I had a limited amount of time to evalute a working demo Kin Twom at a VZW store.
I have two questions concerning when you're typing either a text message or a Calendar entry.
(1) Suppose you've typed a few sentences and notice something that you'd like to edit (e.g. spelling typo). I didn't see any physical direction keys on the keyboard (up, down, lt, rt). The only thing in the store that I could think of was what you had to do on the LG Chocolate Touch which was a touchscreen-only phone -- position your finger directly above the point on the screen where there's typed information you want to edit, and then touch that point with your fingertip and hope that you touched the screen accurately enough so that the blinking cursor is exactly where you want it to be before you start editing what you typed. And if the blinking cursor was not in the correct position, then you had to tap the screen again and again until you got lucky enough to tap the screen at the precise point where you want the blinking cursor to be.
When i got home, I found something in the manual (link) for the Kin Twom on page 16 about editing. But I don't understand how this works. Could someone clarify this or think of a way to explain it differently ? It sounds pretty different than how you edit typed information on any of the other Verizon non-smartphones.
"Move the cursor in a text
After you’ve typed something, if you want to move the cursor, touch and hold the text box to zoom in, then without lifting your finger, slide your finger to place the cursor where you want it. Then lift your finger"
(2) Suppose you typed an entry in the phone's Calendar, and you would like to copy and paste some (or all) of what you typed into another Calendar entry. Since I couldn't find any such option on the phone, is there an undocumented way to accomplish this ?
Thank you in advance!
1. What this means, is to 'drag' the cursor around, press and hold your finger on the screen. A little 'blow up' of the text will expand, and then you drag your finger around and it gives you a 'live update' cursor until you remove your finger from the screen. This works as a precision cursor. At first, i was bummed that the phone didn't have physical arrow keys, but when i figured out how to drag the cursor like this, it made the missing keys a lot more bareable. However, i feel that the delay for this cursor dragging a little too long for me (albeit only about 1 sec..). A lot of times, i just end up tapping the screen multiple times to select the right spot, which ironically usually takes longer than waiting for the cursor drag, but thats just me being impatient.
2. There is no copy/paste on this phone. Kind of a bummer, there are many cases where copying and pasting text would be very useful, like the instance you just said.
(1) Thank you for helping me! What you explained makes sense. Since this feature is foreign to me, I'll make a printout of your explanation to take with me to the VZW store for when I evaluate the demo phone again.
Is this the method by which text can be edited not only while typing a text message but also while typing information for a Calendar entry or an alarm description ?
(2) In light of the lack of a copy-and-paste feature, I guess a way to work around this limitation would be to enter notes into a Calendar month a long time from the current month ... assuming that the Kin Onem / Twom offer a convenient way of quickly accessing a particulr month ?
My interest in finding a way to make this work is based upon someone stating on another forum that the Calendar would accept a typed entry of at least 110 characters.
1. I just tested this, and yes, all text boxes can be edited in this similar dragging fashion.
2. To make notes, yes, you can add it into the calendar. On my old phone, i used a mix of both the calendar and the notepad to take notes, as well as just saving a draft of a blank text. Whenever i had a note that i wanted a reminder to look at again (at a certain time, say, for a reminder), i would add it as a calendar event. On the Kin phones, because they lack a notepad, i just end up sending myself a text and use that as a log of my notes (the phone doesn't save universal drafts; it does however save the text you've already typed for individual contacts).
Yes, there will be double of everything, because of the sent and recieved messages, but it is easy enough to access. Even if you don't have unlimited messages, it shouldn't matter because its a verizon-to-verizon text (i'm not sure if thats how it works if you have no texts; if you have text blocked, this won't work). You can find it from the list of threaded messages, or just create a new message to yourself, and it will pull up your own thread. In many ways, this is easier than my old phone's notes, where i had to go through a few menus to reach the notepad. However, because there is no way to delete individual messages, the notepad does get big from time to time, and you have to delete it all to clear it.
Thank you again! I really appreciate your help
I stopped at a Verizon store the other day to try out the editing feature. The store's Kin Onem [but not Twom] was working.
I was impressed with the easiness of editing. But there was one unexpected aspect. After pressing and holding and after the text that I wanted to edit appeared in a little bubble, I had to figure out how to move the cursor up or down a line of text. Regardless of whether I wanted to move the cursor to a line of text up above or down below the line of text that the cursor was currently in, the entire bubble moved too. It was as if I were chasing the bubble with my fingertip. I don't understand the Microsoft programmers' rationale for programming the bubble to move. I guess a person will get used to this; but I'd rather be able to nudge my fingertip up or down (and have the bubble remain stationary) rather than have to move my fingertip far enough up or down.
I assume that this behavior happens when you edit text on the Twom, too ?
Yes, the expanded bubble does move up and down on the Kin Twom. However, the place where the cursor 'actually is', is where the original text box is. You don't actually have to chase the box up the screen (although at first use, it may feel that way). Its kind of a 'convenient' way that they programmed it so the expanded text box wasn't where your thumb is, blocking its view. It is a bit more natural to follow the expanded text box initially, but after a while, you won't notice that it moves up (at least i haven't). Just remember, it will place your cursor where the main text body behind the temporary box is. I typed up a very large text to test this out, and it does indeed work that way. I don't know how many texts you will be typing that take up the entire screen (it looks like 4 or 5 pages will fit on the screen..), but even when the screen doesn't hold the entire text body, you can scroll to the beginning or end by putting your thumb on the bottom or top of the screen.
Thank you ! You've been a huge help to a lot of us on understanding the Kin
I'm looking forward to applying your latest advice the next opportunity that I have to evaluate the Kin at the VZW store.
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