3 ms·

I think some features just weren't meant to be discoverable. It's not like a feature this niche deserves a dedicated icon on the homescreen.

abhaynayar 3y ago
Yeah I totally understand that we don't need to clutter the interface with features. But for example, when you want to go to certain position in a text paragraph, it is super intuitive in Android to click on the text wherever you want the cursor to be. If you try that in iOS, it does that, but the precision is really really bad, like unusable. To precisely place a cursor in iOS you need to hold the spacebar. I know that, but I doubt the average user does, how would they? Even after knowing that, the Android way is much less of a headache. I prefer Android in many such things.
- dt2m 3y ago
  It used to work this way on iOS until they absolutely butchered the text cursor functionality with IIRC iOS 15.
- filoleg 3y ago
  > in Android to click on the text wherever you want the cursor to be. If you try that in iOS, it does that, but the precision is really really bad, like unusable. Try holding and moving that text pointer instead of clicking, that makes it super precise. Clicking is for rough, holding and moving is for very precise. I agree that discovering the spacebar gesture on your own is fairly difficult, but the holding and moving feels easily naturally discoverable. You are literally picking up the pointer and moving it to where you want it, with continuous visual feedback throughout the process, instead of clicking and hoping it will land at the correct location.
  - sholladay 3y ago
    That’s all well and good. Dragging the cursor works. But the question remains, when you click in the text area, why doesn’t the cursor go where you clicked? I end up dragging it a lot more than should be necessary. Maybe they figured people make typos at the end of a word more often.
    - hn92726819 3y ago
      I can't imagine it's changed since I used it a few years ago. But it used to be that single tap only took you to a word boundary on iOS. So for example if you were to tap in between 3 and 4 in the text "1234567890", the nearest word boundary would be between " and 1. So you couldn't tap within a word but if you wanted to ditch a word it'd be easy to tap the right side of it to get to its right boundary.
      - filoleg 3y ago
        That's exactly how it currently works as well.

abhaynayar 3y ago

Yeah I totally understand that we don't need to clutter the interface with features. But for example, when you want to go to certain position in a text paragraph, it is super intuitive in Android to click on the text wherever you want the cursor to be. If you try that in iOS, it does that, but the precision is really really bad, like unusable. To precisely place a cursor in iOS you need to hold the spacebar. I know that, but I doubt the average user does, how would they? Even after knowing that, the Android way is much less of a headache. I prefer Android in many such things.

dt2m 3y ago
It used to work this way on iOS until they absolutely butchered the text cursor functionality with IIRC iOS 15.
filoleg 3y ago
> in Android to click on the text wherever you want the cursor to be. If you try that in iOS, it does that, but the precision is really really bad, like unusable. Try holding and moving that text pointer instead of clicking, that makes it super precise. Clicking is for rough, holding and moving is for very precise. I agree that discovering the spacebar gesture on your own is fairly difficult, but the holding and moving feels easily naturally discoverable. You are literally picking up the pointer and moving it to where you want it, with continuous visual feedback throughout the process, instead of clicking and hoping it will land at the correct location.
- sholladay 3y ago
  That’s all well and good. Dragging the cursor works. But the question remains, when you click in the text area, why doesn’t the cursor go where you clicked? I end up dragging it a lot more than should be necessary. Maybe they figured people make typos at the end of a word more often.
  - hn92726819 3y ago
    I can't imagine it's changed since I used it a few years ago. But it used to be that single tap only took you to a word boundary on iOS. So for example if you were to tap in between 3 and 4 in the text "1234567890", the nearest word boundary would be between " and 1. So you couldn't tap within a word but if you wanted to ditch a word it'd be easy to tap the right side of it to get to its right boundary.
    - filoleg 3y ago
      That's exactly how it currently works as well.