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Is it user error or is positioning the text cursor in iOS a nightmare? (Edit. Contains a great tip)
So, I’m just wondering whether I’m not using things correctly?
Here’s my experience. I use the Apple Pencil with my iPad and generally enter text using the slide input on the floating keyboard. Sometimes i want to go back and change a letter, add punctuation or add a space in the text. To do this, i tap on that position on the text to move the cursor and make that change. However, getting this to happen reliably is virtually impossible - the majority of the time it registers a tap on the text as the desire to select a complete word, not simply reposition the cursor.
I’m guessing the problem is that is just far too sensitive to even the slightest movement of the finger or stylus tip as you tap, causing it to register as a selection and not a tap? I’m trying to keep my taps as still as possible but it’s still incredibly unreliable and frustrating.
Or, is it just user error on my part? Any tips?
I don’t remember this being such a problem pre iOS 17 but maybe I’m wrong about that?
Comments
I usually just use the spacebar to place the cursor:
Definitely not your fault. I have to say, this IS a nightmare, and not just starting at iOS 17. For longer text work (like coding Mozaic scripts), I often use a Bluetooth keyboard. This is better, but still far from perfect: Trying again to position the cursor with the cursor keys often results in obscure blue frames appearing around UI elements instead of the cursor moving. And backspacing the cursor does not work until you actually have entered a character after positioning the cursor.
Sorry for the rant, but I totally understand you.
Woah, been on iOS over a decade and I never new this was a thing!
Great bloody tip sir! Works on my android on SwiftKey keyboard too, and never knew about it there til now either.
Navigating text seems more of a nightmare in some places than others too. For example, Youtube comments section. I also find that sometimes it seems large chunks of text behave differently from small ones. It also really frustrates me that Select All, or even just using the keyboard shortcut for that, does not always work everywhere. Maybe these limitations are imposed by various websites, apps etc, and it's nothing to do with Apple. I have no idea. I just know that many things that should be extemely simple are in fact a nightmare, or at least a pain in the arse.
I use the Touch , Hold and drag from this video. It very easy.
The PITA in these cases has a name. It's called Javascript. Javascript is used in many and often useful ways to improve the user experience on a website. However, sites like Facebook or YouTube are overloaded with Javascript. They want to monitor you, and that even includes every mouse or cursor movement. You stop scrolling for less than a second, and the script reports it back to their servers so that your potential interest in the content visible gets added to your profile. And this is just one example...
I've found that, if the keyboard is visible, the cursor seems to prefer certain positions: just before a word, before a punctuation character. If I hide the keyboard, I can position the cursor anywhere with just a finger tap.
@richardyot, thank you so much for the brilliant tip, this will save me so much frustration! Cheers.
Clearly I’m not alone in finding this annoying but that tip really makes things so much easier - I’ll change the thread title to let people know it’s in here!
Are you using finger or Apple Pencil? The pencil implementation may include different magic. For example, my finger tap never selects a word unless I double-tap. And with this browser window, the cursor vanishes when I hide the keyboard, so tap/drag is the only way to reach an arbitrary position.
wow, spacebar tip is great, thanks!
moreover, when holding Shift as well, you can select text this way.
(but the latter works only left to right, at least for european languages)
Yes, but what is it about there being Javascript that actually interferes with, for example, ability to 'select all' or to scroll properly?
What I said only applies to browsers and certain websites, not apps in general. And in the case of browsers, almost everything you can do in the browser (including selecting and scrolling) is exposed to the Javascript API. This means web programmers can write code that interfers with user actions. This of course depends on the browser you are using. There are more "privacy friendly" browsers available, that block certain code snippets.
hashtag metoo 😄 the very old among us will remember that when Steve Jobs was still around, text selection and cursor placement on iOS was perfect -- when you placed your finger anywhere, a magnifying glass would appear and you could precisely move the cursor or selection even with the coarsest of sausage fingers.
Unfortunately this was apparently not "clean" enough for the accountant now at the helm of Apple and it was thusly properly removed 🤷♂️, and replaced by one more totally obscure magical incantation of gestures that not even veteran iOS users know about (see earlier in this thread)
It’s definitely got worse with iOS 17, or they’ve changed a default setting, or whatever. I’ve been cursing it all week!
Idiotically, I knew the space bar trick but had completely forgotten it, so thank you for the reminder!
While we’re on the subject, does anyone know why iOS 17 keeps underlining words in blue? Often while I type, and then after a couple of words more it goes away. They aren’t spelling errors. I’d wondered if it was some grammar checker thing (I have bad memories of the one in MS Word that kept wanting me to change perfectly good English for no apparent reason). But it seems not, as it’s not suggesting anything.
Yes, it was so much easier back then. The spacebar method works, but it’s nowhere near as elegant.
@Gavinski, I think there are various desktop browser extensions that defang some of those user hostile Javascript shenanigans. (The deliberate blocking of right-clicking and selecting is particularly egregious.) I use StopTheMadness, which seems to work pretty well in re-enabling… sanity.
This underlining is not new with 17, but it may have become more intensive. Basically, those are items you could tap on and get an action. If it looks like a URL it may offer a browser; looks like a date, offer a new calendar event; looks like a name or email, how about contacts? The pattern recognition is pretty elementary, so it tends to highlight things that are def not dates, URLs, etc. Things that it thinks are wrong are underlined in red, not blue. My solution is to just ignore it.
When I long press (with finger) on text, I still get a magnifier and can scroll to precisely position the cursor. The magnifier is now an oval which allows seeing a few more letters than the old "magnifying glass" circle. (iPad 6, iPadOS 17.1.2)
@richardyot I love you man.
[You know, in a very manly and well-organized manner befitting a fellow who is simply grateful to another fellow for reducing to rubble one of the large-fingered anguishes of modern life etc. Carry on.]
I’m wondering if I had whatever it is turned off on my old iPad, and it’s turned itself on for the new one. I’ve yet to get it to suggest anything on tapping that isn’t just a bad spelling suggestion.
Whatever, I’ll take your advice and ignore it!
Right. You need to long press on an item to trigger the pop-up menu with choices. Not generally very useful.
Things have gotten MUCH worse in iOS 17 for me when it comes to this. Once it decides to select a word accidentally, it's almost impossible to move your cursor anywhere near that word again.
+1
One of the most annoying thing about iOS.
What makes it worse is that they keep tweaking it every year breaking our habits and arguably making it worse every time.
Not sure if I can come up with good enough reason for this latest select word thing…
But that’s apple… they know best what you need
Tyuut gftf gaff hhbv gygvnju hu y fugue gyy> @SevenSystems said:
You can still use that method.
Totally... It's like the way they completely changed the layout in Books. It really just feels like change for the sake of it, at times, and sometimes those changes really don't feel like improvements but more like poor choices.