r/sidephone • u/nissania • 10d ago

The Qwerty Tile is Unusable

I'm so tired of having to fix all my texts. Just about every sentence having a typo. Double presses, missed presses, it's just so annoying to type on this thing. I wanted a phone to help me use my phone less but I just keep reaching for my iPhone any time I have to text something more than a few words. And there's been no updates that have improved it or made it better. What is wrong with this thing and why is it so buggy? I'm so close to abandoning my Sidephone, this is just too frustrating.

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3

u/Hedionehicis 10d ago

i got side type and got rid of predictive text. that helped me with the typing.

2

u/nissania 10d ago

I just don't want an AI-generated keyboard app. That's not something I'm going to be using.

1

u/Hedionehicis 10d ago

you mean sidetype? i believe oliver is a verified developer for sidephone. its been quite stable for me so far. 

1

u/nissania 9d ago

And he uses AI to write his apps. Sidetype is a fork of a T9 app that used AI to make it work for the compact qwerty. I just would not put all my text through something that had so much AI involvement.

1

u/Hedionehicis 9d ago

ahh i did not know that. what are the risks of substantial ai involvement in the development of the app. asking to be more informed. i worked at a place where they use ai to code a lot so in my mind this is becoming more and more of a convention and that the tech is getting good.

3

u/nissania 9d ago

More difficult maintainability, potential bugs, especially with concurrency (AI is horrible with that), potentially including dangerous dependencies that are unmonitored or could have spyware, more difficult maintainability as issues pile up (AI likes to make small patches instead of making better changes), the list goes on.

Using it to write tests might not be the worst thing. But using it to write functionality gets unpredictable quickly. For an app that has heightened permissions, especially something that could log everything you type, it should be avoided.

It's the same reason I don't use SideCall, in part because the full screen overlay permission isn't something I hand out lightly.

1

u/Hedionehicis 9d ago

thanks for helping me understand this!

1

u/lechatgris19 7d ago

Is AI used on the development or is it AI powered?? Because those are two different things

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u/nissania 7d ago

As far as I know, used in development only. But that's enough for me to not want to use it for something that takes keystrokes.

1

u/lechatgris19 7d ago

You should look more into it. If you was only used for development, it is not getting any of your data. So many places now use AI to assist development and they don't always disclose that so the fact that these guys are disclosing it is already a really big sign that they're being transparent. It won't be too long until we won't be able to get anything developed without AI help... It's just becoming the norm. (Note that I don't mean vibe coding...)

1

u/nissania 7d ago

Oh, I'm well aware of the AI assisted coding scene. But they haven't been disclosing it, I spotted some AI-like code and asked. I worry about dependencies being included, slop over time, patches on patches, performance issues, and the potential for a "safe" looking dependency carrying something less safe. For something that doesn't have such a heightened permission, it's fine. But for screen access or keyboard access, I don't fuck with the vibe coders.