There was opportunity in iOS 13 to fix text input & selection when they added new features. Instead, in typical Apple fashion, they made it worse:
1. The loupe is gone. Can’t see where you’re placing the cursor now.
1. The loupe is gone. Can’t see where you’re placing the cursor now.
2. Instead of making the cursor snap to the precise position it would be when you move it around, it’s a floaty thing that you have to *hope* would go to the right place when you release. It doesn’t, of course.
3. The cursor is now a fiddly one that would grow/shrink in height AND shift up & down when you move across to another line. The ultra tall cursor makes it uncertain which line it’ll land on when you release it. When you release, it invariably lands on the wrong line.
4. The nanny snapping (e.g. to the front/back of words) has gotten even worse.
- You cannot drop the cursor between certain sequences of characters.
- Tapping in the middle of really long words would still frustratingly snap to the first/last character. Why?!
- You cannot drop the cursor between certain sequences of characters.
- Tapping in the middle of really long words would still frustratingly snap to the first/last character. Why?!
5. Replacing “press & hold to reposition the cursor” has messed up the muscle memory of millions of users. Now it’s another victim of Apple desperation to showcase Haptic Touch.
6. When tapping for the cut/copy/paste pop up, it randomly decides if it should appear.
6. When tapping for the cut/copy/paste pop up, it randomly decides if it should appear.
7. The cut/copy/paste pop up sometimes doesn’t show “paste” even though there’s something in the clipboard. Tap again & hope.
8. Highlighting of multi-line text is too sensitive. Shift the marker up/down too much and the page would aggressively scroll & select many lines.
8. Highlighting of multi-line text is too sensitive. Shift the marker up/down too much and the page would aggressively scroll & select many lines.
9. You still can’t double tap a URL and have it select correctly. (Gboard on Android does it right.)
10. Auto-capitalization insists on capitalizing corrections, even after tapping shift to not do it. It also insists on capitalizing letters in the middle of words.
10. Auto-capitalization insists on capitalizing corrections, even after tapping shift to not do it. It also insists on capitalizing letters in the middle of words.
11. Autocorrect has gotten even more drunk. Spurious corrections, designed to mess with you at every moment.
Good text input & manipulation is key on small devices. Apple is still failing at the basics.
Good text input & manipulation is key on small devices. Apple is still failing at the basics.
