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Comment by bennyg | Hacker News Reader

3D touch on the keyboard to move the cursor around makes up for every grievance I ever had about it to begin with.

I'd much rather have arrow keys to move the cursor around. They're always in the same spot and you only need one finger to use them.

Unfortunately, if you replace the keyboard on iOS you lose the quick dictation key because Apple doesn't let the third party keyboard initiate dictation.

Speaking of dictation, Windows is finally going to bring a dictation key to their virtual keyboard this fall so I'll probably switch from iPad to Windows for my tablet needs. I really hate all of the web browsers on iOS and Android.

Apple put left and right arrow keys in the landscape mode of their default keyboard for iPhone+ models ― which you probably haven't heard off because it truly is as awful as that sounds. Yet another bullet point that Apple's UX design quality has taken a dive the past few years

That's correlation not causation; the iPads don't have 3D touch but still have cursor control in the default keyboard.

Indeed Apple tying 3D touch to cursor control on the iPhones makes me resent it more because they then removed the feature from the iPhones without 3D Touch.

>That's correlation not causation;

Or, more accurately, "that's orthogonal".

But the reason the iPads have it without 3D touch is because they have much larger screen estate (and also because they lack 3D touch).

I like that too, but how many users know about that? 0.5%? Is it obvious and intuitive?

How many computer users can operate a command line interface? It's not obvious or intuitive but obviously very powerful.

You really think the command line is of comparable complexity to simple text selection?

No, but but these are non-discoverable features, generally only used by enthusiastic users who have a deeper knowledge of the system they are using.

I would say that wanting to select text efficiently and effectively is not limited to enthusiasts. I get what you're saying, I just don't think it applies to a lot of the enigmatic UI/UX of post-Jobs (post-Forstall?) iOS.

Might not be entirely obvious and intuitive, but it's not required as well. I mean, iOS did without it for 10 years.

People complain about iOS not being for 'power users', but when they add features in like a secondary click or more fine-grained control, people complain about it not being obvious. How obvious is right clicking on a computer to bring up special features?

> How obvious is right clicking on a computer to bring up special features?

Well considering that most mice have 2 or 3 obvious physical buttons I would say the right-click on a mouse is pretty obvious. It has also be deeply ingrained in every Windows user since Windows 3.11 (maybe earlier?)

I would try spending time with an "average user". They do not use right click, nor keyboard shortcuts (which have also been around for ages). The average user is a basic user.

I don't know anyone who hasn't discovered that one

On my jailbroken SE, I can just drag my finger around the keyboard for that. No 3D touch needed.

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