I suspect I'm a fellow harbinger. I thought Apple was cool in the 90s and that Microsoft was on to something in the 00s-early 10s (including Win8/Phone), so I'm at least a solid 5+ years off (or, as a positive spin, simply much too early).
[1] https://boingboing.net/2019/12/03/harbringer-of-doom.html)
> The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.
They are shipping soon after many delays.
And they still are. I hate virtual keyboards, it's just a terrible experience. It requires a lot of attention, has low accuracy and features like swipe are too unreliable that I find them useful in the long run.
I just don't like being slowed down by a clever feature not working as expected and so for me a physical keyboard simply cannot be replaced. It always feels like a fragile crutch otherwise.
Sure it's got mechanical parts but reliable switches are not rocket science. Now analog sticks are a different story apparently.
I mean you're not wrong. They're just sl8ghtly more expensive
ps. I like a lot Cory Doctorow's articles; also Boing Boing was among my favorite sites in the early 2k; I'm saddened to see what it has become today: mostly a shop for overpriced crap. Suffice to say that after noticing my account was terminated during my long hospitalization in late 2020 with no warnings given, I didn't create another and removed the site from my bookmarks.
But:
> Harbinger households tend to be white, suburban and headed by older, less-educated single parents.
Ouch...
> I thought Apple was cool in the 90s and that Microsoft was on to something in the 00s
It's not on my shelf of bad decisions anymore, but in '95 I though I was making the best possible purchase when I bought a Mac 6100 DOS Compatible... A Mac with a daughterboard that had a 486DX2 which ran MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 and later Win95. (I paid $1200AUD for 3 8MB SIMMs for that, so the DOS board didn't;t have to share RAM with the Mac...)
Bad at picking products and life partners.
