoft did it in the aughts; ever since "new, better", cloud-side techniques came along, the technology got worse, and the only meaningful qualitative improvement I've seen in two decades is in the last two years, with new-generation models which may or may not be backed by LLMs now.
How does this work? Is it a carrier feature?
On my iPhone, if it goes to voicemail the call is done and the display goes to sleep. I have to go looking for the message in the voicemail to interact with it.
I’m in France and have never seen this on the two carriers I’ve used (Bouygues and Free).
It's US only.
Speech to text exists, they should have stuck to that.
Voice notes are garbage. Sorry I'm in a noisy place, I can't hear your text message.
They're not using voice messages as alternative to typing; most of the time, they have hands free to use the keyboard. They're using voice messages as asynchronous, replayable phone calls.
20 years ago I was very resistant to buying any mobile phone because I was waiting for an in ear piece that would do the whole job, and let you dial by voice. It seemed just around to corner, and logical, because who would want to carry a phone everywhere?
If you combine an Apple Watch with Apple EarPods you get exactly that
But you still need an iPhone somewhere right? Can't just use the watch on its own?
I did think about this, but battery life is pretty bad if you actually use the watch throughout the day and I now need a whole train of devices instead of just an earpiece.
Well there is the Hunane AI Pin:
https://humane.com/
It looks like the product launch didn’t go well though:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/humane-ai-pin-founde...
iPhone 4 or 12 mini size is probably ideal for me personally.
While this is small, it is double the thickness of most modern phones.
Still, it is great to see a bit of creativity in the smartphone market. Most phones are pretty much the same these days.
iPhone 4 was the apex of phone design, I will die on this hill!
It was the Pre 3 [0] and I'll fight you for it. Lol.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Pre_3
Hah! Sliding keyboard, that absolutely rocks!
Somehow it's been 13 years and none of the available phone OSes have managed to be as usable or user-focused as WebOS was. Nor as easily hackable. The hardware was smooth like a river rock in your pocket, but still had an easily found physical slider switch to silence the device. It had wireless charging as a standard feature. And the software stack was familiar to any desktop Linux user with just a custom display layer on top. Complex multi-tasking was effortless on it (thanks in part to the gesture area and also the OS's cards interface). And it combined all contacts and messages regardless of communications channel into a unified interface. Oh, also, replaceable batteries!
Unfortunately HP played musical CEOs (three in less than a year) and one of them didn't see phones or PCs as businesses they should be in.
Former owner of Nokia E71, Nokia N900 (both user replaceable battery), Planet Computers Cosmo Communicator and Astro Slide (like old Psion keyboard): not really. The keys on this smartphone are very small, therefore annoying to use. The larger they are though, the bulkier.
You're also stuck in either portrait or landscapr mode. Whereas a touchscreen smartphone can reuse the touchscreen for say watch a movie or use different input (like say gamepad).
I believe the current innovation trend lies in those small foldables. Of course, small form factor and dual screen has disadvantages for battery, repairability, and ridiculously high price.
Psion Series 3:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3>
iPhone 4 was a great size and looked great, but the sharp edges would wear through your jeans in a way that the earlier iPhones did not. That's my only complaint.
I don't like iPhones, and have never had one, but I will absolutely agree with you on that. The iPhone 4's industrial design was beautiful.
Who cares about thickness other than tech enthusiasts? There are phones that are so thin, they feel uncomfortable while in your hand.
Those of us who carry it in the front pocket.
laughs in woman
Those phones differ in screen size by two whole inches, so putting them in the same bucket is basically useless.
My only problem with the Mini was the battery, they could have increased the thickness to iPhone 4 ( 9.3mm ), to increase the battery life. They could have also make it slightly bigger so it matches the same size as iPhone SE, while increasing battery life. Instead the iPhone mini was a compromise too far that very few people wanted it for its price.
Had the iPhone SE also have two size of phone to choose from, there should definitely be a mini at 5.6" and a normal at 6.1".
For me, iPhone 5/5S/SE is the ideal size. I even seriously considered different ways to try to port Android to the SE, but while this would've been an interesting project, I decided that I have more useful things to work on.
Amen. An updated 4" flagship would be incredible! They say that small phones are for people with small hands, but no-one can one-hand a 6" phone without holding it like an idiot. I want the claw grip back!
That and I also have small hands. My current phone is a Pixel 4a, and it's already way past my comfort zone. It's frustrating to use with one hand, and, believe it or not, most of my phone usage is one-handed. It's like all phone manufacturers have collectively forgotten about ergonomics.
Has there ever been a focus on ergonomics over aesthetics by any manufacturer of any tech product over the last decade?
Nothing comes to mind.
Those curved keyboards and mice come to my mind.
Those are from the 1990s.
Glove80 is a new curved keyboard design (in many ways a departure from Kinesis' 1990 designs).
The glove80 is nice but it's by one guy if I'm not mistaken. When it comes to ergonomic stuff by big companies I'm still not so sure. Yes logitech made an ergo keyboard but they probably released 5 or 10 "regular" ones for one ergo one.
These exists that somewhat popular Logitech mouse, I don't remember the exact model, but it's "ergonomic" and modern enough that it has USB-C and bluetooth. I've also seen curved modern keyboards, albeit those are rarer.
edit: Logitech MX Master 3
I'll be holding on to this Mini 13 until Apple makes another model in that form factor, or until it's unusably obsolete. So far, it does what I need, and does it fast enough.
How's the battery life?
Not the parent, but my experience is very good.
Right now for example, it’s at 44% after 24hrs from 100%. This is pretty sufficient for me
I loved the 12 Mini, but battery life was one of the reasons to upgrade. 44% after 24 hours is very impressive. I often wouldn't make it through the day.
there are A LOT of settings in ios that can safely be disabled while retaining "phone" functionality and conserving energy/data
In my own experience iPhones somehow just love eating through battery doing nothing. I know because I have an iPhone I hardly use. It takes around 3 days to completely drain the battery doing nothing laying on my desk. Airplane mode does extend it by a lot. Android is much better at this, probably thanks to the "doze mode".
Adequate for my purposes. The whole point of owning it is that I have a very light-duty relationship with the phone: music/podcast, maps, some food delivery and ride share, and some messaging when I'm not at my laptop. I don't read stuff on it, let alone browse the web or doomscroll social media.
So when I'm at home it can easily last a couple days. If I'm traveling by air, or other rare occasions where my phone gets heavy use, I have a slap-pack battery to stretch it out. I'm more likely to resort to that if I'm traveling and I forget to charge it: it's obviously not as much battery as a bigger phone, but for 99% of days, it's more than fine.
It serves my purposes, and fits in more pockets than the big bricks do. I wish Apple would learn to count as low as several million, and go back to accommodating the smolphone niche, but their current policy seems to be that if a product doesn't sell enough units to supply one to every resident of a mid-sized European country, it isn't worth manufacturing. Pity.
Unihertz will be launching their Jelly Max phone in a couple of days, which is bigger than the Jelly Star but (hopefully) not too big. As a 1st gen iPhone SE user I'm intrigued.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg... Looks to be about the same size as iPhone SE 2016
Yeah roughly, although it's estimated to be a lot thicker, greater than 1.5 cms by some sources.
The jelly pro/star is very thick, but I suspect the jelly max will be much thinner as there's more screen space to put a bigger battery behind
Well, that would have been the perfect smartphone for me, I had the original Jelly but it was too small.
Now, I have the iPhone 13 mini and I love it.
I bought one to carry on while doing physical activities and, eventually stay connected.