6 ms·

You need a keyboard to do any serious writing. Students should write and they should never have gotten iPads in the first place. What are these teachers thinkin

You need a keyboard to do any serious writing. Students should write and they should never have gotten iPads in the first place. What are these teachers thinking?

youngtaff 12y ago
I wrote the first couple thousand words of a book on an iPad last summer and even using an external keyboard it as painful - you have to keep touching the screen to do things, which is a long stretch compared to using a trackpad or mouse
- coldpie 12y ago
  Which is why I laugh when people waste time or money on alternate input methods that involve more than wiggling my fingers very slightly. No one wants to use a Minority Report style interface for more than three seconds. There's a reason input methods (mouse and pushing discrete things on a flat surface) haven't really changed in nearly fifty years, even with the advent of computers-in-your-pocket.
blahedo 12y ago
A lot of people claim that the on-screen "keyboard" is a keyboard, so it's plausible that some people bought into that. Lack of keyboard is a non-starter for me for any serious device, but I lost count of the number of people that told me I would be able to touch-type on the iPad's "keyboard". (This should be obviously false, but in case it isn't, I'll point out that the apostrophe---which I've used five times so far in this post---isn't (6!) even on the main keyboard, and if you "touch-type" an apostrophe, you hit the enter key. Emergency backup keyboard maybe, but this is not usable as a touch-typing device.)
- manicdee 12y ago
  The apostrophe is inserted automatically by most spelling engines (even if they get it wrong some of the time). If not automatically added, you can put the apostrophes in pretty easily when you go back to review what you wrote (because you read what you wrote before you hit post, right?) A keyboard is an obstruction when you just want to read, paint, or do non-text-entry work (and even for some text-entry work like dictation). I found the best of both worlds was a Logitech "Ultrathin Bluetooth Keyboard": it attached to the iPad magnetically like a Smart Cover and provided a keyboard and stand when you needed it. Ultrabooks don't work so well in portrait orientation. It's hard to type on them when they're sideways. On the other hand, my iPad + bluetooth keyboard weighed more (and was thicker than) than my 11" MacBook Air. Ultrabooks are also harder to read on, since vertical space is at a premium. I prefer tall narrow pages, rather than short wide pages. The main orientation on an Ultrabook is "short, narrow" pages (a format that photographers love, but there's no talking sense to photographers and their fascination for "square" pictures).
  - trynumber9 12y ago
    There exists 'Yoga' notebooks [0], where you can rotate the screen all the way back. One can use it in portrait-orientation for reading, art, and similar tasks. Or one can use it just like a notebook PC. 0: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8289/life-with-the-lenovo-yoga-2-pro http://www.anandtech.com/show/8289/life-with-the-lenovo-yoga...
  - Grue3 12y ago
    >The apostrophe is inserted automatically by most spelling engines This is simply impossible for virtually all usage cases of apostrophe in the English language: it's/its, word's/words/words'.
    - antimagic 12y ago
      Why impossible? The rules for when to use each is well-defined. We know this is true, because *we can recognise when the apostrophe is used incorrectly". Yes, you need to parse the sentence that contains the apostrophe, and yes, in some particularly odd sentences you can trip up a computer's understanding of the sentence's grammar, but current tech is capable of getting this right with very good accuracy.
      - MereInterest 12y ago
        Any time I use the word "ill", I need to explicitly tell the auto-correct not to change it to "I'll", regardless of context. Also, given that "I see the house. I see its eaves." and "I see the house. I see it's tilted." have the same opening, I can't see how a computer could possibly decide correctly between the two.
        Rapzid 12y ago
        It would be highly unusual to place "it's" before a noun.
        antimagic 12y ago
- shard972 12y ago
  > but I lost count of the number of people that told me I would be able to touch-type on the iPad's "keyboard". Who is telling you this? I hope not anybody qualified.
- baddox 12y ago
  I can't type nearly as well on my iPad as on a normal keyboard, but I bet I can type better on my iPad than the average person on a normal keyboard. For most "real life" tasks you just need very basic typing skills. Plenty of people hunt and peck and still perform their requirements competently.
majani 12y ago
swipe keyboards have solved this problem. They enable you to type at incredible speeds on mobile devices.
- Moru 12y ago
  Only people that can't touch-type says this...
  - teachery 12y ago
    Sure, which answers the parent's question. Teachers (typically) can't touch-type so they can't observe this flaw.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  I use swipe on my phone, it's great. But I can't type 60+ WPM on a phone with 99.9% accuracy, like I can on a proper keyboard... Typing is still so, so much quicker and more accurate...
- 3rd3 12y ago
  I'm wondering whether this is true for tablets since the distances are much greater. I personally had the experience that the skin on my fingertips got sore and dissolved from a lot of swiping (reading through several hundred pages in GoodReader).
smackfu 12y ago
All students are not created equal. Younger students do not do "serious writing." Older students do, and probably need a keyboard.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
I write a new book every 8 months or so. I use my iPad a lot for writing and editing. I use leanpub so my manuscripts live in Dropbox shared folders, and editing on an iPad is very convenient. Writing is more about thinking than entering text.
Shorel 12y ago
Stenography or other form of shorthand is the answer. Stenography was used in the last century to write text at the same speed somebody else was talking. No, swipe is not even close to one quarter of the speed of stenography. Why developers still focus on virtual keyboards that are not in alphabetic order is something that reeks of bad skeuomorphism. It doesn't have a physical keyboard, stop pretending that it does.

You need a keyboard to do any serious writing. Students should write and they should never have gotten iPads in the first place. What are these teachers thinking?

youngtaff 12y ago

I wrote the first couple thousand words of a book on an iPad last summer and even using an external keyboard it as painful - you have to keep touching the screen to do things, which is a long stretch compared to using a trackpad or mouse

coldpie 12y ago
Which is why I laugh when people waste time or money on alternate input methods that involve more than wiggling my fingers very slightly. No one wants to use a Minority Report style interface for more than three seconds. There's a reason input methods (mouse and pushing discrete things on a flat surface) haven't really changed in nearly fifty years, even with the advent of computers-in-your-pocket.

blahedo 12y ago

A lot of people claim that the on-screen "keyboard" is a keyboard, so it's plausible that some people bought into that. Lack of keyboard is a non-starter for me for any serious device, but I lost count of the number of people that told me I would be able to touch-type on the iPad's "keyboard". (This should be obviously false, but in case it isn't, I'll point out that the apostrophe---which I've used five times so far in this post---isn't (6!) even on the main keyboard, and if you "touch-type" an apostrophe, you hit the enter key. Emergency backup keyboard maybe, but this is not usable as a touch-typing device.)

manicdee 12y ago
The apostrophe is inserted automatically by most spelling engines (even if they get it wrong some of the time). If not automatically added, you can put the apostrophes in pretty easily when you go back to review what you wrote (because you read what you wrote before you hit post, right?) A keyboard is an obstruction when you just want to read, paint, or do non-text-entry work (and even for some text-entry work like dictation). I found the best of both worlds was a Logitech "Ultrathin Bluetooth Keyboard": it attached to the iPad magnetically like a Smart Cover and provided a keyboard and stand when you needed it. Ultrabooks don't work so well in portrait orientation. It's hard to type on them when they're sideways. On the other hand, my iPad + bluetooth keyboard weighed more (and was thicker than) than my 11" MacBook Air. Ultrabooks are also harder to read on, since vertical space is at a premium. I prefer tall narrow pages, rather than short wide pages. The main orientation on an Ultrabook is "short, narrow" pages (a format that photographers love, but there's no talking sense to photographers and their fascination for "square" pictures).
- trynumber9 12y ago
  There exists 'Yoga' notebooks [0], where you can rotate the screen all the way back. One can use it in portrait-orientation for reading, art, and similar tasks. Or one can use it just like a notebook PC. 0: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8289/life-with-the-lenovo-yoga-2-pro http://www.anandtech.com/show/8289/life-with-the-lenovo-yoga...
- Grue3 12y ago
  >The apostrophe is inserted automatically by most spelling engines This is simply impossible for virtually all usage cases of apostrophe in the English language: it's/its, word's/words/words'.
  - antimagic 12y ago
    Why impossible? The rules for when to use each is well-defined. We know this is true, because *we can recognise when the apostrophe is used incorrectly". Yes, you need to parse the sentence that contains the apostrophe, and yes, in some particularly odd sentences you can trip up a computer's understanding of the sentence's grammar, but current tech is capable of getting this right with very good accuracy.
    - MereInterest 12y ago
      Any time I use the word "ill", I need to explicitly tell the auto-correct not to change it to "I'll", regardless of context. Also, given that "I see the house. I see its eaves." and "I see the house. I see it's tilted." have the same opening, I can't see how a computer could possibly decide correctly between the two.
      - Rapzid 12y ago
        It would be highly unusual to place "it's" before a noun.
        antimagic 12y ago
shard972 12y ago
> but I lost count of the number of people that told me I would be able to touch-type on the iPad's "keyboard". Who is telling you this? I hope not anybody qualified.
baddox 12y ago
I can't type nearly as well on my iPad as on a normal keyboard, but I bet I can type better on my iPad than the average person on a normal keyboard. For most "real life" tasks you just need very basic typing skills. Plenty of people hunt and peck and still perform their requirements competently.

majani 12y ago

swipe keyboards have solved this problem. They enable you to type at incredible speeds on mobile devices.

Moru 12y ago
Only people that can't touch-type says this...
- teachery 12y ago
  Sure, which answers the parent's question. Teachers (typically) can't touch-type so they can't observe this flaw.
Mikeb85 12y ago
I use swipe on my phone, it's great. But I can't type 60+ WPM on a phone with 99.9% accuracy, like I can on a proper keyboard... Typing is still so, so much quicker and more accurate...
3rd3 12y ago
I'm wondering whether this is true for tablets since the distances are much greater. I personally had the experience that the skin on my fingertips got sore and dissolved from a lot of swiping (reading through several hundred pages in GoodReader).

smackfu 12y ago

All students are not created equal. Younger students do not do "serious writing." Older students do, and probably need a keyboard.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

I write a new book every 8 months or so. I use my iPad a lot for writing and editing. I use leanpub so my manuscripts live in Dropbox shared folders, and editing on an iPad is very convenient. Writing is more about thinking than entering text.

Shorel 12y ago

Stenography or other form of shorthand is the answer. Stenography was used in the last century to write text at the same speed somebody else was talking. No, swipe is not even close to one quarter of the speed of stenography. Why developers still focus on virtual keyboards that are not in alphabetic order is something that reeks of bad skeuomorphism. It doesn't have a physical keyboard, stop pretending that it does.