something similar actually really annoys me on linkedin mobile, I'm left handed and often accidentally like posts if I scroll my feed as the like button is very close to where I naturally touch the screen to scroll.
sometimes I wonder if things like this are actually dark patterns to _encourage_ accidentally clicking 'like' etc.
similar to how in Threads, the '...' icon (under which 'save' is hidden) is so small that half the time clicking on it just clicks the entire thread (opening it to view replies) -- sometimes I suspect they make the target extra small on purpose
or how on FB, some of the options in the menu are now under the AI generated content, which pops in just slowly enough to encourage misclicks as items shift under your finger
I think they do encourage it - probably due to marketing. If you are getting paid per click its in your best interest to get someone to click irrespective of content. Snapchat do it with the scroll up feature, instead of it going to the next clip as most doom scrollers do, it goes straight to a profile. Vice Versa on other popular platforms. That little 'glitch' for a second, and now a new popup came at just the time you were about to press right where your digit is and you are loading onto a sponsored site. Of course the sponsor then boasts look how many clicks you have got.
NYT games app loads in an interstitial screen with a play button, as you go to click it they shift it up and put a subscribe button there so that when you click you accidentally click subscribe. Evil genius.
It could be accidental, but without that there's no reason to have the interstitial screen at all.
Making bad assumptions about data seems more likely than deliberate malice. If you A/B test different designs, and you see a huge increase in "interactions" with some design, you'll tend to assume that's a positive thing, unless you spend the time to interview a lot of customers to figure out what's going on.
I'm not left-handed, but I often scroll my phone with my left thumb. My right hand is on my computer mouse, or holding a pen, or employed to make precise touches on the phone screen with my right index finger, or briefly comes over to join with my left thumb for typing...
Scrolling doesn't require much precision, and I naturally hold my phone in my left hand.
I'm righthanded and I usually hold my phone in my left hand so I can do clicking and typing with my right hand, but I often do basic scrolling with my left thumb.
I'm a man with typically sized hands. I can barely do anything one-handed on a phone. Phones are so big they basically require two-handed operation for me. Like you, I typically hold it in my left hand, so I can use my right hand to tap stuff.
I’m a guy who’ll leave his laptop on the floor and will bend double from a chair to use it, on the floor, because I have forgotten I can pick it up. I am ergonomically insensitive.
Anyway, I use my phone in my left hand, my right hand, or both, pretty much equally.
There’s at least 3 of us still on iPhone 13 Minis…
You, me, and my wife. I’m just waiting for my phone to hit 79% battery health so I can take them both in for battery replacement.
It’s gotten to the point that I frequently get asked, “what phone is that”. I imagine because all phones are the size of aircraft carriers now, and an iPhone Mini really stands out.
I've replaced multiple iPhone batteries (just not this model), and the great thing about the iFixit kit is it comes with specialized tools you need and great instructions.
Indeed! And I bet Apple technicians have even better training, tools and reference documentation, despite that they broke my screen anyways! So I'll stick to my warning to ask people to be careful, seemingly really easy to break the displays in the process.
Then I guess there is me with my iPhone 12 Mini. Replaced the battery some months ago, Apple techs broke the screen, so got a free new screen too. It's starting to get very slow though, every update it gets worse. I can feel that just running Spotify and Waze over CarPlay is starting to be too much, add in sending live location via Telegram at the same time and the phone almost grinds to a halt.
god, I have a 12 mini and I don't know what I'm going to do when it dies. my attempts at finding a vaguely modern name-brand android phone that's a similar size have concluded in zero phones and a sense of overwhelming dread
You're comparing wrong models though? X9 and X300 Pro are both much larger than the phones I mentioned.
(I've just noticed you also used wrong models in your original comparison - while both phones are larger than the mini, the difference isn't as large as your link suggests)
The iPhone is normal phone size width and depth, but it's meaningfully shorter than just about everything else. It doesn't sound like much on paper but I've always found it adds up once in a pocket. (All dimensions height x width x depth, in mm, rounded up to the nearest mm)
In fact, they're more like the size of the full size iPhone, which, if you're sticking with your iPhone Mini because the iPhone is annoyingly large, means they're too large.
This is totally not "vaguely modern name-brand" but I've been using the e-ink Mudita Kompakt and it's more or less the same size, but a bit thicker. It's Android but no Google Play Services but probably doesn't tick your box
Same, on a 12 Mini right now, been looking for phones (any OS) that has similar size for maybe the last 2 years, and while some Xperia models have come close to the right size, everyone is still aiming for "bigger === better" it seems. Can't wait for the pendulum to switch back to smaller phones again...
Another 13 mini user chiming in. I’m 6’3, and think it’s ridiculous how big phones are. It reminds me of the automobile and tv industry though, where you’re sort of forced into buying something obnoxious if you want to get the better features.
I agree that phones are too big. I refuse to switch to two-handed phone use. I used the Palm Phone PVG 100 with a 3.3" screen as long as I could, but software got too slow and battery-hungry, and my now-wife was annoyed when my phone would die halfway through our text based conversations lol. Used a chunky 3.5"er (Soyes S10Max) for awhile but it died after a year.
Now I use the Motorola Razr 2025. 90% of the time I just keep it closed. The outer screen is 3.6" and a square, but the screen doesn't seem to extend all the way out. It's kinda heavy at 6.6oz (compared to the Palm Phone's 2.2oz), but with a ring, it's super easy to use one-handed. And it has battery life and compute power to handle today's unnecessarily compute-heavy apps. You can also split apps in half when it's open so you can just use them on the bottom half of the phone.
Main disadvantage is that when it's closed, you only have a "selfie" camera as the back camera is facing you and the front camera is inside. So it's hard to quickly take pictures of things I see outside (usually funny birds). Other annoyance is that if you open the phone, use it, and then close it, the outer keyboard resets to the default keyboard and you need to "change the keyboard layout" to get it to use your preferred keyboard (Microsoft Swiftkey in my case)
I lack the skills, time, and nerve to try it with my own phone lol (and wouldn't want a keyboard). As much as I miss the Palm Phone, this is an acceptable compromise.
Same here, I suspect the majority of people with average to small hands could never really one hand phones (with a good enough screen size) in the first place so it makes less difference to them.
> The older I get, the more sausage fingers I get.
It seems with age fingers do not just get fatter (feet too btw) but also get drier. So the keys do not register as well on smartphones: older people hitting right in the middle of the virtual keys, one by one, in a slow but decided manner are not "just old". There's apparently some science behind it.
Android has an old person setting with larger text and icons and explicit home/back buttons.
I might set up my parents with it, but I currently have it on my phone in my attempt to make my phone less addictive.
The combination of a black and white screen, old person setting squeezing out information, and turning off animations makes my phone feel shitty to use without having to actually block Instagram (which is commonly used for messaging in my circles) or any other app.
I had to read this a couple times and look at the comments here before I realized they were talking about scrolling on a phone. I was like "who scrolls with their thumb?"
That's actually the first thing that came to my mind when reading about thumb scrolling, since I use a trackball. But that wouldn't explain why left or right handed scrolling would be different.
As a lefty, his tongue in cheek derision toward lefties still pisses me off genuinely.
I’m old enough to have been smacked around by a teacher as a kid for writing with my left hand. Right-handed bias is EVERYWHERE. Everywhere. Right-handed people will never notice it until they look for it, and even then it’s hard to see.
So yeah I am sure the ribbing is nothing more than “a sensible chuckle” for right-handed people, us southpaws are not laughing. And if you try to tell me you are, I seriously doubt that you are left-handed.
I'm sorry it upset you. I thought it was funny but I'm also younger and I think I escaped most of the dextrocentric bullshit my parents' generation had to deal with. My mom was forced to use her right hand but it was mostly just an inconvenience for me. I like making jokes about being sinister (literally the Latin word for left) but I'd probably feel differently if people smacked me over it.
Anything that isn't symmetrical. Mice and keyboards. Circular saws. Tape measures. Box cutters. Folding knives. Garden tools. Those are just ones that impacted me recently.
Some have lefty versions but there is less selection. I recently found a left-handed weeding sickle and it is the best thing. Most of them are just annoying. I can do most things with right hand but then have to switch hands instead of the natural motion. But there are a few that are dangerous.
Measuring cups are a peeve of mine. They almost always have the handle on the right for US customary units. I had hopes of finding one biased for righty metric / lefty US in Canada but they haven't fully committed to the change yet.
I've learnt to mouse and keyboard the right handed way because it would just be too much hassle to switch over every setup I'm presented with. It does make me atrocious at drawing with a mouse though
More used keys like enter, backspace, arrow keys, and number pad are under the dominant hand. It isn't a big deal since most people are ambidextrous with keyboards. But there are left-handed keyboards.
The other annoyance is that default mappings for games are for left hand, right mouse. Either have to remap everything or play right-handed like I do.
The industrial design and the UI design of all things tends to default to the 85% of people who are right handed and aren’t aware of potential limitations.
This is translated into issues into the items others have listed.
it's all over the place. when you hold a pen or pencil in your right hand, any text is right-side up. put it in your left hand; the text is now upside down.
there are millions of little things like that. millions. right-handed people will never ever notice them. left-handed people can not avoid noticing them.
pens & pencils
notebooks.
IP phones.
headsets (they have the mic on the left so you can scratch your face with your right hand without bumping the microphone.)
monitors (controls are on the back, right-hand side)
keyboards
mice
AND THIS IS JUST THE THINGS THAT ARE PRESENT ON MY DESK RIGHT NOW.
badge readers are always on the right-hand side of a door.
power buttons are always on the right, even on remote controls.
etc., etc., etc.
everything that is asymmetrical in any way is biased for right-handed people around 99.99% of the time. I occasionally get something from China which has accidental bias for left, but those things also have no obvious thought to the usability of anything at all.
it is maddening seeing this all day every day everywhere you go. "you are not like us" is all I get out of it and it just chips away at me with a microscopic chisel.
But you just called yourself a southpaw - what is that, if not self derision?
And anyway, it reads more like making fun out of the almost religious belief that left handed people don't exist held not by the writer but by developers of wordpress.
it's not a derisive term. it's just a nickname for a left-handed pitcher in baseball, because their left hand is on the south side of the pitcher when pitching in whatever field that term was coined in. it is a nickname that stuck for some reason. i've never felt that term to be derisive in my life.
"Today, we often use southpaw as a good-natured term for a left-handed person, but the word is sometimes viewed as stigmatizing by left-handed people."
It makes sense to use the left hand as phone holder to be free to use the right hand to do some other activity, example: I will have my breakfast while reading HN.
However I usually keep my phone with my right hand and scroll with my right thumb. Furthermore I am writing this comment by swiping with my right thumb. I can swipe with my left thumb but I'm not as accurate.
The worst curse put upon us is XNA games engine, which was unable to distinguish primary from secondary clicks. So players who swapped mouse buttons at the OS level were out of luck.
Most developers assumed that left click = primary click, but that's only true about 95% of the time.
83 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 74.0 ms ] threadsimilar to how in Threads, the '...' icon (under which 'save' is hidden) is so small that half the time clicking on it just clicks the entire thread (opening it to view replies) -- sometimes I suspect they make the target extra small on purpose
or how on FB, some of the options in the menu are now under the AI generated content, which pops in just slowly enough to encourage misclicks as items shift under your finger
all to make some PM's numbers go up, of course...
It could be accidental, but without that there's no reason to have the interstitial screen at all.
Scrolling doesn't require much precision, and I naturally hold my phone in my left hand.
Or perhaps the righteous versus the sinister.
Anyway, I use my phone in my left hand, my right hand, or both, pretty much equally.
You, me, and my wife. I’m just waiting for my phone to hit 79% battery health so I can take them both in for battery replacement.
It’s gotten to the point that I frequently get asked, “what phone is that”. I imagine because all phones are the size of aircraft carriers now, and an iPhone Mini really stands out.
(For reference, I would really like something a little bit smaller than the Mini, but there’s nothing remotely modern that exists.)
(I've just noticed you also used wrong models in your original comparison - while both phones are larger than the mini, the difference isn't as large as your link suggests)
* iPhone Mini: 132 x 72 x 8 (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/111877)
These two alternatives are noticeably larger:
* Vivo X300: 151 × 72 × 8 (https://www.vivo.com/in/products/param/x300)
* Oppo X9S: 157 x 74 x 8 (https://www.oppo.com/en/smartphones/series-find-x/find-x9s/s...)
In fact, they're more like the size of the full size iPhone, which, if you're sticking with your iPhone Mini because the iPhone is annoyingly large, means they're too large.
* iPhone 17: 150 x 72 x 8 (https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-17/specs/)
Now I use the Motorola Razr 2025. 90% of the time I just keep it closed. The outer screen is 3.6" and a square, but the screen doesn't seem to extend all the way out. It's kinda heavy at 6.6oz (compared to the Palm Phone's 2.2oz), but with a ring, it's super easy to use one-handed. And it has battery life and compute power to handle today's unnecessarily compute-heavy apps. You can also split apps in half when it's open so you can just use them on the bottom half of the phone.
Pictures:
https://www.middleendian.com/phone.jpg
https://www.middleendian.com/phone-with-keyboard.jpg
Main disadvantage is that when it's closed, you only have a "selfie" camera as the back camera is facing you and the front camera is inside. So it's hard to quickly take pictures of things I see outside (usually funny birds). Other annoyance is that if you open the phone, use it, and then close it, the outer keyboard resets to the default keyboard and you need to "change the keyboard layout" to get it to use your preferred keyboard (Microsoft Swiftkey in my case)
Bring back normal sized iPhones.
They seem proportional, I’m not Trump.
[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-reachability-iph1...
It seems with age fingers do not just get fatter (feet too btw) but also get drier. So the keys do not register as well on smartphones: older people hitting right in the middle of the virtual keys, one by one, in a slow but decided manner are not "just old". There's apparently some science behind it.
I might set up my parents with it, but I currently have it on my phone in my attempt to make my phone less addictive.
The combination of a black and white screen, old person setting squeezing out information, and turning off animations makes my phone feel shitty to use without having to actually block Instagram (which is commonly used for messaging in my circles) or any other app.
https://bruteforceswimathon.medium.com/youtube-help-my-video...
I’m old enough to have been smacked around by a teacher as a kid for writing with my left hand. Right-handed bias is EVERYWHERE. Everywhere. Right-handed people will never notice it until they look for it, and even then it’s hard to see.
So yeah I am sure the ribbing is nothing more than “a sensible chuckle” for right-handed people, us southpaws are not laughing. And if you try to tell me you are, I seriously doubt that you are left-handed.
Some have lefty versions but there is less selection. I recently found a left-handed weeding sickle and it is the best thing. Most of them are just annoying. I can do most things with right hand but then have to switch hands instead of the natural motion. But there are a few that are dangerous.
The other annoyance is that default mappings for games are for left hand, right mouse. Either have to remap everything or play right-handed like I do.
This is translated into issues into the items others have listed.
there are millions of little things like that. millions. right-handed people will never ever notice them. left-handed people can not avoid noticing them.
pens & pencils
notebooks.
IP phones.
headsets (they have the mic on the left so you can scratch your face with your right hand without bumping the microphone.)
monitors (controls are on the back, right-hand side)
keyboards
mice
AND THIS IS JUST THE THINGS THAT ARE PRESENT ON MY DESK RIGHT NOW.
badge readers are always on the right-hand side of a door.
power buttons are always on the right, even on remote controls.
etc., etc., etc.
everything that is asymmetrical in any way is biased for right-handed people around 99.99% of the time. I occasionally get something from China which has accidental bias for left, but those things also have no obvious thought to the usability of anything at all.
it is maddening seeing this all day every day everywhere you go. "you are not like us" is all I get out of it and it just chips away at me with a microscopic chisel.
And anyway, it reads more like making fun out of the almost religious belief that left handed people don't exist held not by the writer but by developers of wordpress.
"Today, we often use southpaw as a good-natured term for a left-handed person, but the word is sometimes viewed as stigmatizing by left-handed people."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/southpaw
However I usually keep my phone with my right hand and scroll with my right thumb. Furthermore I am writing this comment by swiping with my right thumb. I can swipe with my left thumb but I'm not as accurate.
Most developers assumed that left click = primary click, but that's only true about 95% of the time.
Terraria, among others, still has this bug.