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Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#101

Post by AnonC »

Maybe I’ve always had issues with typing correctly and having the device provide the appropriate autocorrect suggestions on the smaller screen size (even on the 5+ inch screens).

On selecting a word (single word), double tapping on the word works well for me. Same way, to select an entire paragraph, triple tap anywhere on that. There is no need to move the cursor and fumble with it for selecting these.

Text selection of other kinds has a lot of issues. One thing that bothers me a lot is how it mishandles punctuation marks when selecting a sentence or multiple lines. That’s certainly a long standing bug.

Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#102

Post by moepstar »

roguesherlock wrote: post #47
markus_zhang wrote: post #11

Vent: I'm on Android and still haven't seen a well done cursor scroll. It usually requires me to select the position accurately which is PITA. I wish there was a simple way to do that.

iPhone 7 with its 3D Touch had the best cursor scroll tbh. You hard press your thumb anywhere on the keyboard and use it like a mousepad to scroll around. I’m still mad that we don’t have that anymore.

Yup, kinda mad as well :/ It adds so much to usability once you've gotten used to it (doesn't take long imho)...

One of the key reasons i still hold on to my 8 Plus... but i suppose iOS 16 will probably the last release they'll support on it so i better get used to the thought my next phone won't have it :(

Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#105

Post by arcanemachiner »

modeless wrote: post #70
markus_zhang wrote: post #11

Vent: I'm on Android and still haven't seen a well done cursor scroll. It usually requires me to select the position accurately which is PITA. I wish there was a simple way to do that.

Can I also vent about the lack of undo? I consider undo one of the most essential features of any computing device. How is it still simply not supported on the most widely used computing platform?

On Android, undo is supported, but your keyboard has to support it. Sometimes I have to open Hacker Keyboard just I can press Ctrl+Z. There's probably a better way, but that works for the two times a year that I need it.

Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#107

Post by hsshah »

Same here. Been using an iPhone since 3s. Glad (not really) to see its not only me. I tried Pixel 2(?) for sometime in between and my typing accuracy / experience was better with it.

With all the so-called AI/ML being used, shouldn't the typing get better?!

Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#109

Post by riversflow »

dawnerd wrote: post #20

I wish there was an autocorrect for obvious errors, not changing context of a word like hell -> he'll, well -> we'll, nickel -> Nicole (this is a weird one), and many more. Better yet, it should just underline the word and let me manually correct it like software used to before everyone tried to do ai nonsense. Apparently that red underline is part of the OS but I don't recall actually seeing it.

You can do this! Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Auto-Correction [off] & Check Spelling [on].

Reading a lot of the complaints here, they really need to create some sort of onboarding for the keyboard and make it more transparent what the switches do in the settings menu.

I was pretty pissed when they launched slide to type, until I played with these and found that turning predictive off feels waaay better. It took me a little bit to get used to, but I’m much happier now and can type multiple words with out looking at the keyboard. My settings:

Auto Capitalization: On

*Auto-Correction: Off

Check Spelling: On

Enable Caps Lock: On

*Predictive: Off

Smart Punctuation: On[1]

*Slide to Type: Off

Character Preview: On

“.” Shortcut: On

Some of these are personal preference, but the ones I put with a star greatly effect the way the keyboard types. I’ve been using iPhones since 2011, so I’m used to the last two for example, but if you don’t use slide to type it screws with the touch targets big time, and the Predictive setting is the one most people here are frustrated with.

That said, I think the keyboard was better about 10 years ago when it had some slight prediction baked in.

[1] I think smart punctuation only really applies in english to "" -> “”, I think it looks nicer, but can be a nightmare if you are trying to type a sting literal on the phone and don’t realize it’s a thing, definitely something to be aware of, lol.

Re: Ask HN: Am I getting older or did typing on the iPhone become unbearable?

#110

Post by vachina »

snowwrestler wrote: post #39

When the iPhone launched, Apple talked a lot about how the typing system worked. What I remember is that it sounded like pretty simple lookups. As you typed, the software compared your word to, essentially, a weighted dictionary to guess what you were going to type next. If you typed “b” it was flummoxed. But if you typed “behav” it knew the next letter was almost certainly going to be “e” or “i” (for behavior). It m…

Sometimes I’d type out a correct spelling of a word and it’d correct it to another word that’s totally unrelated to the context of the sentence, like your Quake example.

Infuriating when in a rush.

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