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Why does this not mention long press on the spacebar on ios? It largely solves this problem. Long press on spacebar, keep it down and move around to move the

Why does this not mention long press on the spacebar on ios? It largely solves this problem. Long press on spacebar, keep it down and move around to move the cursor. While dragging tap with a second finger to start selection mode.

spiderfarmer 3y ago
Problem is that that feature is not very discoverable. But I agree. The author seems very Android focused because most issues don’t really exist for iOS users once you know how it works.
- LinAGKar 3y ago
  Gboard has the spacebar drag too, though not the tap to select.
  - codeptualize 3y ago
    Cool! wasn't aware. Then it is even more relevant for the article to cover this.
- jzb 3y ago
  It's not discoverable. I learned about it through some "things you should know about iOS" listicle or something. Once I picked it up, I've used it a lot. I loathe when apps interrupt usage to say "did you know you can?" but... this is one of those things where Apple should point the feature out on upgrade, or something.
- codeptualize 3y ago
  Very true, I think that might be on purpose (it's an interesting topic https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ui-accelerators/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ui-accelerators/). Do agree that this one is too hard to discover, Apple doesn't really highlight it at all, while it's so incredibly useful. Luckily there are all the engagement farmers with their ios tips and tricks, maybe that is the official Apple strategy haha, and to be fair it kinda works as people do find out that way.
eastbound 3y ago
No, the force-touch spacebar is awful. It’s only a few characters wide, so you can’t edit large text in small input, such as… the URL, the most frequent usage of editing text on mobile. Along with tasks in the TODO app, typing a text message. It’s only awful BECAUSE Apple is persuaded that we have fat fingers. But I have kept a very old iPad from the pre-force space bar, and lightly touching any word would simply put the cursor between letters. Modern-day iOS selects the full word as if I had fat fingers.
- codeptualize 3y ago
  See https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WhLGEJ3sMNg https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WhLGEJ3sMNg You can drag around the whole screen btw. If you need to go further just hold your finger at the side of the screen and it will work as if you hold the arrow keys on a keyboard. I believe it also responds to velocity, so quick swipes will get you quite far. On iPad you can also do a two finger drag.
  - eastbound 3y ago
    That doesn’t answer the question. Since the space bar is at the bottom, I can’t navigate lower than the initial position of the cursor. Aaaaaand since the keyboard is not wide, I can’t go laterally to a portion of a URL that is far away. Just to prove it’s possible to do better: iOS used to have the two-finger drag (one force-press, one gently navigating wherever you want, like on the Touchpad) and it worked. I know something that works and something that doesn’t. iOS doesn’t.

spiderfarmer 3y ago

Problem is that that feature is not very discoverable. But I agree. The author seems very Android focused because most issues don’t really exist for iOS users once you know how it works.

LinAGKar 3y ago
Gboard has the spacebar drag too, though not the tap to select.
- codeptualize 3y ago
  Cool! wasn't aware. Then it is even more relevant for the article to cover this.
jzb 3y ago
It's not discoverable. I learned about it through some "things you should know about iOS" listicle or something. Once I picked it up, I've used it a lot. I loathe when apps interrupt usage to say "did you know you can?" but... this is one of those things where Apple should point the feature out on upgrade, or something.
codeptualize 3y ago
Very true, I think that might be on purpose (it's an interesting topic https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ui-accelerators/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ui-accelerators/). Do agree that this one is too hard to discover, Apple doesn't really highlight it at all, while it's so incredibly useful. Luckily there are all the engagement farmers with their ios tips and tricks, maybe that is the official Apple strategy haha, and to be fair it kinda works as people do find out that way.

eastbound 3y ago

No, the force-touch spacebar is awful. It’s only a few characters wide, so you can’t edit large text in small input, such as… the URL, the most frequent usage of editing text on mobile. Along with tasks in the TODO app, typing a text message. It’s only awful BECAUSE Apple is persuaded that we have fat fingers. But I have kept a very old iPad from the pre-force space bar, and lightly touching any word would simply put the cursor between letters. Modern-day iOS selects the full word as if I had fat fingers.

codeptualize 3y ago
See https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WhLGEJ3sMNg https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WhLGEJ3sMNg You can drag around the whole screen btw. If you need to go further just hold your finger at the side of the screen and it will work as if you hold the arrow keys on a keyboard. I believe it also responds to velocity, so quick swipes will get you quite far. On iPad you can also do a two finger drag.
- eastbound 3y ago
  That doesn’t answer the question. Since the space bar is at the bottom, I can’t navigate lower than the initial position of the cursor. Aaaaaand since the keyboard is not wide, I can’t go laterally to a portion of a URL that is far away. Just to prove it’s possible to do better: iOS used to have the two-finger drag (one force-press, one gently navigating wherever you want, like on the Touchpad) and it worked. I know something that works and something that doesn’t. iOS doesn’t.