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The iPad’s software keyboard is still buggy as hell. The software keyboard, the part of the OS that the user will interact with the most, and the part of the OS

The iPad’s software keyboard is still buggy as hell. The software keyboard, the part of the OS that the user will interact with the most, and the part of the OS that is required to be the most stable, frequently just completely breaks and requires a full device reboot to fix. That, to me, is insane. It shows how shit the project management must be if they cannot even prioritize fixing critical bugs in the most important parts of the OS over releasing some useless feature that most users will never touch.

Razengan 7y ago
What bugs do you see in the iPad software keyboard? iOS keyboard input and text selection has been wonky for quite a while, and from what I've tried of Android, it doesn't feel much better on the other side of the fence either. Why can't Apple -or- Google get such basic interactivity right?
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  For me the keyboard will sometimes not load properly. The keyboard just shows up as an empty pane. And that's a sign that my iPad is going to be all grindy and slow until I reboot it.
  - oefrha 7y ago
    I had that problem during 13 beta, 13.0 and maybe 13.1 and 13.2 (the rapid fire updates immediately after 13.0), but never since.
  - chiefsucker 7y ago
    I also have this bug, and a couple more. When you use the smaller floating keyboard at some point the keyboard starts to jump to the lower left corner. Swipe to type doesn’t work anymore. I also have a bug with their hardware keyboard. After a couple days of usage the keyboard can get unresponsive and the § key starts to magically appear in the next text field that gets focus, at least 10–20 times, as it would be stuck. Reconnecting the hardware keyboard usually fixes this issue, but it’s still annoying. The restarts that are required for software keyboard bugs are worse, though.
- sethammons 7y ago
  Recently moved from android to an iPhone. The one that gets me while typing: I can’t tap and place the cursor in the middle of a word! Say you mistype a word, you cannot edit that word. You have to delete the entire word or tap and hold to get highlighting and then drag the highlight together to cover one letter on the word and then you can delete and get your cursor in the middle of the word. Insane.
  - PragmaticPulp 7y ago
    Press and hold on the spacebar. Wait a second. Then you can move the cursor left/right from the spacebar. iOS is generally quite good at these things. Like any new platform, you can't expect it the UX to be identical to an old platform that you're more familiar with.
    - gbrown 7y ago
      But if the UX is objectively worse, requiring additional unnecessary steps, it’s super annoying.
      - unloco 7y ago
        that's subjective. It's not an additional step, it's a different way of doing it. I personally feel like it's better. I dont have to worry about not placing the cursor at the right place. I just click it and move the cursor around where I want.
    - sethammons 7y ago
      I think my gripes so far are around discoverability. How did you know to click and hold the space bar? Now that I know, I like it. Never would have know otherwise. Drag from the bottom left and up to dismiss an app, do the same but go sideways to get to history of apps, etc.
      - Razengan 7y ago
        They have most of this in onboarding tips as well as the Tips app.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
soylentcola 7y ago
I'll qualify this by saying I haven't owned an iPad since the 2nd gen, but how are the 3d party keyboards on iOS? Do they limit them like they do with non-Safari browsers? I remember one of the main reasons I "jailbroke" my iPad was so I could install an improved/alternate software keyboard, but I remember reading they added the option officially a while back. I'm curious: are they artificially limited or do they all just suck?

Razengan 7y ago

What bugs do you see in the iPad software keyboard? iOS keyboard input and text selection has been wonky for quite a while, and from what I've tried of Android, it doesn't feel much better on the other side of the fence either. Why can't Apple -or- Google get such basic interactivity right?

Waterluvian 7y ago
For me the keyboard will sometimes not load properly. The keyboard just shows up as an empty pane. And that's a sign that my iPad is going to be all grindy and slow until I reboot it.
- oefrha 7y ago
  I had that problem during 13 beta, 13.0 and maybe 13.1 and 13.2 (the rapid fire updates immediately after 13.0), but never since.
- chiefsucker 7y ago
  I also have this bug, and a couple more. When you use the smaller floating keyboard at some point the keyboard starts to jump to the lower left corner. Swipe to type doesn’t work anymore. I also have a bug with their hardware keyboard. After a couple days of usage the keyboard can get unresponsive and the § key starts to magically appear in the next text field that gets focus, at least 10–20 times, as it would be stuck. Reconnecting the hardware keyboard usually fixes this issue, but it’s still annoying. The restarts that are required for software keyboard bugs are worse, though.
sethammons 7y ago
Recently moved from android to an iPhone. The one that gets me while typing: I can’t tap and place the cursor in the middle of a word! Say you mistype a word, you cannot edit that word. You have to delete the entire word or tap and hold to get highlighting and then drag the highlight together to cover one letter on the word and then you can delete and get your cursor in the middle of the word. Insane.
- PragmaticPulp 7y ago
  Press and hold on the spacebar. Wait a second. Then you can move the cursor left/right from the spacebar. iOS is generally quite good at these things. Like any new platform, you can't expect it the UX to be identical to an old platform that you're more familiar with.
  - gbrown 7y ago
    But if the UX is objectively worse, requiring additional unnecessary steps, it’s super annoying.
    - unloco 7y ago
      that's subjective. It's not an additional step, it's a different way of doing it. I personally feel like it's better. I dont have to worry about not placing the cursor at the right place. I just click it and move the cursor around where I want.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    I think my gripes so far are around discoverability. How did you know to click and hold the space bar? Now that I know, I like it. Never would have know otherwise. Drag from the bottom left and up to dismiss an app, do the same but go sideways to get to history of apps, etc.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      They have most of this in onboarding tips as well as the Tips app.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

soylentcola 7y ago

I'll qualify this by saying I haven't owned an iPad since the 2nd gen, but how are the 3d party keyboards on iOS? Do they limit them like they do with non-Safari browsers? I remember one of the main reasons I "jailbroke" my iPad was so I could install an improved/alternate software keyboard, but I remember reading they added the option officially a while back. I'm curious: are they artificially limited or do they all just suck?