Saturday, May 5, 2012

iPad Keyboard Prototype

When I first started using iOS’s on-screen keyboard, it was a revelation just how much I missed the arrow keys and modifiers (for moving by word or by line and changing the selection). Apple eventually added support for text selection and cut/copy/paste, with an interface that’s intuitive but very slow. Text entry and editing remain so unpleasant that I do them as little as possible, waiting until I’m back at the Mac and its real keyboard. Daniel Hooper created a demo showing how the iPad’s keyboard could be improved (via John Siracusa). His idea is to use the keyboard as a gesture area, swiping left and right to move the cursor or change the selection. This looks like a promising approach.

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[...] now supports swipe selection gestures, like the ones from Daniel Hooper’s prototype video. This feature is currently iPad-only, but the developer hopes to get it working on the iPhone in a [...]

[...] button makes it a little better, but I think Apple needs to come up with something a lot better. Gestures, cursor keys? I don’t [...]

[...] Apple took the time to get text selection and copy/paste right, the on-screen keyboard remains the most frustrating part of iOS for [...]

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