Thursday, October 9, 2014

Schrödinger’s Shift Key

Allen Pike:

When the shift key is on, it blends in with the letter keys. When it’s off, it blends in with the function keys. Neither state sticks out enough to read as active, especially in a split second.

This would only be moderately annoying, except that iOS suddenly engages the shift key in certain circumstances. It’s usually convenient, but if you need to type apike is my username, I am from B.C. and live in Vancouver it’s crazy-making and requires good feedback about what’s happening.

John Gruber:

Single most surprising thing about iOS 8 to me is that Apple didn’t fix this.

I concur.

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Trivial compared to other cruft Apple have let through

Go to Settings>General>Accessibility>Increase Contrast
Turn on Reduce Transparency <- this one does the damage
Turn off Darken Colors
Turn off Reduce White Point
Go into Notes and try typing.

For me (iPad Air), the regular keys no longer highlight as you tap them. That's a big accessibility aid.

I reported this in multiple betas.

[…] It sounds like all the keys switching case at once is distracting. There’s a way to turn that off, but then you run into the old Shift key confusion. […]

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