Text - ios 17 & 17.01 upgrades - cursor jumps around

Thanks 99luftballon for your post.

You are correct that you can now place the cursor in a long text by scrolling up and then touching where you want to start editing. What is still super annoying is that as soon as you touch the text scrolls to the bottom of the message so it appears like it’s still the same issue. However, as you reported, as soon as you start typing it does scroll to and add the new text where you touched to insert. Thank you!

But…. This is still a terrible user experience and you still can’t touch and drag to select a block of text in long messages.

This problem persisted with my iPhone 12Pro for nearly 4 months, but Apple seems to have FINALLY fixed this with my last iOS update or two. I’ve just upgraded to 17.3 today, 2/3/2024.

I also have reported it to Apple several times. It drives me crazy. I frequently have to send out long messages to several individuals and I sometimes need to tweak the message by changing “her” to “him” etc. Having to type the text in Notes and revise, then paste every message is very time consuming but it’s the only workaround I’ve come up with. Perhaps it’s not getting fixed because the Apple staff never make mistakes 🙀 

P.S. I don’t have this problem on my iPad using iPadOS 17+…🤨

I’m experiencing the exact same issue typically when using MESSAGES. It usually happens when I’m writing a long text and I need to change something at the top. No matter how many times I attempt to place the cursor next to the word I want to change it repeatedly moves to a random lower section of my message. It’s extremely frustrating. Started happening when I upgraded to iOS 17. I was hoping the latest version (iOS 17.0.3) would address it but the problem persists.

Thank you Ken Turner. That is much better. With GBoard I can touch to place the cursor easily in a long iMessage. The only thing that doesn't work very well is holding and dragging to move the cursor trackpad style. That still does funky jump around, but your suggestion is a huge help!

Cursor placement is excellent using GBoard. Only time will tell if it fixes the huge random jumps that happen periodically and the between line placement issue.

I have the same issue I think. It started as soon as I loaded iOS 17.0.1 to my iPhone.

If I have a word that I want to edit (change to another word by editing one or two letters), I normally place the cursor after the target letter, backspace, and type the new letter.

But as of iOS 17.0.1, this no longer works reliably. The cursor typically moves back to the end of the word. And it may take 4-6 tries before the cursor “sticks” where I want it. This is very frustrating. It feels like a “feature” that I should be able to turn off.

It happens most frequently on websites… such as the Wordle tool https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Word-Finder.htm. (No judgement please.😉)

Caused by the IOS17 update, I have the same issue. When proofreading and editing long texts, meaning texts that are larger to the point of running out of the text editors window, it is nearly impossible to place the cursor in the message text editor.

I wonder if this is happening on all models. I have an iPhone SE2020.

Either way. Apple needs to fix this issue please ASAP.

So far 17.0.3 has made no improvements for me.

Same here. Cursor acting very weird since iOS 17 upgrade. Placement is random; it would select entire words while I just want it to placed in the middle for instance.

It’s a real nightmare; Apple needs to fix this asap!

Like mentioned it is now ‘sort of’ fixed. You can put the cursor anywhere you want. The problem is that it is NOT blinking. So you would have to type something for the cursor to re-appear. Please see my previous post as well.

I’m seeing this in Notes, and iOS 17 is not my first experience of this, although previously only within Notes. I just got on with it before as a minor nuisance, but with iOS 17 it’s worse than ever.

I’m also now observing that on occasion, when trying to position the cursor to a point in the text in Notes, iPhone (12 pro) highlights text that will sit offset between lines and text, not even positioned accurately on any text almost like there is an invisible overlay that is shifted out of alignment with the underlying text below. Trying to then touch the cursor position results in a random leap anywhere within the Note making it difficult to find where the cursor went.

Periodically, text entry has a major lag as well.

All of this seems worst in longer notes.

Overall this is making Notes really not fun to use.

Regarding iOS update from September, and not being able to reset your cursor in text messages… If you press your finger into the spacebar without success, I have found that it just may correct this problem if you literally slide your finger over the text WITHOUT pressing on the spacebar, I have surprisingly actually been able to reset the cursor successfully several times now without pressing on the spacebar! I messed around and discovered this by accident. Until I do it again it’s very difficult to describe exactly what I did. I think when I found the spot, I wanted the cursor to be. I pressed my finger down, and it may have just moved the cursor to that spot. We all know that it does NOT work when you press the space bar down and slide your finger across the text while you are pressing on the spacebar.

Might be related. For me the cursor will go to one end or the other. But I can’t get it to stop at the letter I want to correct… except after many, many tries.

I also noticed that the “bubble” (where the word I’m editing appears) looks different, and that also happened as of the switch to 17.0 or 17.01… which is why I blame the iOS upgrade.

The cursor bounces to either the beginning or end of the word, but does not want to stay where I try to place it. When it finally does stick, I’ve no idea what I did differently to make it work.

This is happening to me on 17.0.3 in message app as well as certain social media platforms accessed through google chrome. Only my cursor is not appearing where I drag to make edits, it moves away and then types in another location from the cursor entirely. Resulting in a guessing game in trying to find the right spot way over there, to make letters appear here. If that makes sense. Also grabbing cursor and holding up at the top of the text bubble does not prompt a response to move further up to beginning of the message I’m typing or provide any slide bar on the right side.

This is probably the most annoying bug in the history of Apple. You place cursor into the text you want to continue typing, magnifying glass showing the exact location… once you release the cursor it jumps wherever it wants. It takes a number of times to get it to work but God forbid you need to change it again 😡