alexonline

WayTools_Support said:

Ericpeet - maybe have a look at the bullet points in our post, if you like answers more than questions.  Or perhaps your point is to frame knowns as unknowns.

Alexonline - people have already received properly working units.  Since you don’t have an order, and you say it’s vaporware, it’s curious you still spend time on it.

You people are incredible and ridiculous. I had an order for two years. You banned me because I posted in the RANTS section. You refused to re-instate me. Every few months I come back to see if you lot have launched yet, but all you get is smarmy, condescending, rude remarks from YOU - the Waytools support rep who is only less slightly wordy than DBK. 

Listen you sanctimonious people - ship your damn product. It has been FOUR YEARS. You lied to us in the start, you've continued to lie, and you suggest that sending out beta test units to people is "properly working units" as though you'd shipped to customers. That is another blatant lie from you, Waytools. 

When, or rather if, you ever ship, chances are very high that I'll place an order - as a technology journalist who has been using tech since 1979, I love all new technologies that look like they are going to change the world. It's why I ORDERED A TEXTBLADE from you! But after four years, and lots of overly wordy nonsense from you, it's no wonder that plenty of us reside in the Reddit forum, having been BANNED BY YOU, and come back every few months to "curiously spend time on it". 

If only YOU curiously spent some time on FINISHING YOUR DAMNED PRODUCT, you might have some happy customers (not BETA TESTERS) who would be happily using your product. 

dabigkahuna said:

alexonline said:

One thing you quickly learn about DBK - brevity is not part of his life remit. Words are his thing. He is wordy. It would be great if Textblade would launch, all the words from DBK hasn't made it arrive any faster, sadly. 

They'll also learn that, while I was give a direct response to the concerns of another poster, you failed to show anything actually wrong with what I posted.

The problem is you, DBK, which includes your posts in their entirety. 

If Textblade ever ships, it'll be a miracle. I was one of the first orderers (no Snoke involved unless you count DBK) promised a ship date of just a few weeks, but after two long years, I cancelled - and TWO MORE YEARS have passed since. If Waytools ever ship the Textblade, I'll consider re-ordering, but until then it's vaporware - be warned, unless you want to receive your product in 2029, or take the chance the company won't go broke with your money in the meantime, don't reward this company with your money. 

Wait until they ship first, and even then, wait until people have reported receiving their units in properly working condition first, without the threat of your Textblade able to be bricked by HQ if they ever go down, go out of business or otherwise decide to brick you (which no other keyboard can do, or at least, that I am aware of). 

dabigkahuna said:

prokip said:

But if you guys (and gals ?) are feeding me a line, a curse on the *&%&&*....  OK

First, I suspect most of us only have one post for the same reason I did - I wasn't a regular appleinsider reader (thus not a poster) until the article came up which I and the others knew a lot about.

Second, no one is feeding you a line. None of us can guarantee that it WILL ship (though we expect it will). None of us will tell you to preorder. We may point out the benefits of preordering AND the potential risks. For me, even though I'm risk adverse, this one item I did preorder back in 2015 because I thought it just might be great. I have never preordered anything else. But now that I have it, I will say it is great.

That doesn't mean everyone will like it. Some may have special situations where it isn't the best choice. For example, if you want to be able to stop your car and type on your lap, it isn't going to work unless you put something flat and rigid under it. Which just happens to be how I type virtually 100% of the time. I never have it sitting on my desk when typing. It's always on my lap. OTOH, you could stick the TextBlade to a vertical surface if it is made of steel (because the TextBlade is magnetic).

I think the group that may have the biggest issues are those who write code, because of the key combos to get oft-used symbols. But we have TREG members who code. I don't so I can't address it as much as I'd like. From what I've read from others, it may depend on what kind of coding. I also know some have worked out customized layouts to deal with the problems. YMMV.

But even if coding is a problem, most people aren't coders.

I have always felt the bigger "problem" is just getting people to give it the time and effort to adjust. There are multiple levels to this.

First, just for alpha characters and basic punctuation that is all on the main layer, thus no special combos needed, they still have to adjust to the particular angle of the keys as well as the different reach. But the reach is EASIER! Still have to adjust to it. This is the kind of stuff you may have to do with any given regular keyboard.

But the second thing is a bit more complicated as you access numbers and many symbols on the "green layer". This is where you hold down the space bar and hit the appropriate key. It's easy - certainly easier than the shift key once you get used to it because your thumb is typically right above the space bar anyway. It's also easy because you are no longer needing to reach for the symbols (or numbers). They are at or immediately above or below the home row. However, you still have to adapt to it and I have no doubt that some simply won't make even a minimal effort.

Third, there is user error - which the ordinary user may blame on the TextBlade. When you hit the wrong key on a regular keyboard, it is generally very obvious. But with multiple characters (3-6) on one key cap, it is naturally less obvious and people will tend to think they did it right even when they didn't.

To give you an idea of how this can go, in early testing, sometimes I'd get the wrong character. Now, sometimes it was the TextBlade's fault (those problems have been solved), but there were times I get an error thinking I was right, but catch myself right when the error occurred. I then, without looking down, moved my finger closer to the part of the key for the character I wanted (just in case I was out of position). I'd still get the wrong character! So I'd do it again, with the same result. And then again - so 3 times with the same error, even though I had moved in the right direction. Surely the TextBlade messed up! Nope. I'd look down where my finger was and, surprise, it would still, even after those adjustments, be solidly on the wrong character! I suspect some people wouldn't realize they goofed and get frustrated early on.

These things are unavoidable so I figure WayTools wants to minimize any possible issues they can control at a pretty high level (though not perfection).

I could tell within one day, in spite of the significantly greater issues early on than now, that I didn't want to use any other keyboard. No, I couldn't type on it as well instantly, but things were just easier that it wasn't hard to see the benefits. Speed was "good enough" in short order and was back at full speed within 3 weeks. And now, while I could touch type before, that didn't include numbers and symbols - too far away for me to do without looking and I didn't need them enough to practice them. But I easily do them with the TextBlade.

There are a lot of things the Treg members will be able to help newbies with when it does ship, because we've gone through them ourselves and have learned how various customization options (not just basic keyboard layouts) can help.

One thing you quickly learn about DBK - brevity is not part of his life remit. Words are his thing. He is wordy. It would be great if Textblade would launch, all the words from DBK hasn't made it arrive any faster, sadly. 

Hi Lorin, a friend was having an issue with Netflix on their ATV, so we uninstalled it, reinstalled it, and that seemed to fix it. 

lorin schultz said:

To see what this post said before i changed my mind and deleted it, please consult your local psychic.

- This message brought to you by The North American Psychic Association -- We know what you're thinking!

Aren’t you from the group that recently cancelled your annual fair due to unforeseen circumstances?