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points by Someone1234 12 hours ago | 0 comments

And that's just the tip of the iceberg for the iOS Keyboard's issues. They've tried to fix it multiple times, and while it is undeniably better than its lowest point - it is still staggeringly worse than Google's native offering on the Pixel range. Swiping is just so painful, and Microsoft's Swiftkey keyboard is on life support.

Considering arguably the keyboard itself is one of the most common "touch surfaces" on iOS, the level of neglect and level of overall quality is staggering. There's some serious incentive problems at Apple if nobody is tasked with making one of the best digital keyboards in the world.

PS - Whoever came up with the concept, on swipe-style touch keyboards, of the "Tap Map"/Heatmap wherein keys visible location doesn't match their touch area - so that BY DESIGN it always provides an inconsistent user experience needs to be fired into the sun. You literally cannot disable it on most mobile keyboards. It is on iOS's native keyboard AND Microsoft's Swiftkey.

[–] noitpmeder 12 hours ago

This isn't a "bug" with the iOS keyboard, this is directed and intentional censorship.

[–] Someone1234 12 hours ago

Of course; but my point is just add it to the giant pile of problems with iOS's keyboard. Every part of it has bugs, broken stuff, or annoyances like this, it isn't fit for purpose, and needs significant work.

The fact Apple aren't embarrassed by the iOS keyboard is very surprising and disappointing.

[–] Henchman21 11 hours ago

They are, if I may borrow a phrase, "Too Big to Care".

[–] intrasight 4 hours ago

Yes, but they got that way by caring about the user experience.

[–] ftchd 9 hours ago

Anything can be censorship if you want it to, and then it means nothing.

Apple is free to make their product work however they want. They're not creating laws or public utilities.

[–] sli 8 hours ago

"Censorship" doesn't automatically imply "government censorship." This is absolutely Apple applying a chilling effect on its customers.

[–] dmix 8 hours ago

Lack of autocomplete doesn't mean you can't type something yourself and press enter.

That's different than youtube demonetizing or suspending you because you said some word in a video.

[–] preg_match 8 hours ago

There’s also levels to censorship, like the chilling effect the other commenter noted.

Apple, evidently, does not want you to say these things. They can’t outright ban phrases due to optics, so they do this instead.

[–] kayodelycaon 4 hours ago

It’s the other way around. Apple don’t want to suggest offensive phases and have it look like they wants you to say those things.

The middle ground here is to not suggest anything at all. Because they’re either pushing people to say something or preventing them from saying something.

The HN crowd forgets that average people don’t know how technology works. Everyone I know would see this as a good feature.

[–] al_borland 7 hours ago

I still think the original iPhone keyboard in 2007 was better than what we have now. It’s been downhill ever since iOS 7.

I used to tell people just type and trust it to work, it was great. Now, even when I type the right thing, the auto-complete will screw it up after the fact. I feel like I need to proofread everything. I wish we could go back to whatever setup they had 19 years ago.

[–] bbarn 6 hours ago

I'd argue iPhone got ahead of the game then just stopped getting at all better. Siri AI is straight garbage, they won't let the interface be anything but what they want it to be, and the app store lock in/lack of ad blockers on browsers has made it basically just a phone for me. I have no intention of upgrading beyond my 12, and when it finally dies, I'm probably moving back to some kind of android phone if there's not a viable open source model out there by then (viable for everything, banking, etc). I only moved to apple because the watch was leagues better at the time than samsung's offering, but now I can't even claim that (and quit wearing it years ago)

[–] Melatonic 3 hours ago

I'm surprised at this point they just don't pay google to license their keyboard

[–] AnotherGoodName 7 hours ago

The hilariops think is that the phome with the mosy terrible keytoard wants to add a tagline to every eamail which can only be read as am apology.

- Sent from my iPhone.

[–] talon8635 7 hours ago

In my experience it’s worse than it’s ever been in the 15 years I’ve been on iOS. It’s absolutely enraging to me. I’m too lazy and hate smart phones so much anyways that I am not investing mental cycles and emotion into switching. But it’s a disgrace how shitty it is.