Zach Beauvais

First ever iPhone post

Written by Zach Beauvais

Jan 14, 2009

Ok, so I thought I’d try something. I thought I’d try writing an entire post on an iPhone. I’ve downloaded an app… Think it’s ingeniously called something like “blog writer”. I can tell that my typically long-winded style and use of punctuation will be a killer here!

Surprisingly, however, this feels easy. Whether that’s the second pint talking, however, would require further experimentation.

I should say: it’s easy enough to TYPE. Thinking at the same time, I feel, will take some time. So, my devoted reader, you’re in for a treat of mindlessness…

Still, it’s as well getting used to using mobile interfaces, I think. With it being this painless to finally BE online through such a small portal leads me to think it’ll be a limited time before this is the default for simply connecting.

Now, this isn’t THAT easy… It is so very much faster to type. But, this is fine, and it’ll only get better. However, there are some things which are necessary for this to be my default:

*I need the use of all my fingers. This screen is fantastically good-and I find it very much better as an interface even than my beloved trackball. But the keyboard… It’s too slow.

*Faster app switching. This will surely improve with time, but it’s a bit of a train-of-thought killer.

*Copy/paste. I mean: Come On!

*Finally, the way to navigate among text is to hold one’s finger somewhere near the text, and drop the resulting cursor somewhere near the letter. Arrows alongside this would be very useful.

So, there you have it: my first iPhone post. Not sure I’ll rush out to to it again. But it’s possible. I need more practice with the interface, but I’m not sure if I will.

One last thought: there’s limited to no file handling. This is a mistake, I think. I would very much hate to lose this much thumb-written text now…

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