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Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#521

Post by SamuelAdams »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #458

People produce less text with more errors in more time on mobile. I actively avoid having to type anything on mobile. If I have my laptop open, I'll use whatsapp or signal on that. I often wait replying on either of those until I get my laptop. Just way less frustrating to not have to correct >25% of my key presses. If I have to use the mobile keyboard, I'll often just send a message with typos, no capitals, and skip…

This take is a little ironic. In the original iPhone keynote address [1], Steve Jobs specifically called out physical keyboards as a negative user experience. The advantage of the iPhone is that the entire device could adapt to whatever application you were currently using.

That being said I still think you are right. Typing on iOS could be improved.

[1]: https://youtu.be/x7qPAY9JqE4?si=9_jnM2Ys8JiTXGqC

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#522

Post by ddingus »

justin_oaks wrote: post #269
miniupuchaty wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using nvim in termux on foldable phone since I've bought phone in that form factor. It works great, I'm using "unexpected keyboard" as input method for faster special symbols access. It works pretty well. Good enough for me to program on the go.

Thanks for letting me know about the Unexpected Keyboard app. It'll take some getting used to, but having arrow keys and punctuation available without changing modes is pretty awesome. I can even hit Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy, etc. This alone will help text editing on my phone.

The hacker keyboard does that also. Most standard keyboard functions work as you would expect them to.

That said, I am going to go try the unexpected keyboard.

I like it.

I really like the select cursor motion on the space bar. Makes quick work of a copy paste operation.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#523

Post by fomine3 »

superkuh wrote: post #185
crazygringo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smartphones are just for when you're literally unable to use a real computer. Which is literally extremely frequent, since we often need to do stuff on the go. Which is why an article like this is so important -- we should improve, not give up. There's no reason to think text editing on a phone has reached its final form.

The reason I think it won't get much better is that the size of smart phones will not change. It is size that's really the issue for text editing. No space for a real keyboard, no space for a real display.

Foldable is a way to have a big screen, though the problem is also not much solved for tablets.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#524

Post by StimDeck »

lolinder wrote: post #487
jillesvangurp wrote: post #458

People produce less text with more errors in more time on mobile. I actively avoid having to type anything on mobile. If I have my laptop open, I'll use whatsapp or signal on that. I often wait replying on either of those until I get my laptop. Just way less frustrating to not have to correct >25% of my key presses. If I have to use the mobile keyboard, I'll often just send a message with typos, no capitals, and skip…

I find that typing on a phone (iPhone or Android) these days is substantially easier than typing on an iPad because of swipe. It's still nowhere as efficient as a keyboard in the hands of a skilled typist, but I can often produce text fast enough that it isn't worth getting out my laptop. On an iPad it's far worse, because I actually do have to use the bad QWERTY touchscreen key-by-key. What I keep hoping for as far…

[dead]

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#528

Post by pixelmonkey »

awinter-py wrote: post #143

I typed 55wpm on my blackberry without looking. The fact that you have to constantly look at the screen keyboard and correct it is a huge attention suck and kills my input speed On blackberry, a mistake was one wrong character. On screen keyboards with swipe and autocorrect, a mistake can be inserting 1 or 2 random words Screen keyboard doesn't work in the rain while we're griping: - on an older android device the bu…

I was the same way. I only had a Blackberry for a short while -- a BlackBerry Bold 9000 (got it in 2009). It was my stop-gap between plain cell phones and my first Android phone (a Droid 4, got it in 2013). Then I moved to touch screens with the Samsung Galaxy S4. I'm currently a Pixel 7 user.

Nothing ever matched the typing speed of the Blackberry Bold 9000. I was slowed down a bit by the slide-out on my Droid 4, and slowed down a TON by switching to touch. I could actually "do email" on my Blackberry. At essentially the same speed as my laptop. But, even today, with many years of practice, including swipe, text prediction, and all the rest -- writing a mid-size email on my phone is excruciatingly slow vs my typing/thinking speed. Even more frustrating is that when people observe me typing on my touchscreen, they'll say, "my goodness, you type SO FAST." And I'll just think, this is half-speed for me.

As a simple example, sometimes I try to transcribe text from a podcast I'm listening to on my phone. It's basically impossible -- I have to go back frequently, slow it down to 0.7x audio speed, etc. But, if I transcribe text on my laptop, I can do it so fast that I type ahead of the speaker, even a fast talker. It makes a difference. I could have transcribed a live speaker on my Blackberry Bold. I could even type at thinking speed, which was great. Alas. Two steps forward, one step back.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#529

Post by phreack »

> Whenever I explain my research at Google into mobile text editing, I’m usually met with blank stares or a slightly hostile “Everyone can edit text on their phones, right? What’s the problem?”

These people must have never used a phone. This article hits 100%, there's quite a lot of these micro-issues on things we use constantly that could be major differentiators and extremely easy sells, but no one implements.

My very personal pet peeve is text reflow on mobile browsers. Just zooming into a long paragraph and having it wrap so you only have to scroll vertically and never horizontally to read it. It's a killer feature and almost no browsers have it!

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