alt Hacker NewsFix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android
Comments
It's not so bad over here in android world. If you don't like the keyboard you can just pick a different keyboard.
Apple has become beholden to announcements. Work that someone can shove into a feature that someone else decides is flashy enough to maybe get mentioned on stage gets resourcing and support. Work that isn't going to show up in a Keynote deck gets ignored.
That means that all of the polish work is shoved to the bottom of the stack until it reaches sufficient critical mass that someone finally makes time for engineers to pick some of it back out.
That, I think, is the critical failure of modern Apple. The company used to understand that polish could be more important than something new and flashy, and they've forgotten that in favor of marketing and Liquid Glass.
The keyboard stuff is really embarrassing. I’ve definitely been making more mistakes in the last few years.
For what it’s worth, swipe to type works just fine on the native keyboard, for those who didn’t know.
Agree about many of the other bugs / issues.
I think it's hard for Apple to reproduce because maybe none of them are experiencing the issue? I have never seen issues with the keyboard, and I'm pretty pedantic about it.
If Apple is getting occasional feedback about a mysterious bug, but it's near impossible to reproduce, what can they do?
I'm one of the developers of Mister Keyboard. If you want, you can give it a try! Everything essential is completely free, maybe it works out for you.
My keyboard is currently behaving. For once. It's been useless roughly three times since the last major update.
Over the course of each year-long iOS version life, I've become used to it sucking for a bit, either at the beginning (with bug fixes improving things) or towards the end (where, I assume, accumulated learning diverges from clean slate behavior.)
I suspect that the keyboard team is pegged with using new features on the silicon (Neural processing in earlier processors, then Neural Engine with newer processors) and they're doing what they can when tasked with new code.
But man, iOS4 didn't have all that and the keyboard was GREAT.
I tried to call Tim Apple to complain about the shitty keyboard on my phone — here's what happened:
"caved to the blue bubble pressure"
As an Android user, I truly don't understand this "pressure". I exchange SMS/MMS with various users, some Android, some iPhone. I am in group chats with both Android and iPhone users. I feel there is no major issue. It's interoperable. We all see each other's emojis/photos/videos/etc. There are only minor technical rough edges: for example an iPhone's user emoji reaction sometimes (not always?) shows up as separate text instead of the emoji appended at the bottom of the text bubble... And I am pretty sure videos are sent in a lower quality. But is any of this really enough to cause a "blue bubble pressure"?
I asked ChatGPT to explain but only got this vague answer: "Group chats with a mix of iPhone and non-iPhone users can be less seamless (e.g., lower video quality, no read receipts, or issues with group chat features)."
I had to open my texts to check: I indeed have read receipts when texting Android users, but not iPhone users. And this is funny but up to this very second, I had never noticed this difference... because, at least to me, read receipts is such a minor feature that I rely on very infrequently.
This leaves me still as perplex: why the "blue bubble pressure"?
> But I came crawling back to iOS because I'm weak and the orange iPhone was pretty and the Pixel 10 was boring and I caved to the blue bubble pressure.
My Pixel 10 is in a pretty orange case. Furthermore, if I get sick of it, it's not too big of a deal to change. Maybe I'll even figure out how to 3d print one!
FWIW: Pretty much everyone keeps their phone in a case today. Seems to make a lot more sense to focus on the case instead of the aesthetics of the phone.
This is a brilliant, Love that timer, not sure why the exact time frame was picked though.
It makes me want to create a similar landing page for Apple to fix Spotlight Search. I remember when I used to be able to just find and launch apps on my Mac.
I thought it was just me… like maybe my hand eye coordination was failing as I aged or maybe my dexterity was decreasing. Its been driving me absolutely nuts since i upgraded my phone a few months ago.
We both know you're staying regardless
Just use Android (Google stock not Samsung). Come over, the water is great.
Yeah he's right - my Pixel 10 is not as sexy as an iPhone but not only is the keyboard great but the AI integration is first class citizen.
iOS will never have first class citizen AI even if Apple finally develop their own model because Apple doesn't control the user's data.
I'm still on iOS 16 (I don't use a smartphone anymore and my old iPhone 8 works fine for the handful of times I need one) and even I notice it, I'm constantly pressing one letter and it gives me another
Oh, that is happening a lot to me and I wasn’t sure if it was only me!
A lot, I mean, about 80% of my ”não” (I speak Portuguese) are becoming just ”na”. And about 50% of my ”mais” are becoming ”mas”.
“o” and “i” are next to each other at the top row, so I wondered if the keyboard got smaller and my thumb automatic moviment became discalibrated.
But… I started to often see ”na” where it should be ”não” in other people’s texts.
Turns out it is a bigger issue it seems
120 days and 2 years? Lame.. You might as well just use your iphone in the meantime.. Stupid to get a phone for 2 years just to buy an iphone again later on..
I've never figured out how to type a sentence into the Safari search without.every.word.ending.up.like.this
My wife, an archetypal normie iPhone user of 15 years, has recently switched to Pixel for this and many other small reasons. It's just crap software.
Several Redditors have observed that turning off swipe-to-type has improved keyboard accuracy. I tried this and confirmed that it makes a small difference.
Nevertheless, I shouldn't have to disable this (and AutoCorrect, as that has definitely gotten worse) on iOS, especially when Google's GBoard is as good as it is.
Anyone else remember the days when you switched to iOS for its legendary keyboard? I want those days back!
maybe it’s just some quirk of how my fingers work, but when typing with two hands, I constantly get the letter “n” where I want a space. Itngetsnquitenfrustrating and it’s really annoying to go back and correct, because none of the intermediate words got autocorrected either. It seems like a) such an easy thing to prevent, and b) such an easy thing to detect and fix after the fact.
Second most egregious issue is how every space becomes a period when typing in the Safari url/search bar. I’m using it for search 90% of the time, and directly entering URLs 10%, but Apple must think those proportions are flipped.
Free the space!
Finally - could we have a simple gesture that toggles words between lowercase, first letter capital, and all caps? Highlight a word and swipe up or something? So much needless input to make a word capitalized.
I'm thinking of switching to iPhone after always having and Android. All these negative posts are really making me reconsider though.
I have a personal Android but spend a lot of time on a work iPhone. I was not expecting the keyboard (and voice-to-text) to be such a poor experience on iOS. Selecting text and autocorrections are both a nightmare.
Didn’t you mean “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I’m leaving g iPhone”
I'm entertain by the potential meta in these kinds of posts. Apple does not care at all about the contents of the post (presently).
But, if this post goes viral, it will affect the stock price and Tim Cook will pay attention. It makes me brainstorm other "stock manipulation" schemes with the sole goal of improving product quality.
We all yearn for the BlackBerry. I wish we got a modern one with support for the popular messaging apps (WhatsApp, Slack, etc). I know there are some smartphones out there with physical keyboards that run Android, but they feel more like a prototype than a full product.
Autocorrect just cuts out for me pretty often, usually when I’m a couple sentences into a longer text entry. This is particularly annoying when using the Claude app or similar. The suggestion bar above the keyboard goes blank and I just stop getting any corrections.
It used to be better? I use android daily and was given an iPhone for work, and using it is incredibly painful because of the keyboard. I was wondering how people have been putting up with it for so long. When I've asked other long time iPhone users about it they just nodded along so I though it was a long running issue.
Fix your website before the day ends or I'm not upvoting
On the Apple TV interface on my Roku, I can't tell which movie thumbnail I'm on because their UI just slightly enlarges the image which I can't really make out from my couch.
I always wonder who makes these decisions and whether they fancy themselves a designer.
I used to think the android keyboard(s) were terrible when I switched over to iOS, but now after switching back to a android, it feels leagues ahead of iOS 26's kb
Post viable alternatives here and your thinking around why.
Being free to leave the iOS ecosystem is the biggest flex anyone can make to enforce beneficial change.
E.G. Signal is the iMessage killer.
What’s your answer around lockdown, security, updates, hardware, iCloud replacement, AirPods etc
I have recently switched from 7 Plus to 16e. Now I make typos all the time. I still do not know who I should blame primarily, my muscle memory or Apple.
Bitdefender flagged that website for me, but it does not give me any useful details as to what the reason might be...
Why don’t third party keyboards take advantage of this situation? Why hasn’t Google updated Gboard on the App store in years?
Android is the same. Grass isn't any greener over here. I miss T9.
It’s also reading your inner thoughts via neurallink
And no Colemak support. I bought an in iPad to try as a home assistant kiosk and found the keyboard layouts don't have colemak as an option.
For the people who wonder what this is about. You might want to take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksVvXONrIo
The lag in the latest update on my 13 mini is almost unbearable too. I'm typing, it lags out, it then adds a lot of letters at once and, as expected, they're incorrect. Getting very, very frustrating.
We live in time when instead of booking a ticket you have to create a landing page to draw developer’s attention to a quite irritating bug.
As an Android user of SwiftKey with swipe typing, can someone explain the whole iOS broken keyboard situation? I guess I literally don't understand what the issue is, is it not allowing people to type in the letters they press?
I was skeptical. I then recorded the screen of myself typing, using the iPhone's screen recorder itself, and it is happening with me. I thought I was the issue. Wow.
I saw the video and understand the problem but I cannot simulate it. The keyboard always works great for me. Could it be that this bug is related to AI? Or some language settings?
The issue is that the letter that pops may be replaced, if it later changes its mind. Eg if you hit U, get a U popup, and sofly release while moving into the target area for J. You get a J.
I’m glad this just isn’t me.
I’ve been noticing a slow decline in my iPhones ability to autocorrect or hit the key I wanted to hit (it’s already made two mistakes just typing this out).
I thought it was a “me” thing, and “there’s no way a feature like autocorrect or key sensing would regress”.
I was apparently wrong.
WOW I've spent years thinking that I suck at typing on phone screens, I never even considered that it might be the keyboard software is just shitty....
I wasn't aware it does it insidious. I always assumed I miss typed something, not that the phone itself was messing things up.
Just use Type Nine! https://www.typenineapp.com Write a comment if you want some free promo codes.