[derefr]

But formatting already-typed text on iOS is incredibly fiddly (as you have to select a text span first, and iOS fights you every step of the way when you do this — especially if the span starts or stops at something iOS doesn't consider a "whole token.")

Meanwhile, inserting punctuation representing formatting into already-typed text, merely requires placing the insertion caret, which is much less fiddly.

[ninkendo]

I was just typing a reply to gush about how much I agree with you and how awful iOS text editing is (I’m on my iPhone at the moment) and decided to play with editing text to get some example complaints, when I had an epiphany:

iOS lets you double tap to start a text selection now. I don’t know when this started. I’m 99% sure I used to long-press to start a text selection, and that it would start highlighting the word under the little preview bubble. My muscle memory is still to do this when I want to highlight text; it just never works and I always get frustrated.

Maybe if I start remembering to double tap to highlight text, the text editing experience might actually start to be passable? :shrug:

(Yes, I know about long pressing the keyboard to use it as a trackpad. I do that most of the time, but it’s still fiddly, it very very often misinterprets a tap and starts text selection wildly off from where I wanted it to, and the only fix is to tap around in the text area.)

[eviks]

How can you be 99% sure when long press in *edited text* like when writing notes doesn't select, but instead moves the caret with a magnifying glass?

[ninkendo]

I said I was 99% sure it used to work that way.

But yes, you’re right about editable text being the difference: my memory of long pressing to highlight/select is exactly how text selection works for noneditable text, like in regular web sites in safari.

That’s the big inconsistency, and why I’m always frustrated by iOS text editing. Long pressing normal text highlights it, but long pressing editable text does not.

So it’s not that they changed something, it’s that the behavior is different for editable vs noneditable text, and my brain keeps doing the wrong one. Maybe now that I know about double tapping my brain can finally have a complete picture of the behavior split and I can stop fucking it up each time.

(Although I’m still pretty certain that doing a brief long press, but not long enough for the magnifying glass to show up, used to select a word of text. I can’t prove this though. Maybe I’m remembering the Force Touch days when you used to be able to do a Force Touch while long pressing to expand selection. That would make sense with the timeline.)

[eviks]

hm, here is the original iphone user guide for ios 3.1

> When you’re typing, you canalso double-tap to select a word. In read-only documents, such as webpages, or email or text messages you’ve received, touch and hold to select a word.

Also, double tapping selects by words in editable notes vs by letter in read-only, so the OS will continue to fight you feeble attempts at trying to have a consistent experience!

[int_19h]

I also remember the same thing as GP, and I believe I got it from the very first iPad.

[al_borland]

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it feels like it’s gotten more fiddly with time. Either that or I notice it more, because I’m using the thing more as time goes on.

I can’t understand people who use an iPad full time. My dad does this and I don’t know how he does drive himself mad with all the taps required to do basic things.

[eviks]

> iOS fights you every step of the way when you do this

oh, indeed, that's true even for simple movements: you tap somewhere, the cursors jumps there momentarily and then jumps back. You tap again, same thing. So the system knows what you want, but just "competently" engineered in a way to ignore you...