27 ms·

How text editing on the iPad should be

436 points by superchink 14y ago

TwoBit 14y ago
Editing text on my Android is much easier than on my iPad. I don't know why Apple goes out of its way to make it so hard. And the Apple on-screen keyboard with its CAPITALS-ONLY display is inferior to others as well.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Capitals only? You mean like almost all physical keyboards ever made?
  - ehamberg 14y ago
    By your reasoning, virtual keyboards should only have one keyboard layout as well. Why should virtual keyboards be limited by what's obviously a manufacturing constraint?
    - sambe 14y ago
      The point is to attack the straw man of the oft-repeated "failing" of an all-caps virtual keyboard. You often see the claim that this is some obvious, horrible design flaw or even - bizarrely - confusing. I hate to say it, but usually you hear this from anti-Apple types. It clearly is not confusing, as it is the same as every physical keyboard, and that is the point made in the parent. The claim is not "virtual keyboards should be identical to physical keyboards" any more than others are claiming "virtual keyboards should have nothing in common with physical keyboards". Possibly shifting the case would be better, possibly not (is having the text jumping around helpful? Isn't the keyboard doing the minimal number of UI changes required to indicate what will happen? Does the international keyboard key literally print a globe?)
      - youngtaff 14y ago
        Using both an Android device and an iPad daily... the all caps keyboard is a failing... Having a keyboard that represents what your about to type is much friendlier - you can also see what character you get if you hold the key down with many Android keyboards. Then we have the clusterfuck of the ,. keys, which show !? on them but if you hold them down you get '" The iPad keyboard is far from perfect...
        e_proxus 14y ago
        Completely agree. The only indication of Shift being pressed is the blue glow on the button itself, which is usually covered by your hand while typing. I often have to remove my hands again to see if I pressed Shift or missed it.
        Karunamon 14y ago
        > Using both an Android device and an iPad daily... the all caps keyboard is a failing... Using both an iPhone and a rooted Kindle, and being a computer user for approx. 18 years, I've got enough experience on the keyboard to know that a given key will always produce a lower case character unless caps is on or shift is pressed. This is not a difficult concept, anyone with any kind of computer use in their background knows this intuitively. The only difficulty comes in with telling if shift is engaged or not, due to the complete lack of tactile feedback. But this is more damning of all touchscreen devices, rather than just a certain fruit company.
        youngtaff 14y ago
        But using a touchscreen keyboard and a physical keyboard is subtlely different... On a physical keyboard I hardly ever look at the keys as I type, when I want an uppercase character I'm generally performing two simultaneous actions - holding down shit and pressing the other key. A touchscreen keyboard is much more of a visual experience, I tend to look at the keys I'm about to type rather than doing it by feel / knowing position. The Android keyboard (on my phone) shows me what character I get if I hold down the key whereas with the iOS on I have to learn them. I've been using QWERTY keyboard since Commodore Pets in school and ZX81 at home so it's not like I'm note used to a real keyboard!
  - natrius 14y ago
    Appeal to tradition. Most physical keyboards don't have dynamic displays.
pazimzadeh 14y ago
This is great. Apple's Bug Reporter UI is not so great: http://f.cl.ly/items/2G0o0n391o1V3b003C1v/Screen%20Shot%202012-05-03%20at%207.00.30%20PM.png http://f.cl.ly/items/2G0o0n391o1V3b003C1v/Screen%20Shot%2020...
- stinky613 14y ago
  Holy crap! I can't believe how antiquated that page looks. If I photoshopped the "© 2012" to "© 2002" I think I could convince people that your link was the one that had the copyright year forged
sparknlaunch12 14y ago
Android and Apple text editing is painful. The dreaded auto complete does not help things. I don't think this feature is as good as it can be. It will be interesting to see how the bug reporter works in grabbing Apple's attention.
- Johngibb 14y ago
  I hear a lot of complaints about the autocomplete, but it definitely makes me way more productive. It correctly fixed 6 words so far in this comment even. And, it can be disabled. Why hate on it? (there were 3 more fixes :) )
  - lloeki 14y ago
    Indeed, and most of the time, it prefills the correct word for me so I just have to press space instead of five more characters. People seem to hold a grudge for autocorrect from the times of T9 prediction, because they keep typing in shortened text language and because they feel they lack control. This feeling is reinforced when you first use iOS as the autocorrect system comes with a generic pre-trained prediction database that might feel jarring at first, yet the system will learn progressively from you as you type, including virtual key sizes.
  - kalleboo 14y ago
    My problem with the autocomplete is it loves "fixing" words it doesn't know. I never had this problem with the autocorrect in SwiftKey on Android, which was always really good at know when it was wanted and when I was typing something else. The other thing I hate about autocorrect is how I have to move my finger to the other side of the screen to say "no I don't want to correct to that". Android keyboards put the correction suggestions right above the keyboard for quick access. I have toubles typing the tiny blue "x" on the iPhone, and half the time accept the incorrect correction by mistake. Taken together with the small screen, this making typing on an iPhone massively more frustrating than to the Android I switched from.
vilya 14y ago
This looks great! The lack of cursor movement keys is probably the biggest problem with text editing on the iPad. Textastic on the iPad also has a great idea: they've implemented (not sure how) an extended keyboard, with an extra row of 5-way keys. Tap them and they give you the character in the middle of the key, touch and swipe towards one of the four corners and you get the character on that corner instead. It's amazing how much quicker this makes editing. The one thing it's missing is cursor movement keys (they have Home and End, but nothing finer grained), so I'd love to see it combined with features like those in the video.
- tedmiston 14y ago
  From a development perspective, the keyboard is just another view. You can subclass it, or if that's been made unneccesarily difficult, you can just create your own custom keyboard view from scratch. Several apps in the App Store already take this approach.
- britta 14y ago
  If you have a jailbroken iPad, you can get a five-row keyboard in any app with "iKeyWi HD for iPad", and it includes cursor keys: http://www.ipadforums.net/jailbreak-applications-tweaks/69683-ikeywi-hd-ipad-new-5-row-keyboard-tweak.html http://www.ipadforums.net/jailbreak-applications-tweaks/6968... SwipeShiftCaret is also a nice little tweak for typing better on iOS - it lets you swipe on the screen (although not on the keyboard) to move the cursor one character at a time: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/10/swipeshiftcaret/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/10/swipeshiftcaret/
- FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
  I'm not sure if it was supported before iOS 5, but there is an API which you can use to add a subview above the keyboard view. It would be used for adding next/previous/done buttons to help navigate forms, for example. What Textastic does appears to be a more innovative or unique example.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
So presumably he's filed for a patent on this technique? (Yes I'm being serious) This is obviously a HUGE win. I agree that cursor motion really really sucks. And if there was an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?) then I'd certainly pay 0.99 for it. So that leaves me wondering about the whole viral bug report thing. If I was being cynical I'd suggest that a there is probably a pending patent on it, and as soon as it is implemented blam! out comes the troll looking for his payout. While this seems crass and cynical in the tech world in the world of scripts and movies it is apparently a known, and defended against, tactic. Production companies being explicit to never suggest any ideas because doing so with out them asking (and pre-establishing the rights ownership thing) might leave them open to a 'stolen idea' lawsuit).
- monochromatic 14y ago
  > an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?) This seems... not possible to do via an app.
  - MaxGabriel 14y ago
    Um, why not? Before copy/paste was introduced, text editing apps introduced features to provide that functionality. And the video shows it is clearly possible.
    - kayge 14y ago
      I may be mistaken, but I don't think it's possible for an iOS app's keyboard to become the "system" keyboard. In other words, you could make a text-editing app with a keyboard using this feature, but it would only be usable within that text-editing app.
      - spicyj 14y ago
        That's right.
      - pallinder 14y ago
fredley 14y ago
This is very interesting, and a really great concept, but I don't think a feature request 'bug report' is the best way to go about this, Apple are extremely unresponsive to feedback, even when you're reporting legitimate bugs. A better thing to do would be to go out, make it, and get it on as many Android and jailbroken Apple devices as possible. Make it a 'must have' jailbreak app. It worked for notifications. If it's something that makes Android tablets easier to type on than the iPad that'll get their attention too.
- tedmiston 14y ago
  Just because they don't publicly respond doesn't mean filing the bug report is a bad thing. Increasing the number of reports causes the problem to receive more focus (and visibility) internally. That said, I don't necessarily think that's the most appropriate way to promote this idea. I would like to try it myself on a device first. I hope the developer is willing to either: a.) open source his demo so other devs can try it b.) publish the demo in the App Store (or Cydia if Apple says no)
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  It doesn't even have to go that far - build an editor à la ia Writer [1] or, if willing to dive deeper, an email client. This gives you protection over the intellectual property and acquisition for technology or aqui-hire potential. [1] http://www.iawriter.com/ http://www.iawriter.com/
- Lockyy 14y ago
  Android is already much easier to select text with. The arrow under the text that you drag is just so much easier than the magnifying glass that is just cumbersome and awkward to use.
  - davidlumley 14y ago
    iOS allows you to select text using markers that are dragged as well:. The blue markers you see in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko can be dragged to change the selection area. The magnifying glass is used to set the exact cursor position, and can be invaluable when trying to position the cursor between similar looking letters on a mobile device.
parfe 14y ago
Talk about wrong tool for the job. I understand you spent a lot of money on the iPad. I don't understand the obsession with editing on it. If you need to edit text, then get a laptop. Text editing is a round peg people keep trying to jam into an ipad's rectangular hole. edit: I'm sorry you all spent so much money. You're still using the wrong tool.
- reason 14y ago
  How does that have anything to do with improving the iPad's existing type functionality? Plus, my mom (and I assume many, many others) has completely switched over to an iPad and manages all of her emails on it. I'm sure she'd appreciate better editing features. I myself use my iPad to do some light email managing when I'm out, and I too have issues with how tedious editing text is; so an improvement is more than welcomed.
- davidlumley 14y ago
  I write emails and messages using both my iPad and my iPhone and would argue that such activity (which includes editing text) is an intended use case. Anything that increases how easy it is to do this is a huge win for both the users and Apple.
- dbecker 14y ago
  Sure. The ipad may never be the right tool to write a novel or business report. That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve text editing so it's slightly less painful for email (and other applications that involve small amounts of text editing.)
- jsz0 14y ago
  Very often all I have is an iPhone and maybe an iPad. I don't do enough hardcore editing to justify carrying around a laptop anymore. So I would definitely welcome better text editing features on iOS even if it's not the best tool for the job. It's funny because I originally thought the text input via touch would be the biggest problem but I'm now crazy fast with it. It's the editing that really slows me down.
- pirateking 14y ago
erickhill 14y ago
This guy is really smart. Add to the fact that he's seems to be offering this purely in an altruistic (non-profit) way is beyond cool. Maybe with Apple's bags of cash they should simply "buy" his idea anyway. Imagine the number of people this could affect in a positive way. So simple.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
guelo 14y ago
Some corporation better not go out and patent this idea.
joedev 14y ago
Like it!
jacobolus 14y ago
One of those cases where relative rather than absolute manipulation is a big advantage. I could see this being a nice feature on PCs as well (modifier key + mouse movement to change text cursor position, rather than precisely moving the mouse pointer and clicking where desired).
- lukifer 14y ago
  I've wanted this for ages, especially now that I do everything with a trackpad right below the keyboard. (I wish I was a better Cocoa dev.)
abalone 14y ago
I admire the effort but I don't think Apple will (or should) go for it. iOS is a direct manipulation interface. Swiping over the keyboard to move the cursor around another part of the screen is really counter to that. What would make more sense is to add faster direct manipulation gestures. There's opportunity for that, without throwing out the whole paradigm. For example, today to select a range of text you: 1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass 2. Let go to bring up the context menu 3. Tap "select" from the menu 4. Drag one of the endpoints to one end of the selection 5. Adjust the other endpoint if necessary But why not this? 1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass 2. While holding, use a second finger to drag out the desired selection! Now that's something Apple might actually go for.
- sthlm 14y ago
  A 2-finger solution probably wouldn't work so well on the iPad, and especially not on the iPhone. Consistency across devices is a pattern that Apple clearly follows. I agree however that the method in the video is not so feasible either, for exactly your reasoning.
- hej 14y ago
  It’s blow your mind time. Ready? Double-tap any text you are editing in order to select a word. That also allows you to drag the endpoints. Tapping with two fingers selects the whole paragraph. In short: Tapping places the cursor (and brings up the keyboard if it isn’t already up), double-tapping selects a word, tapping with two fingers selects a paragraph. I couldn’t find any other gestures. If you you double-tap and hold, you can immediately change the selection, but you are anchored to the word you selected (i.e. you can add characters to the left or the right but not both). Tapping and holding with two fingers allows you to change both endpoints with your two fingers. Web views (and most other views of text you cannot edit) don’t work like that. In those, you tap and hold to select text. It’s a bit inconsistent, though: in iBooks (for example), tapping with two fingers will select whole paragraphs.
  - wiredfool 14y ago
    Is there a way to select a point within a word, such as just after the first character? If there is, if just not seeing it.
Unoeufisenough 14y ago
I also can recommend a MUCH better way to input text into your apple device that works today. It looks a lot more like this: http://www.apple.com/macbookair/ http://www.apple.com/macbookair/
- jasomill 14y ago
  Sucks for coding, though; not enough RAM or screen space. This http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-17inch.html http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-17inch.html is a much nicer option, especially with an SSD. As an enthusiastic owner of all three iPad models, I've found that "wanting a keyboard" is a very good sign that whatever you're doing isn't a good fit for the iPad. With that said, here's an iOS feature that'd be very easy to implement: application-level "passthrough" mode for physical keyboards. Not only would it allow for better "traditional" editors, the fact that iOS doesn't rely on the keyboard for OS-level navigation would make it a perfect vehicle for VNC and RDP clients with "transparent" keyboard support. I could understand Apple prohibiting the use of such an API for accelerators "merely" to discourage half-assed ports of traditional WIMP apps, but why not allow the use of a physical keyboard as an "IT controller" just as they permit external controllers for games? It's simply unreasonable to insist that developers build a more "touch-based" interface to fundamentally non-touch-based remote systems, and nearly as unreasonable to expect professional programmers to adapt to a "touch-based" UI paradigm for _editing text_. The fact that the Cocoa text edit controls play well with Emacs-style key bindings is, for me at least, a HUGE advantage of OS X, one that'd be very hard to usefully duplicate in Windows.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    What do you mean by "passthrough mode"? External keyboards (Bluetooth or USB) already work with any text field.
pixelcort 14y ago
Don't forget some international keyboards, such as the Japanese Kana one, rely on swipe gestures to input characters.
gfodor 14y ago
It's neat, but will never happen. The prototype misses the subtle intersection of all the constraints necessary for good design on the iPad. At a high level, here are a few that you want to optimize for: - Efficiency: how fast can the user perform the task at hand? - Intuitivity: how likely is it the user will understand how to use it without direct instruction? (based upon trial and error, previous experience, etc.) - Consistency: how much is it like other patterns in the same UI/environment? - Metaphor: how much does it 'feel' like other real-world objects and leverages how the user understands them already? These are of course a sample of high level overlapping themes. This particular prototype is obviously optimizing for efficiency. It does so very well, but at a very, very deep cost to the others. It is an undiscoverable interface. It utterly destroys the direct manipulation illusion of the iPad. It causes the virtual keys to no longer be metaphorical buttons since you can drag across them for an effect. It is inconsistent with other use of gestures, particularly since you are controlling a cursor remotely much like you would with a mouse (likely a fire-able proposition at Apple!) The thing that makes Apple's work so amazing is the balance they manage to strike between these things and so consistently get it right. For a power user, give me vim, Maya, Photoshop, and other tools that optimize for efficiency (much like this prototype does.) But when designing things that are meant to be universally available, a more subdued and balanced approach across these types of constraints is necessary.
- weaksauce 14y ago
  The holding the plus button in safari to reopen closed tabs was not intuitive at all and there was no subtle wiggle or other in iPad thing to show that it was even there. Why not have this be a setting that you can turn on? Or have the two ways to edit text on at the same time? There are two ways to input text right now with the voice recognition and the keyboard so why not two ways to select text?
  - wmeredith 14y ago
    This is just one example of a host of undiscoverable features lurking in many of Apple's touch interfaces. (Triple home button taps, anyone?) I could see them implementing this, and I hope they do.
uptown 14y ago
The worst part of editing text on iOS is getting the cursor somewhere in the middle of a string. It's just a nightmare to accomplish. Android's solution was to add arrow keys, but for some reason they felt out of place when typing to me. Love this concept. Hopefully it'll eventually make its way onto handsets.
booticon 14y ago
It looks like this person put a lot of thought into how text editing could be improved in iOS, and the video is well-made. However, a great feature of the iOS keyboard is that if you press the wrong key, if your finger is still on the key, you can drag it over to the key you intended to use. Has he taken this into account? It would be pretty frustrating if I made an almost-typo, and instead of inputting the intended character, my cursor moved around.
- stefanu 14y ago
  Also if you press and hold a key, list of accented/alternative characters is opened. Anyway, OP has lovely idea, just the first trigger has to be tuned a bit. Maybe holding and dragging the space key?
- peterkelly 14y ago
  The behaviour you described is specific to the iPhone. On the iPad, if you press on one key and move to another, it releases the original key and ignores the key press.
  - booticon 14y ago
    Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected!
Kilimanjaro 14y ago
Some people complain about swiping over the keys? Then add a scrollpad at the bottom of the keyboard where you can perform the same swipe to place the cursor. And use the shift key to select, same as the video. I like that idea a lot.
codysoyland 14y ago
I'm surprised nobody seems to be addressing how easy it would be to accidentally move the cursor while using the keyboard. Neat idea, but I don't see it happening.
- peterkelly 14y ago
  In my own implementation I've added a movement threshold, so it only starts moving the cursor after you've moved your finger a certain number of pixels (currently 44) from the point at which you originally put it down. I've found this avoids problems of accidental cursor movement.
  - ptaoussanis 14y ago
    Great idea!
greggman 14y ago
This seems U.S. centric. Isn't drag on keys used to select accents? Maybe some subtle timing thing make decide did you want the accent menu or did you want to move the cursor. Dragging is also currently a correction thing. You can press 'E' then drag to 'T' if you that's what you meant. I don't know how many people use that feature though.
- wiredfool 14y ago
  Dragging up on the comma and the period give you ' and " respectively. I'm not seeing what you're saying on clicking E and dragging to T. Doesn't seem to do anything here. I find the iPad's text editing to be one of the biggest flaws of the device. Even on short things, like this comment, there's invariably some point where I've mistyped something by putting a space in one character early, and the only reasonable way I've found to correct it is to retype both words.
  - greggman 14y ago
    My bad, dragging E to T is an iPhone thing. It doesn't do it on iPad. I had assumed they were the same. They're not.
firefoxman1 14y ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how this feature was implemented in the Palm Pre/Pixi a few years ago. That was one of my favorite little things about WebOS. When editing text, you held down the Orange key and then drag your finger anywhere on the screen and the cursor followed. And to select text, you did the same thing with the Shift key instead.
- dvdhsu 14y ago
  The problem, though, is that I still had to take my hands off the keyboard. This doesn't require me to.
  - joeblossom 14y ago
    That's only because those devices didn't have an onscreen keyboard...
antidoh 14y ago
I don't have and have never used an iPad. When I watched this video I was thinking "You mean this isn't how iPad typing works already?" If I had an iPad, and typing worked this way, I wouldn't even notice it as a thing. Of course it would do this.
mekazu 14y ago
The qwerty keyboard was designed to prevent the jamming of metallic parts of a typewriter. Surely it's time to put this metaphor behind us? People have migrated easily from typewriters to computer keyboards, and from pianos to synthesizers (depending on the synthesizer) but neither metaphor works effectively for a touch screen. A touch screen is unable to provide the necessary physical feedback to let the instrument 'flow'. Even using the finger as a cursor doesn't work anywhere near as well as a mouse or a stylus when editing text. Touch devices require a breakthrough in text input if they are ever to become useful for creative output of large chunks of text. We all learned to SMS using a 12 button mobile phone pad in the '90s, people have spent months and years learning vim and emacs (despite their lack of intuitivity, consistency and metaphor), why can't we get away from qwerty keyboards today? I don't have any suggestions, but people must be coming up with better non-qwerty ideas all the time. Where are they?
- chronomex 14y ago
  I'm rather fond of the MessagEase keyboard on Android: http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php
egypturnash 14y ago
Oh god I want this, or something similar to it. Because that little lens that pops up is a TOTAL PAIN IN THE BUTT when you keep your fingernails long; the close-up on the cursor is usually hidden by my fingernail. Every time I use my Nexus One to edit text, and move the cursor around with the trackball, it's like heaven compared to my iPad. (IMHO the stock Android autocorrect is also a ton better than IOS - I really hate that tiny little blue text that pops up beneath a word, and I hate iOS's refusal to let you go back and edit out its miscorrections even more.) I've only had something like this happen once before, when I tried using some third-party controller hanging around a friend's office to try the game he was working on, and physically could not press the buttons because of a little ridge just above them, positioned perfectly to catch my thumbnail when I brought my thumb down. tl,dr: if your product involves people poking at it, find a person with long fingernails and see if she can use it.
stephengillie 14y ago
The solution is simple: an optical trackball. The HTC Incredible has one. So do Blackberrys. It does exactly what the OP is asking for.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
czzarr 14y ago
i wish there was vi mode for iOS. seriously it would work great
rythie 14y ago
It's nice, but some arrow keys would be easier to understand for most people.
rplnt 14y ago
Can't you just make it as an app? Why would it have to be there by default?
lucian1900 14y ago
I think it's sad people let Apple be their paranoid abusive parent. This developer can't even make his own keyboard app. Look at Swype on Android, it's both excellent and usable on any phone. There are tons of other alternative text input apps to choose from, too.
micheljansen 14y ago
I like it, but it's not perfect. First of all, I don’t think dragging one finger on the keyboard should have any effect. The iPad’s current keyboard is very forgiving when I mis-press a key initially and move my finger to the right key. This should not cause the cursor to move. An easy adaptation of this solution would be to just use the two finger gesture for moving the text (if you want to move it faster, just use the “tap and refine” strategy I mentioned earlier). Additionally, I wonder how text selection would work when typing with one hand. I rarely use an iPad the way it is shown here, laying on a table in landscape mode. Perhaps in addition to using shift, holding the two finger gesture could also initiate “select mode”. That way, selection can more easily be done using one hand.
lamby 14y ago
> Set the title to “Editing Text on iPad (duplicate of rdar://11365152)” twitch
peterkelly 14y ago
This looks awesome; I'm just in the process of adding this to my own writing app right now. I have cursor movement working and am just getting onto the selection mechanism. Should be finished in couple more hours. Anyone want to test it out and give me some feedback once I'm done?
- ptaoussanis 14y ago
  Well that was quick ;) In principle really like the idea of something like this- especially in the context of an app like yours where you're targeting long-document writers. How's it feel to use in practice? I kind of liked the suggestion elsewhere here about needing 2 fingers to do the scrolling to prevent the cursor from accidentally running away.
  - peterkelly 14y ago
    I haven't had a chance to use it much but I definitely think it's an improvement over the existing mechanism. I already had some extra keys for cursor movement similar to those of IA Writer but this is better for moving across multiple characters. I ran into a problem with the two-finger gesture, which is that Apple already use this for putting the keyboard into a split mode (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQTkZjvSok http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQTkZjvSok). So I'm currently figuring out how do deal with that without preventing people from using the split keyboard. I've emailed the guy who did the video about how he did his implementation but haven't heard back yet.
    - ptaoussanis 14y ago
      Hmm, interesting- didn't know about the split-keyboard thing (I'm only on iPhone). I've been thinking about what else might be an alternative but am coming up short. More than 2 fingers would be impractical on an iPhone. Question: In the video you linked to, the split-keyboard gesture looks quite specific... 2 separate fingers dragging away from or toward one another. I guess it's asking too much to hope that the device could distinguish between this kind of dragging and scroll-style dragging (2 fingers together, same direction)? BTW I'm assuming this'll be up in the next beta sometime? Would love to play with it.
antirez 14y ago
I bet there are a great deal of people like me that don't use / purchase tables because of the poor keyboard experience. With a real keyboard I can type fast, faster than I can speak, faster than I can write using a pen. My interaction with a computer always was this way: my ideas can flow fast to the form of text, code, emails, and so forth. With the iPad I feel dumb, because I'm no longer fast enough, and I refuse this kind of interaction. However the new text editing proposed on this story fixes part of the problem, but not all unfortunately, still it's a great step forward.
- sparknlaunch12 14y ago
  A stylus type pen device would be the best alternative to touch typing on a touch screen. This is currently available for touch devices but not that frequently used. I am not sure why?
  - zevyoura 14y ago
    Because stylus' are another thing to keep track of, easy to lose, and it's not seamless to switch between touch input and stylus. And people don't handwrite all that much faster than they can type on a virtual keyboard.
    - sparknlaunch12 14y ago
      The new Samsung Note comes with a S-Pen that I believe retracts into the device. The Samsung Galaxy SII works with a stylus. Early tablets (from the 90s) came with similar pointing/writing devices. Do people type faster because of predictive text?
prawn 14y ago
How would you maintain consistency when it came to selecting text when the keyboard wasn't present? I like it otherwise. As everyone knows, selecting/etc text on iPad is a pain.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Why would you waste effort implementing this on an iPad? The developer must know that it's not possible to distribute and that it's extraordinarily unlikely that Apple would make an exeception or utilize it themselves. Meanwhile, it probably would have sold tens of thousands of copies in the Android Market already. edit: Wow, the article even includes futile instructions to spam Apple's feature tracker. I'm sure they appreciate that move.
tree_of_item 14y ago
I don't understand why this person thinks spamming Apple's bug tracker will increase the chances of it being implemented. It's not a bug. I don't understand why this person cares whether or not Apple agrees with them. The whole point of having a device capable of universal computation is to be able to make it do what you want without other people's permission. A better use of time would be to implement this functionality for a computer that wasn't actively hostile to end-user extension. Android software keyboards sell quite a bit I believe.
zomgbbq 14y ago
I could implement this pretty easily in an app or as a library that people use as a replacement for the existing keyboard. So while I could not fix built-in apps, it could be a nice fix for downloadable apps. The only question is if I build it, would people come?
Too 14y ago
Firefox on Windows already has this feature. (i don't think its a feature of windows because it doesn't work in other programs) Try scrolling sidways with your touchpad when you have focus on the url-bar... Hold control to scroll word by word.
a5x2h9k41l 14y ago
Can you attach a real USB keyboard to the iPad? (Note the project on Kickstarter that seeks to make and iPad look like a MacBook.) If you can't attach a keyboard, why did they do this? (The) iPad would make a good portable display. Of course, an iPad makes a good coffee table piece. Pick it up, touch the screen, gaze at it, put it down. Wow, amazing.
- biot 14y ago
  http://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+attach+keyboard http://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+attach+keyboard
  - a5x2h9k41l 14y ago
    First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not wired USB keyboards. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. I guess it's sort of like a self-service grocery checkout machine: just touch the big buttons. Could be useful to buy stuff online I guess. But hardly sounds like a real computer you can program.
  - a5x2h9k41l 14y ago
    First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not USB. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. Which is a very interesting design decision.
    - biot 14y ago
      Your third line starts with "If you can't attach a keyboard..." and the answer is that you can. For the purposes of typing I don't see why you'd care if it was USB or Bluetooth nor whether it's physically attached or wireless.
      - 14y ago

436 points by superchink 14y ago

Editing text on my Android is much easier than on my iPad. I don't know why Apple goes out of its way to make it so hard. And the Apple on-screen keyboard with its CAPITALS-ONLY display is inferior to others as well.

Karunamon 14y ago
Capitals only? You mean like almost all physical keyboards ever made?
- ehamberg 14y ago
  By your reasoning, virtual keyboards should only have one keyboard layout as well. Why should virtual keyboards be limited by what's obviously a manufacturing constraint?
  - sambe 14y ago
    The point is to attack the straw man of the oft-repeated "failing" of an all-caps virtual keyboard. You often see the claim that this is some obvious, horrible design flaw or even - bizarrely - confusing. I hate to say it, but usually you hear this from anti-Apple types. It clearly is not confusing, as it is the same as every physical keyboard, and that is the point made in the parent. The claim is not "virtual keyboards should be identical to physical keyboards" any more than others are claiming "virtual keyboards should have nothing in common with physical keyboards". Possibly shifting the case would be better, possibly not (is having the text jumping around helpful? Isn't the keyboard doing the minimal number of UI changes required to indicate what will happen? Does the international keyboard key literally print a globe?)
    - youngtaff 14y ago
      Using both an Android device and an iPad daily... the all caps keyboard is a failing... Having a keyboard that represents what your about to type is much friendlier - you can also see what character you get if you hold the key down with many Android keyboards. Then we have the clusterfuck of the ,. keys, which show !? on them but if you hold them down you get '" The iPad keyboard is far from perfect...
      - e_proxus 14y ago
        Completely agree. The only indication of Shift being pressed is the blue glow on the button itself, which is usually covered by your hand while typing. I often have to remove my hands again to see if I pressed Shift or missed it.
      - Karunamon 14y ago
        > Using both an Android device and an iPad daily... the all caps keyboard is a failing... Using both an iPhone and a rooted Kindle, and being a computer user for approx. 18 years, I've got enough experience on the keyboard to know that a given key will always produce a lower case character unless caps is on or shift is pressed. This is not a difficult concept, anyone with any kind of computer use in their background knows this intuitively. The only difficulty comes in with telling if shift is engaged or not, due to the complete lack of tactile feedback. But this is more damning of all touchscreen devices, rather than just a certain fruit company.
        youngtaff 14y ago
        But using a touchscreen keyboard and a physical keyboard is subtlely different... On a physical keyboard I hardly ever look at the keys as I type, when I want an uppercase character I'm generally performing two simultaneous actions - holding down shit and pressing the other key. A touchscreen keyboard is much more of a visual experience, I tend to look at the keys I'm about to type rather than doing it by feel / knowing position. The Android keyboard (on my phone) shows me what character I get if I hold down the key whereas with the iOS on I have to learn them. I've been using QWERTY keyboard since Commodore Pets in school and ZX81 at home so it's not like I'm note used to a real keyboard!
- natrius 14y ago
  Appeal to tradition. Most physical keyboards don't have dynamic displays.

pazimzadeh 14y ago

This is great. Apple's Bug Reporter UI is not so great: http://f.cl.ly/items/2G0o0n391o1V3b003C1v/Screen%20Shot%202012-05-03%20at%207.00.30%20PM.png http://f.cl.ly/items/2G0o0n391o1V3b003C1v/Screen%20Shot%2020...

stinky613 14y ago
Holy crap! I can't believe how antiquated that page looks. If I photoshopped the "© 2012" to "© 2002" I think I could convince people that your link was the one that had the copyright year forged

sparknlaunch12 14y ago

Android and Apple text editing is painful. The dreaded auto complete does not help things. I don't think this feature is as good as it can be. It will be interesting to see how the bug reporter works in grabbing Apple's attention.

Johngibb 14y ago
I hear a lot of complaints about the autocomplete, but it definitely makes me way more productive. It correctly fixed 6 words so far in this comment even. And, it can be disabled. Why hate on it? (there were 3 more fixes :) )
- lloeki 14y ago
  Indeed, and most of the time, it prefills the correct word for me so I just have to press space instead of five more characters. People seem to hold a grudge for autocorrect from the times of T9 prediction, because they keep typing in shortened text language and because they feel they lack control. This feeling is reinforced when you first use iOS as the autocorrect system comes with a generic pre-trained prediction database that might feel jarring at first, yet the system will learn progressively from you as you type, including virtual key sizes.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  My problem with the autocomplete is it loves "fixing" words it doesn't know. I never had this problem with the autocorrect in SwiftKey on Android, which was always really good at know when it was wanted and when I was typing something else. The other thing I hate about autocorrect is how I have to move my finger to the other side of the screen to say "no I don't want to correct to that". Android keyboards put the correction suggestions right above the keyboard for quick access. I have toubles typing the tiny blue "x" on the iPhone, and half the time accept the incorrect correction by mistake. Taken together with the small screen, this making typing on an iPhone massively more frustrating than to the Android I switched from.

vilya 14y ago

This looks great! The lack of cursor movement keys is probably the biggest problem with text editing on the iPad. Textastic on the iPad also has a great idea: they've implemented (not sure how) an extended keyboard, with an extra row of 5-way keys. Tap them and they give you the character in the middle of the key, touch and swipe towards one of the four corners and you get the character on that corner instead. It's amazing how much quicker this makes editing. The one thing it's missing is cursor movement keys (they have Home and End, but nothing finer grained), so I'd love to see it combined with features like those in the video.

tedmiston 14y ago
From a development perspective, the keyboard is just another view. You can subclass it, or if that's been made unneccesarily difficult, you can just create your own custom keyboard view from scratch. Several apps in the App Store already take this approach.
britta 14y ago
If you have a jailbroken iPad, you can get a five-row keyboard in any app with "iKeyWi HD for iPad", and it includes cursor keys: http://www.ipadforums.net/jailbreak-applications-tweaks/69683-ikeywi-hd-ipad-new-5-row-keyboard-tweak.html http://www.ipadforums.net/jailbreak-applications-tweaks/6968... SwipeShiftCaret is also a nice little tweak for typing better on iOS - it lets you swipe on the screen (although not on the keyboard) to move the cursor one character at a time: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/10/swipeshiftcaret/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/10/swipeshiftcaret/
FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
I'm not sure if it was supported before iOS 5, but there is an API which you can use to add a subview above the keyboard view. It would be used for adding next/previous/done buttons to help navigate forms, for example. What Textastic does appears to be a more innovative or unique example.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

So presumably he's filed for a patent on this technique? (Yes I'm being serious) This is obviously a HUGE win. I agree that cursor motion really really sucks. And if there was an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?) then I'd certainly pay 0.99 for it. So that leaves me wondering about the whole viral bug report thing. If I was being cynical I'd suggest that a there is probably a pending patent on it, and as soon as it is implemented blam! out comes the troll looking for his payout. While this seems crass and cynical in the tech world in the world of scripts and movies it is apparently a known, and defended against, tactic. Production companies being explicit to never suggest any ideas because doing so with out them asking (and pre-establishing the rights ownership thing) might leave them open to a 'stolen idea' lawsuit).

monochromatic 14y ago
> an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?) This seems... not possible to do via an app.
- MaxGabriel 14y ago
  Um, why not? Before copy/paste was introduced, text editing apps introduced features to provide that functionality. And the video shows it is clearly possible.
  - kayge 14y ago
    I may be mistaken, but I don't think it's possible for an iOS app's keyboard to become the "system" keyboard. In other words, you could make a text-editing app with a keyboard using this feature, but it would only be usable within that text-editing app.
    - spicyj 14y ago
      That's right.
    - pallinder 14y ago

fredley 14y ago

This is very interesting, and a really great concept, but I don't think a feature request 'bug report' is the best way to go about this, Apple are extremely unresponsive to feedback, even when you're reporting legitimate bugs. A better thing to do would be to go out, make it, and get it on as many Android and jailbroken Apple devices as possible. Make it a 'must have' jailbreak app. It worked for notifications. If it's something that makes Android tablets easier to type on than the iPad that'll get their attention too.

tedmiston 14y ago
Just because they don't publicly respond doesn't mean filing the bug report is a bad thing. Increasing the number of reports causes the problem to receive more focus (and visibility) internally. That said, I don't necessarily think that's the most appropriate way to promote this idea. I would like to try it myself on a device first. I hope the developer is willing to either: a.) open source his demo so other devs can try it b.) publish the demo in the App Store (or Cydia if Apple says no)
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
It doesn't even have to go that far - build an editor à la ia Writer [1] or, if willing to dive deeper, an email client. This gives you protection over the intellectual property and acquisition for technology or aqui-hire potential. [1] http://www.iawriter.com/ http://www.iawriter.com/
Lockyy 14y ago
Android is already much easier to select text with. The arrow under the text that you drag is just so much easier than the magnifying glass that is just cumbersome and awkward to use.
- davidlumley 14y ago
  iOS allows you to select text using markers that are dragged as well:. The blue markers you see in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko can be dragged to change the selection area. The magnifying glass is used to set the exact cursor position, and can be invaluable when trying to position the cursor between similar looking letters on a mobile device.

parfe 14y ago

Talk about wrong tool for the job. I understand you spent a lot of money on the iPad. I don't understand the obsession with editing on it. If you need to edit text, then get a laptop. Text editing is a round peg people keep trying to jam into an ipad's rectangular hole. edit: I'm sorry you all spent so much money. You're still using the wrong tool.

reason 14y ago
How does that have anything to do with improving the iPad's existing type functionality? Plus, my mom (and I assume many, many others) has completely switched over to an iPad and manages all of her emails on it. I'm sure she'd appreciate better editing features. I myself use my iPad to do some light email managing when I'm out, and I too have issues with how tedious editing text is; so an improvement is more than welcomed.
davidlumley 14y ago
I write emails and messages using both my iPad and my iPhone and would argue that such activity (which includes editing text) is an intended use case. Anything that increases how easy it is to do this is a huge win for both the users and Apple.
dbecker 14y ago
Sure. The ipad may never be the right tool to write a novel or business report. That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve text editing so it's slightly less painful for email (and other applications that involve small amounts of text editing.)
jsz0 14y ago
Very often all I have is an iPhone and maybe an iPad. I don't do enough hardcore editing to justify carrying around a laptop anymore. So I would definitely welcome better text editing features on iOS even if it's not the best tool for the job. It's funny because I originally thought the text input via touch would be the biggest problem but I'm now crazy fast with it. It's the editing that really slows me down.
pirateking 14y ago

erickhill 14y ago

This guy is really smart. Add to the fact that he's seems to be offering this purely in an altruistic (non-profit) way is beyond cool. Maybe with Apple's bags of cash they should simply "buy" his idea anyway. Imagine the number of people this could affect in a positive way. So simple.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

guelo 14y ago

Some corporation better not go out and patent this idea.

joedev 14y ago

Like it!

jacobolus 14y ago

One of those cases where relative rather than absolute manipulation is a big advantage. I could see this being a nice feature on PCs as well (modifier key + mouse movement to change text cursor position, rather than precisely moving the mouse pointer and clicking where desired).

lukifer 14y ago
I've wanted this for ages, especially now that I do everything with a trackpad right below the keyboard. (I wish I was a better Cocoa dev.)

abalone 14y ago

I admire the effort but I don't think Apple will (or should) go for it. iOS is a direct manipulation interface. Swiping over the keyboard to move the cursor around another part of the screen is really counter to that. What would make more sense is to add faster direct manipulation gestures. There's opportunity for that, without throwing out the whole paradigm. For example, today to select a range of text you: 1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass 2. Let go to bring up the context menu 3. Tap "select" from the menu 4. Drag one of the endpoints to one end of the selection 5. Adjust the other endpoint if necessary But why not this? 1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass 2. While holding, use a second finger to drag out the desired selection! Now that's something Apple might actually go for.

sthlm 14y ago
A 2-finger solution probably wouldn't work so well on the iPad, and especially not on the iPhone. Consistency across devices is a pattern that Apple clearly follows. I agree however that the method in the video is not so feasible either, for exactly your reasoning.
hej 14y ago
It’s blow your mind time. Ready? Double-tap any text you are editing in order to select a word. That also allows you to drag the endpoints. Tapping with two fingers selects the whole paragraph. In short: Tapping places the cursor (and brings up the keyboard if it isn’t already up), double-tapping selects a word, tapping with two fingers selects a paragraph. I couldn’t find any other gestures. If you you double-tap and hold, you can immediately change the selection, but you are anchored to the word you selected (i.e. you can add characters to the left or the right but not both). Tapping and holding with two fingers allows you to change both endpoints with your two fingers. Web views (and most other views of text you cannot edit) don’t work like that. In those, you tap and hold to select text. It’s a bit inconsistent, though: in iBooks (for example), tapping with two fingers will select whole paragraphs.
- wiredfool 14y ago
  Is there a way to select a point within a word, such as just after the first character? If there is, if just not seeing it.

Unoeufisenough 14y ago

I also can recommend a MUCH better way to input text into your apple device that works today. It looks a lot more like this: http://www.apple.com/macbookair/ http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

jasomill 14y ago
Sucks for coding, though; not enough RAM or screen space. This http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-17inch.html http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-17inch.html is a much nicer option, especially with an SSD. As an enthusiastic owner of all three iPad models, I've found that "wanting a keyboard" is a very good sign that whatever you're doing isn't a good fit for the iPad. With that said, here's an iOS feature that'd be very easy to implement: application-level "passthrough" mode for physical keyboards. Not only would it allow for better "traditional" editors, the fact that iOS doesn't rely on the keyboard for OS-level navigation would make it a perfect vehicle for VNC and RDP clients with "transparent" keyboard support. I could understand Apple prohibiting the use of such an API for accelerators "merely" to discourage half-assed ports of traditional WIMP apps, but why not allow the use of a physical keyboard as an "IT controller" just as they permit external controllers for games? It's simply unreasonable to insist that developers build a more "touch-based" interface to fundamentally non-touch-based remote systems, and nearly as unreasonable to expect professional programmers to adapt to a "touch-based" UI paradigm for _editing text_. The fact that the Cocoa text edit controls play well with Emacs-style key bindings is, for me at least, a HUGE advantage of OS X, one that'd be very hard to usefully duplicate in Windows.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  What do you mean by "passthrough mode"? External keyboards (Bluetooth or USB) already work with any text field.

pixelcort 14y ago

Don't forget some international keyboards, such as the Japanese Kana one, rely on swipe gestures to input characters.

gfodor 14y ago

It's neat, but will never happen. The prototype misses the subtle intersection of all the constraints necessary for good design on the iPad. At a high level, here are a few that you want to optimize for: - Efficiency: how fast can the user perform the task at hand? - Intuitivity: how likely is it the user will understand how to use it without direct instruction? (based upon trial and error, previous experience, etc.) - Consistency: how much is it like other patterns in the same UI/environment? - Metaphor: how much does it 'feel' like other real-world objects and leverages how the user understands them already? These are of course a sample of high level overlapping themes. This particular prototype is obviously optimizing for efficiency. It does so very well, but at a very, very deep cost to the others. It is an undiscoverable interface. It utterly destroys the direct manipulation illusion of the iPad. It causes the virtual keys to no longer be metaphorical buttons since you can drag across them for an effect. It is inconsistent with other use of gestures, particularly since you are controlling a cursor remotely much like you would with a mouse (likely a fire-able proposition at Apple!) The thing that makes Apple's work so amazing is the balance they manage to strike between these things and so consistently get it right. For a power user, give me vim, Maya, Photoshop, and other tools that optimize for efficiency (much like this prototype does.) But when designing things that are meant to be universally available, a more subdued and balanced approach across these types of constraints is necessary.

weaksauce 14y ago
The holding the plus button in safari to reopen closed tabs was not intuitive at all and there was no subtle wiggle or other in iPad thing to show that it was even there. Why not have this be a setting that you can turn on? Or have the two ways to edit text on at the same time? There are two ways to input text right now with the voice recognition and the keyboard so why not two ways to select text?
- wmeredith 14y ago
  This is just one example of a host of undiscoverable features lurking in many of Apple's touch interfaces. (Triple home button taps, anyone?) I could see them implementing this, and I hope they do.

uptown 14y ago

The worst part of editing text on iOS is getting the cursor somewhere in the middle of a string. It's just a nightmare to accomplish. Android's solution was to add arrow keys, but for some reason they felt out of place when typing to me. Love this concept. Hopefully it'll eventually make its way onto handsets.

booticon 14y ago

It looks like this person put a lot of thought into how text editing could be improved in iOS, and the video is well-made. However, a great feature of the iOS keyboard is that if you press the wrong key, if your finger is still on the key, you can drag it over to the key you intended to use. Has he taken this into account? It would be pretty frustrating if I made an almost-typo, and instead of inputting the intended character, my cursor moved around.

stefanu 14y ago
Also if you press and hold a key, list of accented/alternative characters is opened. Anyway, OP has lovely idea, just the first trigger has to be tuned a bit. Maybe holding and dragging the space key?
peterkelly 14y ago
The behaviour you described is specific to the iPhone. On the iPad, if you press on one key and move to another, it releases the original key and ignores the key press.
- booticon 14y ago
  Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected!

Kilimanjaro 14y ago

Some people complain about swiping over the keys? Then add a scrollpad at the bottom of the keyboard where you can perform the same swipe to place the cursor. And use the shift key to select, same as the video. I like that idea a lot.

codysoyland 14y ago

I'm surprised nobody seems to be addressing how easy it would be to accidentally move the cursor while using the keyboard. Neat idea, but I don't see it happening.

peterkelly 14y ago
In my own implementation I've added a movement threshold, so it only starts moving the cursor after you've moved your finger a certain number of pixels (currently 44) from the point at which you originally put it down. I've found this avoids problems of accidental cursor movement.
- ptaoussanis 14y ago
  Great idea!

greggman 14y ago

This seems U.S. centric. Isn't drag on keys used to select accents? Maybe some subtle timing thing make decide did you want the accent menu or did you want to move the cursor. Dragging is also currently a correction thing. You can press 'E' then drag to 'T' if you that's what you meant. I don't know how many people use that feature though.

wiredfool 14y ago
Dragging up on the comma and the period give you ' and " respectively. I'm not seeing what you're saying on clicking E and dragging to T. Doesn't seem to do anything here. I find the iPad's text editing to be one of the biggest flaws of the device. Even on short things, like this comment, there's invariably some point where I've mistyped something by putting a space in one character early, and the only reasonable way I've found to correct it is to retype both words.
- greggman 14y ago
  My bad, dragging E to T is an iPhone thing. It doesn't do it on iPad. I had assumed they were the same. They're not.

firefoxman1 14y ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned how this feature was implemented in the Palm Pre/Pixi a few years ago. That was one of my favorite little things about WebOS. When editing text, you held down the Orange key and then drag your finger anywhere on the screen and the cursor followed. And to select text, you did the same thing with the Shift key instead.

dvdhsu 14y ago
The problem, though, is that I still had to take my hands off the keyboard. This doesn't require me to.
- joeblossom 14y ago
  That's only because those devices didn't have an onscreen keyboard...

antidoh 14y ago

I don't have and have never used an iPad. When I watched this video I was thinking "You mean this isn't how iPad typing works already?" If I had an iPad, and typing worked this way, I wouldn't even notice it as a thing. Of course it would do this.

mekazu 14y ago

The qwerty keyboard was designed to prevent the jamming of metallic parts of a typewriter. Surely it's time to put this metaphor behind us? People have migrated easily from typewriters to computer keyboards, and from pianos to synthesizers (depending on the synthesizer) but neither metaphor works effectively for a touch screen. A touch screen is unable to provide the necessary physical feedback to let the instrument 'flow'. Even using the finger as a cursor doesn't work anywhere near as well as a mouse or a stylus when editing text. Touch devices require a breakthrough in text input if they are ever to become useful for creative output of large chunks of text. We all learned to SMS using a 12 button mobile phone pad in the '90s, people have spent months and years learning vim and emacs (despite their lack of intuitivity, consistency and metaphor), why can't we get away from qwerty keyboards today? I don't have any suggestions, but people must be coming up with better non-qwerty ideas all the time. Where are they?

chronomex 14y ago
I'm rather fond of the MessagEase keyboard on Android: http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php

egypturnash 14y ago

Oh god I want this, or something similar to it. Because that little lens that pops up is a TOTAL PAIN IN THE BUTT when you keep your fingernails long; the close-up on the cursor is usually hidden by my fingernail. Every time I use my Nexus One to edit text, and move the cursor around with the trackball, it's like heaven compared to my iPad. (IMHO the stock Android autocorrect is also a ton better than IOS - I really hate that tiny little blue text that pops up beneath a word, and I hate iOS's refusal to let you go back and edit out its miscorrections even more.) I've only had something like this happen once before, when I tried using some third-party controller hanging around a friend's office to try the game he was working on, and physically could not press the buttons because of a little ridge just above them, positioned perfectly to catch my thumbnail when I brought my thumb down. tl,dr: if your product involves people poking at it, find a person with long fingernails and see if she can use it.

stephengillie 14y ago

The solution is simple: an optical trackball. The HTC Incredible has one. So do Blackberrys. It does exactly what the OP is asking for.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

czzarr 14y ago

i wish there was vi mode for iOS. seriously it would work great

rythie 14y ago

It's nice, but some arrow keys would be easier to understand for most people.

rplnt 14y ago

Can't you just make it as an app? Why would it have to be there by default?

lucian1900 14y ago

I think it's sad people let Apple be their paranoid abusive parent. This developer can't even make his own keyboard app. Look at Swype on Android, it's both excellent and usable on any phone. There are tons of other alternative text input apps to choose from, too.

micheljansen 14y ago

I like it, but it's not perfect. First of all, I don’t think dragging one finger on the keyboard should have any effect. The iPad’s current keyboard is very forgiving when I mis-press a key initially and move my finger to the right key. This should not cause the cursor to move. An easy adaptation of this solution would be to just use the two finger gesture for moving the text (if you want to move it faster, just use the “tap and refine” strategy I mentioned earlier). Additionally, I wonder how text selection would work when typing with one hand. I rarely use an iPad the way it is shown here, laying on a table in landscape mode. Perhaps in addition to using shift, holding the two finger gesture could also initiate “select mode”. That way, selection can more easily be done using one hand.

lamby 14y ago

> Set the title to “Editing Text on iPad (duplicate of rdar://11365152)” twitch

peterkelly 14y ago

This looks awesome; I'm just in the process of adding this to my own writing app right now. I have cursor movement working and am just getting onto the selection mechanism. Should be finished in couple more hours. Anyone want to test it out and give me some feedback once I'm done?

ptaoussanis 14y ago
Well that was quick ;) In principle really like the idea of something like this- especially in the context of an app like yours where you're targeting long-document writers. How's it feel to use in practice? I kind of liked the suggestion elsewhere here about needing 2 fingers to do the scrolling to prevent the cursor from accidentally running away.
- peterkelly 14y ago
  I haven't had a chance to use it much but I definitely think it's an improvement over the existing mechanism. I already had some extra keys for cursor movement similar to those of IA Writer but this is better for moving across multiple characters. I ran into a problem with the two-finger gesture, which is that Apple already use this for putting the keyboard into a split mode (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQTkZjvSok http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQTkZjvSok). So I'm currently figuring out how do deal with that without preventing people from using the split keyboard. I've emailed the guy who did the video about how he did his implementation but haven't heard back yet.
  - ptaoussanis 14y ago
    Hmm, interesting- didn't know about the split-keyboard thing (I'm only on iPhone). I've been thinking about what else might be an alternative but am coming up short. More than 2 fingers would be impractical on an iPhone. Question: In the video you linked to, the split-keyboard gesture looks quite specific... 2 separate fingers dragging away from or toward one another. I guess it's asking too much to hope that the device could distinguish between this kind of dragging and scroll-style dragging (2 fingers together, same direction)? BTW I'm assuming this'll be up in the next beta sometime? Would love to play with it.

antirez 14y ago

I bet there are a great deal of people like me that don't use / purchase tables because of the poor keyboard experience. With a real keyboard I can type fast, faster than I can speak, faster than I can write using a pen. My interaction with a computer always was this way: my ideas can flow fast to the form of text, code, emails, and so forth. With the iPad I feel dumb, because I'm no longer fast enough, and I refuse this kind of interaction. However the new text editing proposed on this story fixes part of the problem, but not all unfortunately, still it's a great step forward.

sparknlaunch12 14y ago
A stylus type pen device would be the best alternative to touch typing on a touch screen. This is currently available for touch devices but not that frequently used. I am not sure why?
- zevyoura 14y ago
  Because stylus' are another thing to keep track of, easy to lose, and it's not seamless to switch between touch input and stylus. And people don't handwrite all that much faster than they can type on a virtual keyboard.
  - sparknlaunch12 14y ago
    The new Samsung Note comes with a S-Pen that I believe retracts into the device. The Samsung Galaxy SII works with a stylus. Early tablets (from the 90s) came with similar pointing/writing devices. Do people type faster because of predictive text?

prawn 14y ago

How would you maintain consistency when it came to selecting text when the keyboard wasn't present? I like it otherwise. As everyone knows, selecting/etc text on iPad is a pain.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Why would you waste effort implementing this on an iPad? The developer must know that it's not possible to distribute and that it's extraordinarily unlikely that Apple would make an exeception or utilize it themselves. Meanwhile, it probably would have sold tens of thousands of copies in the Android Market already. edit: Wow, the article even includes futile instructions to spam Apple's feature tracker. I'm sure they appreciate that move.

tree_of_item 14y ago

I don't understand why this person thinks spamming Apple's bug tracker will increase the chances of it being implemented. It's not a bug. I don't understand why this person cares whether or not Apple agrees with them. The whole point of having a device capable of universal computation is to be able to make it do what you want without other people's permission. A better use of time would be to implement this functionality for a computer that wasn't actively hostile to end-user extension. Android software keyboards sell quite a bit I believe.

zomgbbq 14y ago

I could implement this pretty easily in an app or as a library that people use as a replacement for the existing keyboard. So while I could not fix built-in apps, it could be a nice fix for downloadable apps. The only question is if I build it, would people come?

Too 14y ago

Firefox on Windows already has this feature. (i don't think its a feature of windows because it doesn't work in other programs) Try scrolling sidways with your touchpad when you have focus on the url-bar... Hold control to scroll word by word.

a5x2h9k41l 14y ago

Can you attach a real USB keyboard to the iPad? (Note the project on Kickstarter that seeks to make and iPad look like a MacBook.) If you can't attach a keyboard, why did they do this? (The) iPad would make a good portable display. Of course, an iPad makes a good coffee table piece. Pick it up, touch the screen, gaze at it, put it down. Wow, amazing.

biot 14y ago
http://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+attach+keyboard http://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+attach+keyboard
- a5x2h9k41l 14y ago
  First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not wired USB keyboards. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. I guess it's sort of like a self-service grocery checkout machine: just touch the big buttons. Could be useful to buy stuff online I guess. But hardly sounds like a real computer you can program.
- a5x2h9k41l 14y ago
  First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not USB. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. Which is a very interesting design decision.
  - biot 14y ago
    Your third line starts with "If you can't attach a keyboard..." and the answer is that you can. For the purposes of typing I don't see why you'd care if it was USB or Bluetooth nor whether it's physically attached or wireless.
    - 14y ago