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More OpenMoko Train Wrecking (Now with Qt!)
2 months ago
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3. More OpenMoko Train Wrecking (Now with Qt!)
2 months ago
So, we installed another possible frontend for the FreeRunner, the Qtopia phone frontend. In general it's better, but really doesn't solve any of the deeper problems with this phone. It's still sluggish, still has horrible input methods, and still is not a valid substitute for an iPhone. Anyone who recommends you the FreeRunner as a substitute for the iPhone is attempting to play a cruel joke on you and should be treated as such.
This video (like its predecessor) was recorded in response to: This video was created largely in response to the article posted at: fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g
(Sorry about some of the exposure. I recorded this on the spur of the moment with by macbook pro's internal camera. I think the video is clear enough to see what I'm talking about.)
This video (like its predecessor) was recorded in response to: This video was created largely in response to the article posted at: fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g
(Sorry about some of the exposure. I recorded this on the spur of the moment with by macbook pro's internal camera. I think the video is clear enough to see what I'm talking about.)
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Not that I can afford one, I think the iPhone represents a pretty interesting development. It's disappointing to hear the nanny contingent recite everything that's wrong with it from a political/ethical/moral standpoint, but really, what about the device itself? Shouldn't we expect more from people who are hackers first and foremost? I would expect the interface and apps to shine, especially given the different toolsets available.
I'm glad someone has done this, and it remains to be seen if the people behind it take it as constructive criticism or ignore it.
as you may know, when you are VLOGGING, you can use whatever shitty camera angle you want
ESPECIALLY if you are michael arrington or dave winer
If I do another one, I'll try and mount a camera vertically as suggested by the previous comment. But I probably won't do another one unless the FSF keeps up this FR-vs-iPhone bunk. I actually don't have a problem with the project so long as no one tries to say the FR is an iPhone competitor. It's a disservice to the FR as much as the iPhone.
Making great interfaces is really hard work, deceptively so. Hopefully they will greatly improve this product so the iPhone will have some credible competition.
So far, it's a bust.
They won't have much time tho, the iPhone is taking off so fast it might not even matter if they get a great product out if it takes them 6 or 9 or 12 months. By then their only audience will be the very small niche of hard core geek hackers, hardly big enough to pay for continued development and manufacturing.
Regarding the input methods, if this guy had even spent a couple of seconds to read what they are meant to do (like for instance the built in help), he would see that the first keyboard version is meant to use finger input. It expects you to not be able to hit every key right, so it guesses that what you chose could have been one of the surronding keys, and uses that method as sort of a T9 for any ordinary phone, only more clever since you don't have to flip trough a bunch of words. The keyboard layout and adaptive wordlist works very well. Unfortunately only in english for the time beeing. With a little practise (a touch screen is different from keys after all), this is very efficient, and I write messages faster on this than on my Nokia.
The full keyboard is brilliant if you want to remote connect to another computer or whatever. Very nice when in a terminal (yes, comes with the default build).
The handwriting input method takes some getting used to. If you do not agree with how to type an i or a t (or whatever), you can change the gesture for it yourself. Very easily done in the config, as I did with b and v and a couple of others (my handwriting is horrible, I am impressed that it gets any of it). Very hard to use without a stylus though, if not impossible. The first keyboard is by far the best for regular usage.
You can also of course disable the dictionary to write whatever you like, like you would on an ordinary phone when you disable T9. So the 3 minutes of complaining about it seems quite a waste of time. Should have read some help info instead.
I use the qtopia as my daily phone, and it is not much worse than my nokia. I can call, I can send SMS, and it is only going uphill from here.
I am, by the way, not working for Trolltech or anything related to them.
As for the other video, yes, that is a bit sluggish, but it is really improving quickly, and the ammount of applications you will be able to run on the X11 is near limitless. It should be possible to run pretty much everything on ther, thoug it might be a bit slow:
mail.gna.org/public/wesnoth-bugs/2007-11/msg00361.html
Wesnoth is quite a big thing to have running on a cell-phone, but it works if you are patient =)
Right now, development is being done, and the oss community is for once allowed to take part in that part of the process of making a phone. Give it a few months, and it should be looking quite different from now.
As for Morgan's comments, where do I start?
"The phone is very much faster than any of my former Nokias when running qtopia, hands down."
That's what's known as "damning with faint praise". I'm not sure why you think this is good. You're basically saying your former Nokias were unacceptably slow. This is still unacceptably slow. Shouldn't you be damning both phones for being so slow? Compare to an iPhone (which this phone has been designed to imitate) - the performance is light years apart.
"The full keyboard is brilliant if you want to remote connect to another computer or whatever."
What, does the keyboard suddenly not suck when you use it as a remote terminal? If so, why couldn't they use that improved keyboard as the normal one, and not just for remote connections?
"I use the qtopia as my daily phone, and it is not much worse than my nokia."
Wow. So, you're saying that this phone is worse than the terrible phones that Nokia makes... and that makes it somehow good?
"Give it a few months, and it should be looking quite different from now."
Why should we believe you? Technology companies and programmers say this kind of thing all the time. It's called "vaporware". I've seen too many of these never-achieved promises to put any trust in them.
Show me the final working product, and then I might believe you.
As for WaasOne:
"you're completely missing the point when you compare the OpenMoko's software to the iPhone's at the time."
But the FSF has released a public statement doing exactly that, and urging consumers to buy one of these instead of an iPhone.
If we're not supposed to compare the products, why is the FSF telling us to do exactly that?
Also, why shouldn't we compare the two phones? We certainly can't compare the iPhone with something that doesn't exist yet. This is the product that OpenMoko is currently offering. Therefore, it is perfectly valid to compare it to another currently shipping product.
Unless, of course, you have access to a time machine, and can bring me back this OpenMoko phone of tomorrow.
This video should be showing the guy trying to install whatever software and hacking on whatever he wanted cause that's what this phone is about. And this can be done, now try to do the same on the iPhone, you just can't. And that's fine cause it wasn't done for that. In the openmoko, the actual UI features are secondary, the primary feature is its openness and it completely complies on that. So testing it on its UI features is stupid. It's like testing a car to try to go on Mars.
As for the FSF, it clearly states:
"The FreeRunner doesn't yet do as much as the iPhone and it's certainly not as pretty. But in terms of potential, the fact that it's supported by a worldwide community of people rather than a single greedy, dishonest and secretive entity puts it light-years ahead."
This is how FOSS works, release early, release often so that many people can work on improving software as soon as possible. Just as linux which runs this site, and when linux was first released, it wasn't able to run such a site...
Cheers
If it were called a nice toy to play with for embedded code, I'd agree. But it's being called a phone. A phone is something you pick up, and within a second, you're dialing a number. A phone is not something where you have to edit /usr/share/openmoko/scenarios/gsmhandset.state just because grandma talks too softly.
Mangling a car analogy, it's like trying to sell a bicycle as a low cost, fuel efficient SUV. And when someone points out that it can't actually transport your family to one's expectation of an SUV, reiterate that most importantly, it's low cost and fuel efficient, and that the SUV aspect wasn't the primary goal. When Linux was first released, you could actually use it and type 'ls', 'cd' and 'sudo' and have it work as expected. This is the difference.
Sadly, despite how many new UI variants there are and will be, many of the UI issues are in hardware, which no apt-get will solve. And keep in mind that they not only left a glaring bug in their software ("Save a screenshot or upload it to ht..."), but included it in their gallery, in the first photo of their gallery, and have it highlighted in the first photo of their gallery. This is not a company that has usability anywhere in their DNA.
But at $400, I'd rather just get an arduino for embedded work (which is far more open than the OpenMoko; You can download arduino's PCB design) and a real phone for making calls.
To be improved and tested, the open phone needs to be released at some point even if it has broken software features. What's next? A rant about the open graphic card stating it's not on par with the latest nvidia card?
Here on the main wiki page:
The FreeRunner can be purchased from the Online Store as of July 3, 2008. The software available on the phone makes it suitable for power users and developers only, it is not ready for the general consumer yet.
In other words, this phone is targeted at hackers only who enjoy tweaking their phones and editing /etc/ conf files. This phone is not made and has never been advertised as being for the general public or mactards.
Like I said, if it were called a nice toy to play with for embedded code, I'd agree. But that model of OpenMoko is not meant for general consumer use, and probably never will be due to hardware design decisions; furthermore, some of the usability issues are too well-ingrained in my opinion. The FSF was link-trolling and comparing the iPhone to the FreeRunner. They did OpenMoko no favors in drawing attention to it in such a way. This video was calling FSF's, not OpenMoko's, bluff.
The Web 2.0 eternal beta shield only goes so far. That's what I meant by phyrric. Yes, it does exist, with that unanswered caveat that it's neither open nor free, but it's in such a state that it's unusable unless there's a stylus taped to the side and a laptop nearby. And to see it in such a state could make one wonder if this is the best that the open source community could do, and it certainly doesn't help dispel the negative stereotype of open source designs being user hostile. We all know that this is wrong. That Apache, Linux, Perl, Python, BSD, etc. are all considered seriously because they do not hide behind an 'in development' excuse, because they do not, and should not, need to.
You will notice that Apple goes to great lengths to disassociate the iPhone with a handheld computer. That it is a phone. There is a reason for this. By calling it a phone, it has a completely different set of standards, E.G. cut and paste isn't as important as calling someone and not having the phone crash due to a background process. As a phone, the iPhone does what a phone needs to do.
"Introducing" and "On sale now" (drawing from the website's front page) gives an impression of finality, of 1.0. This implies a level of finish and quality that the wiki states is not present. The FreeRunner is called a phone. Even rotary dial phones had ways to adjust the volume easily. Were it called an open telephony-enabled development system, then I would have no quarrel. Because then it would neither require finality nor the functions demanded of a phone.
But it is being called "a phone" that is "on sale now." If the FreeRunner did nothing but bring up dialer first and foremost with a working slider for volume adjustment, then it would meet the definition, and we could laud it being a solid first step. Until it does, however, I will have to disagree when OpenMoko's latest product is called a phone.
As far as phones go, I own a Sony Ericsson w660i, which isn't a smart phone, but I can make calls fast - which is what you wanted - listen to music, which seems to be a necessity for a phone nowadays, check my gmail and even use google maps.
Lets compare classic phones and the iPhone in speed shall we?
Also, I really do hate those comments which itemize others. It's like an effort to attack the user personnaly -_-'
I suppose in full disclosure, I do develop an app for the iPhone but actually use a Sidekick for calls and an iPod Touch for dev. That's mostly an issue of liking T-Mobile and not liking AT&T. Although Danger did do a good job of usability and is a good example of how a small single product company can compare favorably to a multimillion multi-product company. This is because the Sidekick doesn't try to copy the iPhone.
True, most of the Sidekick designs predate 2007, and MSFT has bought Danger, so we'll see if this holds in the future. I don't know enough about the w660i to disagree, but from what I can see, I agree that it excels as a phone, which is all I ask. There's certainly lots of room for everyone.
Back to the task at hand. Were I running OpenMoko, I'd stay as far away from iPhone association as possible. Possibly even to the point of disagreeing with the FSF's publication. Heck, I'd show the FreeRunner not upright and looking like a phone, but next to the dev board and a computer, showing it as part of a complete hobbyist system. Bundle it with a bluetooth or wifi receiver that converts to infrared and you'd have the ultimate TV remote. Or have software that allows you to run scripts and text to speech, and you could automate computer tasks by calling in. Or serve as a data modem with reporting of signal strength and details. Or...
My point is that the FreeRunner can be a lot of things, but at this time, it's not a phone, and its UI is not ready for being considered such. By claiming otherwise, and especially by referring to it and the iPhone in one breath, the FSF did OpenMoko a great disservice, opening it up to scrutiny in such a light.
Wrong, the FSF is telling people not to buy the iPhone because it doesn't respect users freedoms. The FreeRunner suggestion comes last. What they're saying is that instead of helping Apple by buying an iPhone, you should buy a FreeRunner to help OpenMoko.
And the FSF doesn't have a secret agenda about selling FreeRunners, it's a non-profit organization pushing for the success of free software, couldn't be any less secretive than that (now you might have an agenda defending the iphone as you develop software for it?)
The FSF clearly states that the FreeRunner is not on par with the iPhone, and so does the openmoko wiki. Everybody that knows about the openmoko knows that it's only for developpers, it's been announced many many times on the mailing list, the blogs, the website and the wiki. Couldn't do any better than that..
Now I know it's easy to take a jab at a non-profit organization defending people freedom and writing free software for the world and this very website to use, they don't have billions of dollars to spend on marketing. But sure, go ahead, it's fun and they're evil, you're really targeting the bad people, boohoo FSF for helping people for free. It's harder though to attack a multi-billion company like Apple who doesn't give a damn about your freedom and will screw you any time when it fits with its agenda.
> By claiming otherwise, and especially by referring to it and the iPhone in one breath, the FSF did OpenMoko a great disservice, opening it up to scrutiny in such a light.
The FSF clearly states that freedom is more important than working features, so according to that the FreeRunner is indeed superior to the iPhone right now. This is also why the FSF is suggesting people to use Gnewsense instead of Ubuntu, Gnewsense (pronounce nuisance :) is a version of Ubuntu without any proprietary software on it, so if you use it your video card or wifi might not work. Still, the FSF suggest it instead of Ubuntu cause it's more Free. That's how the FSF has always worked. So suggesting the FreeRunner is totally inline with their philosophy and history. So obviously you don't know much about the FSF, that's fine though, people blogging about stuff they don't know is legion these days...
I fail to see how the FSF is helping. If they wanted more software freedom, they'd site great software that was easy to use, rather than making sensationalistic political arguments - and lying while making those statements.
Their attitude will only turn people off the idea of free software.
Most people just want to get things done with their electronic tools. If Free Software actually hinders what users can do, then how does that give people more freedom?
I'd certainly be less free to create and do the things I do every day if I had to only use Free Software to do it. It would be a reduction of freedom in the practical sense. I'm not going to hobble myself for an ideology.
You say they are consistent in their philosophy. But if that's the case, then why doesn't their idea of freedom extend to hardware? Why do they accept patent-encumbered hardware made for profit, as long as Free Software is running on it? The hardware is just as important, but they don't seem to care at all.
They are not lying, they clearly state that the FreeRunner is inferior to the iPhone.
> I'd certainly be less free to create and do the things I do every day if I had to only use Free Software to do it. It would be a reduction of freedom in the practical sense. I'm not going to hobble myself for an ideology.
The freedom the FSF cares about and clearly states on their website are the freedom to modify, share and improve the software you use, you can't do that with the iPhone but you can do this with the FreeRunner.
> You say they are consistent in their philosophy. But if that's the case, then why doesn't their idea of freedom extend to hardware? Why do they accept patent-encumbered hardware made for profit, as long as Free Software is running on it? The hardware is just as important, but they don't seem to care at all.
The FSF is the Free *Software* Foundation, not the Free Hardware Foundation, while they encourage Free Hardware efforts such as the linux BIOS, they are not engage in Free Hardware efforts. Yes, there are a lot of bad stuff going in this world but an organization such as the FSF can only focus on a few of them. Also, hardware cannot be reproduced as easily as software so patents on hardware only attack the freedom of people who have the industrial power to create hardware (corporations), not the regular citizen freedom. So hardware patents are not as problematic, RMS and Eben Moglen already explained that issue many times.
The videos stink big time! The lighting is awful, the bightness off, the angles not thought over, the speech articulation is bad—almost everything concurs to diminish the power of the demonstration, and it's a witness to the incredible badness of the phones that their mediocrity still "shines" through.
Now, you may say that this is not the point and that it's not done by a professional—but that would be exactly the kind of thinking that gives birth to these open-source monstruosities. Even if you are not a professional video artist, as soon as you put your videos on the web, you enter a market—in the making now— where, ultimately, the selection will be made (by us) as much on the form than on the content. Imagine one second your videos reshot professionally: all your points easily understood without having to squint and guess, the text well spoken, and then imagine being given the choice of watching the poorly-produced or the well-produced clips.
i hope you get somebody to shoot professionally your pieces: they will gain a lot, and the site and you will benefit much from it. For now, the videos end up looking a little like what they rightly mock: little OpenMokoVideo train wrecks. Think iPhone!
1. The videos are done by 1 person in an afternoon with no script and no prior planning.
2. There is no one at FSF.org saying you should hold off on Dr. Horrible for my videos.
Nice try though! Yours was one of the more creative flames I've seen. Sadly, it won't save the FR from the shame that the FSF has carelessly exposed it to.
And I'd like to once again reference "5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G" from the FSF.org site. They're asking people to hold off on the iPhone 3g and wait for OpenMoko. The FSF has carelessly exposed to the OM project to this comparison.
And come on man, that keyboard is pure comedy. Esp in this version where the keys are actually smaller.
The OSS crowd strategy of claiming that it will all be better in the future, is somewhat reminiscent of old-school Microsoft and IBM tactics, otherwise known as FUD.
"We don't have something now, but trust us, it will be there in X, just don't buy Y".
No thanks.
Pretty happy with my iPhone 3G.
Perhaps Google will bring something to the table with its G-phone and Android, but they don't have much time left before the iPhone is going to be entrenched in this market, working its way down to mass usage as iPods did.
> "We don't have something now, but trust us, it will be there in X, just don't buy Y".
No, you're confusing Open Source with Free Software , what the FSF is saying is:
"let's work an a free (as in freedom) alternative and maybe (or maybe not) we'll be able to offer a free (as in freedom) alternative".
The FSF values freedom over features, it's for this same reason that it advises people to use Gnewsense instead of Ubuntu, even if that means that wifi or video won't work on your computer. It is well aware that many things on the FreeRunner are broken, but they still consider it more advance because it is more free and open than the iPhone. They are completely consistent with their philosophy of valuing freedom over features, unfortunately many people seem to not care about their freedom but that's another debate...
stuff.co.nz/4628237a28.html
so... what is so great about it? the pretty animations? the large screen area? the browser? get an ipaq. you can run opera mobile 9, opera mini 4, internet exploder, picsel...
tl;dr iphone: overhyped. openmoko: immature, for devs
also: can you find the difference between the offerrings from ibm/ms and the offerrings from the OSS community? shouldn't be too hard.
me? sarcastic? no way...
"james wilson: that is not FUD. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. marketing scare tactics."
You must have missed out on a significant slice of industry history. What the FSF are doing fits the original definition of FUD perfectly.
They are trying to spread fear and doubt about buying the iPhone, in the hopes of getting people to hold off and buy a hypothetical future product.
Just read the FSF's page. It reeks of FUD in the classical sense. They say things like "iPhone locks you in a prison" and don't buy that, we'll have something much better soon.
That's exactly how Microsoft and IBM used FUD - "don't trust this product that works and is available now". What's more, they lie to spread this fear and uncertainty over the iPhone.
You don't see Apple saying not to buy a current product, to wait for some future Apple product to be ready. They just release their products and let the market decide.
I don't know how anybody who is familiar with the definition of FUD can not see that it is exactly what the FSF's attack on the iPhone is. "Marketing scare tactics," as you put it.
Also, if you do some reading you'll notice that the comment "Wait, locked up? Prison? It's a phone. Aren't we being a little extreme?" explains that calling prison to dependence on some corporation is not an exageration.
They promote the free runner for supporting Freedom and not on taking benefits as in your examples.
I'm excited about the OM project too. That's why I felt compelled to release this video. I don't want unreasonable expectations to crush the project. People need to leave the OM project alone for at least 18 months while the software comes together.
It's turning into another hate war...and I fear Godwin's law might come into play :(
Also @ George, the iPhone 2G is only about feature comparable with my Nokia 6230i (released in 2004), so its not features that are selling the iPhone.
It isn't FUD at all, it's FOSS fanboys with their peculiar mixture of fervor and ignorance building up hype that shouldn't exist around an immature platforum as Apple fanboys counterattack with incredulity that anyone would deviate from the Democratic People's Republic of Apple partyline. This is just a weird review from somebody that should probably know better.
All of the complaints that the FSF have about the iPhone can be directed just as easily at the majority of the phones available; what interests me is that they are avoiding having a go at the carriers, who are essentially the customer for any mobile device, and who dictate the features on most mobile phones produced today. Even the FSF knows who really runs the show, and they've carefully avoided getting on the wrong side of the people who keep the mobile market tightly locked down. They're not shy of putting ethics to one side in their own interest.
Few people buy an unsubsidised device, and fewer a device that hasn't been cleared to work with a network; and certainly if you use the Openmoko on a network, you can be located and your activities monitored just as easily as with an iPhone and I think it's very disingenuous of them to suggest that their phone is any different. Apple doesn't own any mobile network any more than any other device manufacturer; they just know how to create a more consumer-friendly device. The iPhone will eventually be displaced by something from LG, or Nokia, but because the market will have moved on and they'll have a better fit to the market, not because they'll have a produced a phone that has an outdated physical interface and can only deal with a limited, unpopular range of media formats, but has better software licencing.
+1 to Blain's comment. It's pyrrhic.
Don't hate apple but don't forget about everyone else.
In New Zealand the iPhone can actually cost you $6,000 (USD$4,500) dollars on a 2 year contract. Can you say ridiculous?
The openness - I think the point is that you have to jailbreak the iPhone at all. If they opened it up more then they would effectively get people working around the world for them for free. Lets not dismiss this idea, after all some kick ass applications come out of open source, Linux and Firefox to name two.
I say good on OpenMoko, I think it is a brilliant idea. It sounds like Dave and others can also see the potential for it, and I think he (like everyone else) is saying it isn't ready for the prime-time. I don't think there is any disagreement there. I think most of the problems are in software which is a lot easier to fix than hardware.
I am hoping that Dave and others posting here raise their software concerns on the OpenMoko wiki page so they can be addressed. wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wish_List
That is the beauty of open source, it is run by the community, so if you have an idea someone will actually listen to you - you have a say in the product that you use. Features that you request actually get implemented, or at least if they don't you are given a good reason why not. That's why people become passionate about open-source, it gives you a sense of belonging to the project.
I'd say that's actually a rarity in Open Source. Sure it might happen sometimes, but it's not the norm. Often projects are driven by egos.
Also, how many times have people asked for improved user interfaces and better usability in Open Source software? Yet that "feature" still gets ignored.
" Features that you request actually get implemented, or at least if they don't you are given a good reason why not. "
Again, that's not really that common an occurrence. And there are actually proprietary applications where the users get listened to more - because the company won't make any profit if they don't listen to the customers. Open Source developers can ignore the idea of "customers" altogether and just do what they want.
And then there's the issue that trying to implement every single feature under the sun can actually degrade software, not improve it. That's why if Apple opened up the iPhone OS to the community, it wouldn't necessarily be better for it. The features they choose not to implement are often as important as those that they do.
One need only look at some of the not-very-well thought through ideas that people demand in their gadgets to see the potential disaster in that approach.
If you can't see the problems with this you are blind. Whichever side of the fence you are on, I recommend reading:
weblog.infoworld.com/yager/archives/2008/07/apples_iphone_c.html
As for the tiny keyboard - you are suppose to use a stylus.
As well, you can train the handwriting input to suit your own over caffeinated train wreck writing style.
You are using a snapshot of Qtopia, not a release version. The qwerty keyboard is not going to be on the full version release. That and the terminal are for developers and engineers, not iPhone fanboys.
As far as slowness is concerned, Qtopia is not running any graphics acceleration whatsoever on that device.
This is a release for DEVELOPERS. Not for end users. Give it a year, these phones will be running Openmoko, Qtopia and Android with ease.
2) The awful keyboard on the FreeRunner encourages it's target market, *software developers*, to come up with better input methods... let's not forget that we have bluetooth, USB, etc... The iPhone's keyboard is pathetic... just less pathetic than the FreeRunners... you either quote WPM, or you are a moron.
3) I want both phones... one in each pocket (Depending on whether I want to be a producer or a consumer)
I got a freerunner last week and am having lots of fun installing things, using vi to edit conf files and generally messing around. My freerunner worked as a phone, inc sms, on arrival and now it plays mp3 and ogg and has the full keyboard that the guy in the video cannot operate.
My phone contract renews next month and with luck they will give me an iphone so i can see what all the fuss is about. I look forward to tinkering with the iphone to change the icons and sounds, switch off the annoying zooming menus, put in a picture of my cat, Gerald, as a background etc.
I'd like to see demos of how good/bad it is at things I'll actually do every day, like making a phone call, browsing the web, getting a map from the current GPS location, installing/upgrading software, and so forth. (When a bunch of geeks get together to make a phone, we don't want to give them an excuse to waste time optimizing the terminal, of all things!)
As far as I'm concerned, it's nice to have the option to type in a terminal, but none of my use cases involve that. It's like changing the battery in my car: I'm really glad I can, but if I have to do that more than once every couple years, something else has gone really wrong. Tell me how it drives, and then mention the dumb battery holder as an afterthought.
I'll use the keyboard to type in URLs (the first time), and my login/password (again, once each), but that's about it. #1 use case for a phone, of all my friends: making phone calls!