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Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

ios-countdown.win

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Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#341

Post by flanbiscuit »

> and I caved to the blue bubble pressure

Ha! I feel this. I was a long time Android user since the original G1 (aka HTC Dream). Was a strictly Pixel phone user for my last 4 phones. Recently jumped over to iPhone. For the most part I’m enjoying it.

There are minor things, like the keyboard being annoying to type with. For instance, when I’m typing something into the URL bar of Safari, for some reason, I’m constantly hitting the period key next to the space bar, and I feel like I’m not anywhere close to it.

I also find it confusing how to dismiss the keyboard. Android had a very clear icon for this, on iOS it’s just a checkmark which is a little misleading in my opinion.

On iOS, speech to text is pretty good, but I have to annunciate clearly, where I felt that android was a little bit more forgiving.

Another issue I’ve noticed is that I don’t think the GPS (or maybe it’s just Google maps) is as accurate as it is on android. On iOS, if I’m on a highway it sometimes thinks I’m on the shoulder road next to the highway. So I’m constantly being rerouted to get back on the highway. I felt like I didn’t have that on android.

Back to the blue bubble thing though. Being the one and only android user amongst my friends and even my wife, I was always hearing about how I ruined the chat. I didn’t realize until switching over to iOS just how integrated everything is and what you can do in the chat when everybody else is on iOS, like editing previous messages, being able to answer messages via your Messages app on your laptop, and of course, not having images and videos getting compressed terribly. Although RCS chat improved that more recently.

One thing I do love is that automation and shortcuts is something that’s natively part of the system and that I don’t to install some app like Tasker or whatever the more modern version of that is.

At this point, I really like both of the OSes. What made me actually finally switch over was that everyone I knew who had an iPhone would have it for like five or more years and I was going through pixel phones every two years. I got tired of spending all that money.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#342

Post by shevy-java »

BinStorm wrote: post #115

I love the fervor with which this is written, but the threat is so weak I literally chuckled. Imagine your an exec or manager on the team for keyboard development. You read this, get to the end to discover the user is gonna switch devices for... 2 whole calander years? What's that amount to? Maybe 2 device upgrades on If your a die hard gotta have the newest latest model phone each year. Then what? you'll be back? Th…

I somewhat agree with this. There are probably not that many users who purchase(d) Apple hardware but will leave due to the keyboard.

> The threat doesnt even carry the weight losing a user for a 2 year blip

Agreed, but it may be different if there would be more people feeling in a similar way.

> If meant to be whimsical sure nailed it.

It's a bit strange though because there are many things one can critisize Apple for. My main gripe is still Steve Jobs underpaying developers via illegal agreements. Yet people praise him as if he would have been a god. I am not saying he had bad ideas or was a bad designer per se, but some people never even mention criminal activities for their heroes. The court case was mega-clear; that is undeniable. If he would still be alive I'd love to hear what people would say now.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#344

Post by mikepurvis »

mzmzmzm wrote: post #203
Liftyee wrote: post #6

As a lifelong Android user (in the EU, where Apple hegemony is not as strong) I always saw Apple as the "pay more for more polished ecosystem UX" option. So it always surprises me when things that are trivial on Android/Linux are sticking points on iOS/macOS. Worse, it seems that proprietary means you can't do anything to fix them yourself.

I recently switched to iPhone for network reasons, and some UI/UX things are really shocking. There is no way to toggle location services without going into settings. The alarms are tricky to set and don't have niceties like telling you the time until your morning alarm. There is no clipboard history. They want you to use swipe gestures so much, the touch targets to exit fullscreen media are barely functional. If you…

I recently switched the other direction and one rough edge I was surprised to hit on Android is the state of copy and paste for images; on iOS I would copy from Google photos and paste in WhatsApp, now that's just gone and the only option is either Google photos share-to or WhatsApp insert-from. There seems to be pseudo image clipboard support but it's mostly limited to pasting between Chrome tabs afaict.

My switching was due to a build up of minor frictions and frustrations with feeling like a second class citizen on iOS because I use largely gsuite apps rather than being bought into the Apple way for everything, with the last straw being the limitations on Pebble functionality.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#345

Post by Normal_gaussian »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #151

@ozzyphantom: You might consider being more specific about your grievances in the text of your countdown page. As it stands, it's a bit vague, describing the keyboard as "broken" and autocorrect as "nearly useless". Sure, the video you link to is more descriptive, but it's a lot to ask of a visitor to click through and watch a separate video. As for the underlying issue, I have experienced similar typing issues on my…

It turns out he posted a better example in his blog post about it - https://thismightnotmatter.com/a-little-website-i-made-for-a... - which is technically linked to in the bottom of the site. I guess if you spend your life learning UX from Apple this is what you get...

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#346

Post by driverdan »

bnchrch wrote: post #294
throw7 wrote: post #243

"I caved to the blue bubble pressure" The fact that this is a real thing is ridiculous. Say no and move on with life. This is the type of freedom that is actually freeing.

Its a real issue in North America. SMS and as a result iMessage is the dominant text based chat. iPhones have become the default smartphone, and is a status symbol compared to Android. Mac vs Windows is similar on the laptop front. Which means if your an Android user in a relatively average social group: * You will get left out of group messages * You will be starting on a back foot in the dating scene On top of you…

Sounds like a good way to filter out assholes. Anyone who cares what phone you use in this way is someone you don't want in your life.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#347

Post by tim-tday »

Post viable alternatives here and your thinking around why.

Being free to leave the iOS ecosystem is the biggest flex anyone can make to enforce beneficial change.

E.G. Signal is the iMessage killer.

What’s your answer around lockdown, security, updates, hardware, iCloud replacement, AirPods etc

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#348

Post by nunez »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #151

@ozzyphantom: You might consider being more specific about your grievances in the text of your countdown page. As it stands, it's a bit vague, describing the keyboard as "broken" and autocorrect as "nearly useless". Sure, the video you link to is more descriptive, but it's a lot to ask of a visitor to click through and watch a separate video. As for the underlying issue, I have experienced similar typing issues on my…

I have autocorrext turned off on my keyboard and typed this without any corrections. These sre the issues i've faced with the stock keyboard:

- accidental periods when typing URLs in Safari

- key target inaccuracy (though turning off swipe-to-tect gas ikproved this a little, though not enough)

- key latnecy which causes letters innsome words to get swapped or extra unwated letters to appear (this could be a me-getting-older prblem, howeverg

- autocorrect suggesting words that I've never typed before (I turned on autocorrect for this list item to make sure i gave it a fair shake; it didn't suggest anything crazy this time, but the number of times it has in the past has led me to turning it off, even after iOS 18 wherein the keyboard supposedly used a small language model to improve suggestions)

I also type longform on my phone sometimes; the keyboard makes this much more exhausting than it needs to be.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#349

Post by longfacehorrace »

srmatto wrote: post #174
DamnInteresting wrote: post #151

@ozzyphantom: You might consider being more specific about your grievances in the text of your countdown page. As it stands, it's a bit vague, describing the keyboard as "broken" and autocorrect as "nearly useless". Sure, the video you link to is more descriptive, but it's a lot to ask of a visitor to click through and watch a separate video. As for the underlying issue, I have experienced similar typing issues on my…

The recent changes to the iOS keyboard and text editing in general have been very counter productive for me as well. Tap to select doesn't really work the same way anymore and the logic of it isn't clear to me which makes it unpredictable. Typing accurately itself has gotten really difficult. I used to be a pretty quick typist on the iOS keyboard but now I find myself looking for my Mac to send a message from there o…

It's not just the keyboard. My iPhone 15 is often so unresponsive I am tapping twice as much.

Example but the issue not limited to web browsing; Safari will do nothing, I tap again, it does the thing, then it does the thing again due to the second tap. I have to tap back to get to where I really wanted to go.

Re: Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android

#350

Post by eptcyka »

Someone1234 wrote: post #219
nathantotten wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the wrong read on the “threat”. One user going out of their way to spent time writing this post is a canary in the coal mine. Most users never give feedback, they just churn. This is the same reason your toothpaste has a phone number on the back - that one random person who cares deeply calls the number and provides invaluable feedback on the product. It’s not about the one person, it’s about that per…

Exactly! The fact that this has 300+ votes and is on HN's front page (and is just CONSTANTLY brought up on Reddit), should really tell you how fed up people are with the iOS keyboard experience. I legit feel like Apple should actually make a public statement like "we hear you, we're working on it!" because it is actually bad PR at this point.

I feel like the people who could move the needle don’t actually type on their iPhones, they pay someone to do that.
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