6 ms·

Text selection is the most broken thing to me on an ipad. It makes any kind of editing pretty much unusable. Great device to browse the web from my bathtub and

by cm2187 7y ago

Text selection is the most broken thing to me on an ipad. It makes any kind of editing pretty much unusable. Great device to browse the web from my bathtub and watch movies on a plane, but haven’t found any other usage.

hinkley 7y ago
I just learned the spacebar trick a few months ago. I still get “5e” instead of “the” about twice a month. And once in a while I will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I still have no idea how I’m doing that. A whole new text entry system wouldn’t go amiss for me, either.
- cm2187 7y ago
  But try selecting text from a web page...
- Decade 7y ago
  For me, a chunk of text would go missing because it interprets fast typing as double, triple, quadruple tapping. Which means the text is selected and then promptly overwritten. The solution is to be deliberate about typing slowly on the screen keyboard. https://www.howtogeek.com/441872/how-to-use-text-editing-gestures-on-your-iphone-and-ipad/ https://www.howtogeek.com/441872/how-to-use-text-editing-ges...
- silveroriole 7y ago
  It would be nice if they fixed the autocorrect learning insane things like correcting “male” to “Male” and “doesn’t” to “DOESNT”, so I wouldn’t have to do so much text selection to fix it. My iPhone which is really behind on iOS versions doesn’t do this but my iPad is awful for it.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Autocorrect on the iOS from four years ago was nothing short of magic. It would understand the most confused babble and rarely needed any guidance. It even seemed to get used to my style of typing after a while. Today, it is a constant battle. It keeps trying to rope in my address book, different languages I’m not typing in, and arcane words. I correct it every four sentences at least. I thought I wanted these features; boy was I wrong.
- asplake 7y ago
  > And once in a while I will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I still have no idea how I’m doing that I don't edit text on the iPad for exactly that reason. As soon as I start typing fast using the screen keyboard, I keep losing stuff
jonplackett 7y ago
This is so much worse as of ios13 - which was somehow meant to make text selection better, but for me made it so much less consistent. I really feel like this should be a solvable problem though. It can’t be that complicated to select text reliably.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  This has been such a pet hate for years on systems with a mouse as well as iPhone iOS, that I assume it is nigh impossible to select text reliably and conveniently, for some unexplored reason or other. It's always the case that I can get a selection backwards up to the first letter but missing it, or including the first letter and some extra junk from the lines before, but not simply up to and including the first letter. Right now replying to your comment on Windows, FireFox, with a mouse, I have just discovered a new text selection mode I've never noticed before[1] - double-click-and-drag selects whole words. Consistently up to the new word boundary on the right. That means it's possible to select an entire sentence up to (but without) the period. Or including the period and a trailing space. But not the obvious one to want - a sentence including the period and no trailing space. [1] I know double-click commonly selects words, and triple-click selects sentences, but didn't know of double-click-drag.
  - johnwalkr 7y ago
    Just checked and it works on MacOS too. Thank you, what a game-changer!
- gmac 7y ago
  Agreed — moving the cursor and selecting text has become almost unusable for me on iOS 13 [1]. It's a shame, because I always used to be impressed at how easy and natural it felt. I really hope they figure this out and reinstate the old approach. [1] As I was saying only the other day: https://twitter.com/jawj/status/1221038674193932288 https://twitter.com/jawj/status/1221038674193932288
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ekianjo 7y ago
Not Just broken on ipads, pretty much every touch based system out there has horrible UI to select text...
e_proxus 7y ago
My favorite pet peeve is trying to edit URLs in the address bar in Safari. Just trying to get the cursor to the end of the address field a an error prone chore. Often the text is select and there’s no way to unselect it. Then of course it doesn’t help when you want to remove some components of the URL that Safari helpfully autocompletes back to the URL you jus visited.
- TrickyRick 7y ago
  Force touching on the keyboard gives your finger control over the cursor more like a touch pad on a computer. It works really well on the iPhone, not sure if it's available on iPad. But yet again, one of those feature you just have to know about to use.
  - johnwalkr 7y ago
    It was never available on iPad, and is no longer on newer iPhones. It's replaced by a long touch, but this cursor control function has disappeared.
    - monocularvision 7y ago
      Long touch the space bar in the keyboard to get the trackpad-like functionality back.
      - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
        Thank you. I had trouble activating this feature. On iOS it seems to work anywhere on the keyboard, not limited to a particular key.
        egypturnash 7y ago
        Two-finger touch anywhere on the keyboard also turns it on, though I usually find that pretty awkward.
      - 7y ago
irrational 7y ago
It is fantastic for creating artwork, if you are artistic.

by cm2187 7y ago

hinkley 7y ago

I just learned the spacebar trick a few months ago. I still get “5e” instead of “the” about twice a month. And once in a while I will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I still have no idea how I’m doing that. A whole new text entry system wouldn’t go amiss for me, either.

cm2187 7y ago
But try selecting text from a web page...
Decade 7y ago
For me, a chunk of text would go missing because it interprets fast typing as double, triple, quadruple tapping. Which means the text is selected and then promptly overwritten. The solution is to be deliberate about typing slowly on the screen keyboard. https://www.howtogeek.com/441872/how-to-use-text-editing-gestures-on-your-iphone-and-ipad/ https://www.howtogeek.com/441872/how-to-use-text-editing-ges...
silveroriole 7y ago
It would be nice if they fixed the autocorrect learning insane things like correcting “male” to “Male” and “doesn’t” to “DOESNT”, so I wouldn’t have to do so much text selection to fix it. My iPhone which is really behind on iOS versions doesn’t do this but my iPad is awful for it.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Autocorrect on the iOS from four years ago was nothing short of magic. It would understand the most confused babble and rarely needed any guidance. It even seemed to get used to my style of typing after a while. Today, it is a constant battle. It keeps trying to rope in my address book, different languages I’m not typing in, and arcane words. I correct it every four sentences at least. I thought I wanted these features; boy was I wrong.
asplake 7y ago
> And once in a while I will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I still have no idea how I’m doing that I don't edit text on the iPad for exactly that reason. As soon as I start typing fast using the screen keyboard, I keep losing stuff

jonplackett 7y ago

This is so much worse as of ios13 - which was somehow meant to make text selection better, but for me made it so much less consistent. I really feel like this should be a solvable problem though. It can’t be that complicated to select text reliably.

jodrellblank 7y ago
This has been such a pet hate for years on systems with a mouse as well as iPhone iOS, that I assume it is nigh impossible to select text reliably and conveniently, for some unexplored reason or other. It's always the case that I can get a selection backwards up to the first letter but missing it, or including the first letter and some extra junk from the lines before, but not simply up to and including the first letter. Right now replying to your comment on Windows, FireFox, with a mouse, I have just discovered a new text selection mode I've never noticed before[1] - double-click-and-drag selects whole words. Consistently up to the new word boundary on the right. That means it's possible to select an entire sentence up to (but without) the period. Or including the period and a trailing space. But not the obvious one to want - a sentence including the period and no trailing space. [1] I know double-click commonly selects words, and triple-click selects sentences, but didn't know of double-click-drag.
- johnwalkr 7y ago
  Just checked and it works on MacOS too. Thank you, what a game-changer!
gmac 7y ago
Agreed — moving the cursor and selecting text has become almost unusable for me on iOS 13 [1]. It's a shame, because I always used to be impressed at how easy and natural it felt. I really hope they figure this out and reinstate the old approach. [1] As I was saying only the other day: https://twitter.com/jawj/status/1221038674193932288 https://twitter.com/jawj/status/1221038674193932288
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

ekianjo 7y ago

Not Just broken on ipads, pretty much every touch based system out there has horrible UI to select text...

e_proxus 7y ago

My favorite pet peeve is trying to edit URLs in the address bar in Safari. Just trying to get the cursor to the end of the address field a an error prone chore. Often the text is select and there’s no way to unselect it. Then of course it doesn’t help when you want to remove some components of the URL that Safari helpfully autocompletes back to the URL you jus visited.

TrickyRick 7y ago
Force touching on the keyboard gives your finger control over the cursor more like a touch pad on a computer. It works really well on the iPhone, not sure if it's available on iPad. But yet again, one of those feature you just have to know about to use.
- johnwalkr 7y ago
  It was never available on iPad, and is no longer on newer iPhones. It's replaced by a long touch, but this cursor control function has disappeared.
  - monocularvision 7y ago
    Long touch the space bar in the keyboard to get the trackpad-like functionality back.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      Thank you. I had trouble activating this feature. On iOS it seems to work anywhere on the keyboard, not limited to a particular key.
      - egypturnash 7y ago
        Two-finger touch anywhere on the keyboard also turns it on, though I usually find that pretty awkward.
    - 7y ago

irrational 7y ago

It is fantastic for creating artwork, if you are artistic.