4 ms·
> Apple (nor Google, as far as I know) has done zero to fix it in years (a decade?) On iOS/iPadOS, touch-hold the virtual space bar and it becomes a trackpad f
by walterbell 3y ago
> Apple (nor Google, as far as I know) has done zero to fix it in years (a decade?)
On iOS/iPadOS, touch-hold the virtual space bar and it becomes a trackpad for fine positioning of the cursor.
Magic Keyboard is a laptop-quality input device where capslock can be remapped to Esc for vim editing in ssh.
- gcanyon 3y agoYes, I know about the virtual trackpad, and it's still a pain in the butt to use. Before touch-and-hold, there was the faster deep press, which was better albeit not great, and the current setup is a regression. "add a keyboard" isn't an answer.
- walterbell 3y ago> "add a keyboard" isn't an answer. The best keyboard in the history of mobile computing was by Blackberry. Blackberry (original and clone) physical keyboards are now available for both Android & iPhone, with some effort.
- dgellow 3y agoIMHO the best keyboard was from the N900
- walterbell 3y agoPsion/Communicator palmtop derivatives did have the space advantage of a landscape form factor. Sadly we never got a hardware successor for the dearly departed N900 Maemo and N9 Meego.
- ako 3y agoAdd a keyboard is an answer. On-screen keyboard will always be more limited, but I can accept that, as long as it’s good enough for situations where i can’t use an external keyboard. In situations where I know I will have to do a lot of text entry, it’s easy enough to add a keyboard, or use dictation. I use the same Bluetooth mechanical keyboard, Nuphy air 75, on both my MacBook Pro and my iPad, so keyboard experience is same for both, and both come with a suboptimal keyboard out of the box, including the MacBook Pro.
- gcanyon 3y ago"Add a keyboard" isn't an answer to the point raised, which is that the virtual keyboard on iOS is highly-sub-optimal, and Apple isn't working hard enough to improve it.
- ako 3y agoFor an on screen keyboard I find it far from highly-sub-optimal, I think it’s pretty decent. More importantly, it’s not realistic to think it will ever be as good as a real keyboard for lot of text entry. I expect dictation to do a better job for data entry. In fact, this comment was created using dictation on an iPad, almost flawless, not much editing needed afterwards, and you can always use a keyboards if you prefer.
- ashconnor 3y agoEven when using that it can still jump the cursor to a unwanted location. Demo - https://twitter.com/ashconnor/status/1776689029700075749/video/1 https://twitter.com/ashconnor/status/1776689029700075749/vid...
- wordofx 3y agoWhat messaging app is that? I tried Line, iMessage, Signal, Twitter. I cannot reproduce that.
- dgellow 3y agoI have a niche complaint that makes physical keyboards a non-starter for me: there is no way to add keyboard layouts to iOS/iPadOS. If you’re used to a layout that isn’t in the subset Apple supports you cannot use a physical keyboard. I have my own keyboard layout that I use since at least 2011, with drivers for macOS, windows, and Linux. I have no way to make it available on my iPad.
- least 3y agoI definitely think you should be able to add keyboard layouts at a software level on iPadOS and iOS, but one possible solution to the problem right now is using a programmable keyboard using QMK [1], ZMK [2], or some other open-source firmware. There's even a usb-usb converter [3] that will convert keystrokes from any keyboard into ones that you map using TMK or QMK, so you can use your own. [1] https://qmk.fm/ https://qmk.fm/ [2] https://zmk.dev/ https://zmk.dev/ [3] https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=69169.0 https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=69169.0
- dgellow 3y agoNeat, thanks for sharing