Palm

Raised as a usability problem by 31 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 30 threads.

People raised many different problems with Palm, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 31 complaints

Touch screen was shocking and the user interface was an absolute mess2026-10-18
Touchscreen was frustrating to use on the older Palm device2025-08-11
Hard drive spins up on nearly every memory access, causing infuriating loading delays2024-09-12
Treo interface felt awkward for most people to use2024-04-25
Opening the text messaging app has a visible visual lag2023-07-16
Bluetooth turns off when pausing podcast, cutting audio and directions while driving2020-06-28
Custom software only occasionally helps with its tiny screen2019-06-27
Browser lacks downloadable fonts support and webOS touch interactions are infuriating to use2019-04-07
Trackpad on the HP ZBook is unusable, forcing the user to buy a mouse2018-10-16
Older smartphones had poor responsiveness and resistive screens, lacking smooth UI2018-09-13
Early smart devices were clunky to use, and others could not figure them out without being shown2018-06-28
UI essentially impossible to use without a stylus2017-05-15
Small text and cluttered screen were hard to read without glasses2014-01-16
Software crashed constantly, blocking calls, apps and internet use2012-08-26
Unlocking required awkward key combinations, such as pressing a tiny star key then a soft button2012-07-05
The developer GUI toolkit was maddening to work with2012-04-02
Physical keyboard was terrible, which made the phone hard to type on2012-01-02
Gestures to trigger actions are unintuitive and hard to trigger in the simulator2012-01-02
Original Pre's 500MHz processor makes WebOS laggy and hurts usability2011-06-09
Phone freezes when viewing a webpage while playing an MP32010-09-16
Copy/paste is hard to discover and implement poorly on the Pre2010-06-18
Can't operate the phone without looking at the screen, unlike physical buttons2010-05-29
Phone is too slow and laggy to feel pleasant to use2010-04-28
System doesn't feel as instant as iPhone or fast Android phones2010-04-12
Interface is sluggish and unresponsive to use2010-03-22
Poor performance makes the phone slow to respond to use2009-10-20
Spacebar and power button not working properly on the phone2009-10-20
Can't change default notification sound to be loud enough to hear2009-09-30
Navigation is not intuitive and extremely frustrating to use2009-07-31
Software is buggy and slow, so the phone is hard to use day to day2009-06-23
Treo was so frustrating the commenter nearly gave up on smartphones2008-08-19