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I was playing around with an old BlackBerry Bold the other day. Things I miss, compared to the iPhone: - Long-press a key to capitalize a letter. - Text auto

I was playing around with an old BlackBerry Bold the other day. Things I miss, compared to the iPhone: - Long-press a key to capitalize a letter. - Text auto-correction that's customizable, predicable, deterministic, and easily undoable/re-doable. - A dedicated widget for moving the cursor around and selecting text, without having to resort to complicated and unreliable gestures. - Forward delete. - The many keyboard commands/shortcuts for power users.

loa_in_ 7y ago
I always imagined that iPhone users can install keyboards from the app store like Android users can. Is this type of app forbidden in the store?
- opless 7y ago
  There are a few replacement keyboards you can use on iOS, yes
- nomel 7y ago
  When entering passwords, the keyboard will always switch back to the Apple keyboard.
purephase 7y ago
God, the cursor usage in iOS is horrible. I hate using it.
- Macha 7y ago
  As someone who uses a personal android device and work iOS device on a daily basis, this is one of my two biggest pain points with iOS.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Just in case you haven't found it yet - long-press/firm press the spacebar and the whole keyboard fades away and becomes a trackpad allowing precise placement of the cursor.
  - purephase 7y ago
    This just blew my mind.
  - andrewzah 7y ago
    Classic apple- hiding useful features behind very unintuitive gestures / controls. I never would've discovered this on my own.
  - jazzyjackson 7y ago
    Is this even documented in a user manual somewhere or is it just supposed to be spread by word of mouth? My iphone has so many features that I didn't know existed until someone showed me how to swipe (last one I learned, 3 finger swipe for 'undo', useful when I accidentally delete some text)
    - qilo 7y ago
      Yes, it's documented. But I'm not defending Apple on this, found the link on Apple forums when googled for solution to why it's nearly impossible to edit URLs in Safari. Btw, very similar trick works on Android's Gboard keyboard too, though on Android you touch the space bar and need to move the finger immediately, as opposed to IOS where you touch, hold for a second and only then move the finger. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-and-edit-text-iph3c50f96e/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-and-edit-text-ip...
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      If you text “halp” to “stevej” (no quotes) in Messages app you will be subscribed to iOS tips.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- deergomoo 7y ago
  I miss 3D Touch on the iPhone every day because of how good it was for manipulating the cursor. Without it you can hold on the space bar to enter a trackpad-type mode, but this is a poor substitute. With 3D Touch, you could press a little harder than normal anywhere on the keyboard to enter the trackpad mode, but then you could press hard again to switch to word selection mode, which functioned much like a click-and-drag on a trackpad. Very difficult to describe and admittedly very unintuitive, but once you got the muscle memory down it was so efficient. I loathe the fact that everything that 3D Touch used to do has been replaced by a long press. Everything feels so sluggish now.
  - nihilist_t21 7y ago
    While I knew both the space bar and 3D Touch anywhere tricks, I had no idea about the word selection mode! Makes me glad my XS Max still has 3D Touch.
starik36 7y ago
In case you haven't found the trick... To type the letter in upper case, hold down the Shift key and move your finger over to the letter. Same thing with numbers and punctuation but hold down the Numbers key.
- dillondoyle 7y ago
  another trick I learned about from another HN thread: if you hold the space key you can then move it like a cursor to navigate. though recent ios update seems to have made it auto-highlight a word after moving. so for instance if i move the cursor up to start of sentence it will highlight the first word which is hard to deselect.
brnt 7y ago
Q5/10 were the easiest to use and fastest to input phones I ever had. They were build to get stuff done, not to play around on.
- Lorin 7y ago
  BB10's gestures to switch between apps was fantastic. Not surprised Apple and co. borrowed it later on. If someone produced a Q10 with fresher hardware and Android compatibility I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

loa_in_ 7y ago

I always imagined that iPhone users can install keyboards from the app store like Android users can. Is this type of app forbidden in the store?

opless 7y ago
There are a few replacement keyboards you can use on iOS, yes
nomel 7y ago
When entering passwords, the keyboard will always switch back to the Apple keyboard.

purephase 7y ago

God, the cursor usage in iOS is horrible. I hate using it.

Macha 7y ago
As someone who uses a personal android device and work iOS device on a daily basis, this is one of my two biggest pain points with iOS.
Angostura 7y ago
Just in case you haven't found it yet - long-press/firm press the spacebar and the whole keyboard fades away and becomes a trackpad allowing precise placement of the cursor.
- purephase 7y ago
  This just blew my mind.
- andrewzah 7y ago
  Classic apple- hiding useful features behind very unintuitive gestures / controls. I never would've discovered this on my own.
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  Is this even documented in a user manual somewhere or is it just supposed to be spread by word of mouth? My iphone has so many features that I didn't know existed until someone showed me how to swipe (last one I learned, 3 finger swipe for 'undo', useful when I accidentally delete some text)
  - qilo 7y ago
    Yes, it's documented. But I'm not defending Apple on this, found the link on Apple forums when googled for solution to why it's nearly impossible to edit URLs in Safari. Btw, very similar trick works on Android's Gboard keyboard too, though on Android you touch the space bar and need to move the finger immediately, as opposed to IOS where you touch, hold for a second and only then move the finger. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-and-edit-text-iph3c50f96e/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-and-edit-text-ip...
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    If you text “halp” to “stevej” (no quotes) in Messages app you will be subscribed to iOS tips.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deergomoo 7y ago
I miss 3D Touch on the iPhone every day because of how good it was for manipulating the cursor. Without it you can hold on the space bar to enter a trackpad-type mode, but this is a poor substitute. With 3D Touch, you could press a little harder than normal anywhere on the keyboard to enter the trackpad mode, but then you could press hard again to switch to word selection mode, which functioned much like a click-and-drag on a trackpad. Very difficult to describe and admittedly very unintuitive, but once you got the muscle memory down it was so efficient. I loathe the fact that everything that 3D Touch used to do has been replaced by a long press. Everything feels so sluggish now.
- nihilist_t21 7y ago
  While I knew both the space bar and 3D Touch anywhere tricks, I had no idea about the word selection mode! Makes me glad my XS Max still has 3D Touch.

starik36 7y ago

In case you haven't found the trick... To type the letter in upper case, hold down the Shift key and move your finger over to the letter. Same thing with numbers and punctuation but hold down the Numbers key.

dillondoyle 7y ago
another trick I learned about from another HN thread: if you hold the space key you can then move it like a cursor to navigate. though recent ios update seems to have made it auto-highlight a word after moving. so for instance if i move the cursor up to start of sentence it will highlight the first word which is hard to deselect.

brnt 7y ago

Q5/10 were the easiest to use and fastest to input phones I ever had. They were build to get stuff done, not to play around on.

Lorin 7y ago
BB10's gestures to switch between apps was fantastic. Not surprised Apple and co. borrowed it later on. If someone produced a Q10 with fresher hardware and Android compatibility I'd buy it in a heartbeat.