rokytnji, I don't entirely wish to call people wanting these slab devices names but I do find that those "in charge" making it so and those following "because it is cool" to be morons. If an interface works for you then, yes, it works, but only a moron would suggest that a slab of glass works for everyone (and I notice you are not doing that).
As for moving from the past -- I have a modest collection of real books but I'm still now a fan of the Kindle for all its very dangerous overtones. The "electronic ink" and the ability to buy a book to read on most of the places I fond myself is an advantage. Not having a physical keyboard and an OS not owned by an advertising agency with some odd choices in UI design is not advantageous.
I just lament the clever, usable devices we had.

Just quoting to show what I am responding to. I know you are not name calling me. I should have maybe left your name out but a slip of a brain cell can happen on my part from time to time.
Your post prompted my response. So I included your name as a sort of "citation" for my post.

I am just showing anybody reading this thread. That there are all kinds of reasons of why people do
what they do. Not just lump them all into one category and call it day.

Edit: the wife just stepped in for lunch and told me she sold both Iphones to a co-worker for 300 bucks. So I am recouping some monies spent on the upgrade phone buys.

I do agree that people have many reason for what they do and the comment about you wife, and previous ones, reminded me that an ex asked me my opinion of her buying a Mac and I did have to admit that, for what she wanted, it was probably the best choice (she knew of my low opinion of M$ and my preference of open source).

... but most of these technical advancements occurred before "open source" was really an operative word.

Although, in all fairness, I must check myself. In the mid-1980's, I found myself working with IBM's VM/370 and VM/XA [mainframe] operating systems, which at that time was distributed entirely in [assembler ...] source-code form. During that time, IBM gradually began to replace certain modules, rewriting them in a higher-level language which they did not distribute. These replacement modules were only made available in TEXT (read: "OCO = Object-Code Only") form, to the great consternation of certain users. (So far as I am aware, IBM never offered their compiler as a commercial product.)

Still, at that time, it was strictly "an IBM Corporation business decision," felt only among IBM's customers and then only within this very-restricted community of the users of a system which, in whatever form, you still had to pay very good money for ... every month.

You don't have to buy a crappy phone, there is the Blackberry Priv

The 80's were not just hobby computers, everyone was buying commodore 64's and apple II's and 2 bit Atari's to play AD&D or use Qlink.

There is now, for a very, very high price but whether it will be available or viable in 5 years time is another matter.

I just bought one, it was mid range in price. Under $400 and there are now phones in the $500-$700 range

Actually, looking at it, you're right it's not currently as bad as I thought with the Priv being about £400 (just under $500USD) here. I would prefer the classic, which is a little cheaper, but I understand that the Priv allows the use of Android apps which could be useful for functionality even though I'm not a big fan of the apps concept. With the current situation though I'm worried that by the time I'm ready to spend on a new phone Blackberry will be dead or just another Android slab seller.

Be careful! You are not the owner of the e-books you buy. When you buy a real book, it's yours and you can go on reading it until it falls to pieces. No one can stop you from doing this.

When you buy an e-book, it's like buying proprietary software. You are buying a right to use, not true ownership. There have been plenty of cases of Amazon pulling the rug from under a customer's feet by taking away all the e-books they thought they had bought.

I know that, but my bookshelves are full of books I've only read twice, if that. The Kindle is so much more convenient to me with it's ability to have all the books I want on me all the time that it more than pays for the fact that they're just leased. I actually bought The God Delusion the other day on Kindle so I could read it on that rather than carry the huge hardback copy I have, for example.

Edit: This, I think, shows that I am willing to compromise for convenience and modernity and try new things.

At least there is some variety in Android unlike the apple stuff.

As far as it concerns me Android phones and Apple phones are all the same. They're designed as poor portable video viewing devices and nothing more.

Android has more potential though since your not limited to what Apple allows you to do. You don't need to pay for a developer license to wire your own stuff on Android, you can run emulators, etc. So they are more like pocket computers.

If I'm using a slab of dirty glass to try to type my email on I'm not really bothered by whether I can install this or that app. They're all horrible, button-less video viewing devices to me.