The Author's Nest

I despise when people say "You don't want $_x. Just use your phone." I want that thing because it's not my bloody phone.

This was brought up because I was lusting over the FreeWrite, a smart typewriter with an eInk screen, amazing mechanical keyboard, and cloud backup (with the option to do local connections to a PC). It's a dedicated device, meaning that it does one thing, and does it well. That's precisely why I want it:so I'm not distracted by people pinging me on IM/Skype/SMS/Twitter/Facebook/Telederp/etc...

I even mentioned as much when I was talking about it. However, not just one, but several people replied with "Just use your phone.", and even linked me to several iOS and Android apps for writing.

Now, I do use an Android phone (HTC One), and don't own a modern iPhone. I'm well aware that I could get a dock or something and write on it. However, it's a bloody smartphone. It has notifications appearing any time I get an email, SMS, call, or a number of other things. Android sucks at understanding what "do not disturb" means (Google even took out that idea in Google Hangouts), so what do you think will happen when I'm typing?

That's right, I'm going to get distracted.

That's part of why I want the FreeWrite. Distraction-free writing is what I need when I'm working on projects. It's why I'm often found using Atom or Visual Studio Code in fullscreen (F11) when I'm working seriously. Sometimes, I'll even use WriteMonkey or FocusWriter with their zenware mentality of "nothing but the document".

Yeah, I can "just do that", but I've also got distractions from the OS itself, and the battery life on my laptop isn't exactly...pleasant at 4 hours (with brightness down and radios off). The Surface Pro 3 I have would be better, if only the firmware and OS (Windows 10) didn't drain the battery at full steam during sleep. At least Windows 7 has a proper Hibernate mode...

So yeah...This pissed me off, and with the stress of the last few days, and my lack of sleep, this is what made me snap.