Arrow keys anyone???

Gosh. There are some things you just don't expect to have to ask about. This would be like buying a new car and finding out that yes, there is an engine, but it is not a complete engine. It is missing the pistons. Furthermore, not only is it missing the pistons, you can't even add them. The Apple equivalent is 'Oh yes! It has a keyboard. However, it is just part of a keyboard.'

I'm not upset. I'm just dumbstruck! The touch screen technology Apple has developed is truly incredible. The machine is fast, crystal clear, and even somewhat intuitive even for Apple. But to suggest that I need to go buy an external keyboard so I can have arrow keys is just bs.

Why are you dumbstruck? Thirty seconds of typing on the keyboard in the Apple Store and you would have known there were no arrow keys. I didn't suggest you buy a BT keyboard thought the Zaggmate keyboard/case I have is very nice. Don't recall whether or not it has arrow keys.

There are some things you just don't expect to have to ask about.

Why? How many tablet computers have you bought before? Do you know everything about them?

Your car analogy is incredibly poor. An engine is useless without pistons. An iPad is not in any way useless without cursor keys since it has a touchscreen, and therefore a way to position the text input cursor.

I'm just dumbstruck!

Why? It's a "touch screen" device - the clue is in the name. You "touch" the "screen" to position the cursor.

There aren't any function keys, alt, ctrl, home, end, forward delete, escape or tab keys either. It doesn't have a regular computer keyboard as it isn't a regular computer. It is a touchscreen mobile device.

There also isn't a mouse for pointing at things on-scren either - did you notice that?

Hi Meg,

The Zagg BT Keyboard/Case for the iPad 2 does have arrow keys and they work great.

Why? It's a "touch screen" device - the clue is in the name. You "touch" the "screen" to position the cursor.

You obviously haven't tried the example I gave. Oh well. Nevermind.

And I'm dumbstruck because it is such a BASIC function of a keyboard. Makes me wonder why they didn't leave all the vowels off also. Actually, now that I think about it we probably won't need the vowels for too much longer.

You obviously haven't tried the example I gave.

I have no problems with positioning the cursor, and the more I use the device the less I have to position the cursor to correct errors.

And I'm dumbstruck because it is such a BASIC function of a keyboard.

Not of a touchscreen keyboard. Take a look around at other purely touchscreen devices.

Makes me wonder why they didn't leave all the vowels off also.

Yet another mind-numbingly bad analogy. Vowels are required to be able to type words. Cursor keys are not required on a touchscreen device, because you touch the screen.

Do you also think Apple should have incorporated on-screen buttons for "pinch to zoom"? Or scrollbars to allow scrolling the page? Or extra wide buttons so you can swipe left or right? You don't seem to have grasped the concept of a touchscreen at all.

Maybe you should just have bought a desktop computer, that has no touchscreen at all, and an extended keyboard with every key (needed or otherwise) on it? Maybe then you'd be happy.

Julian, your are obviously too dense to understand even the simplest points. I really didn't think I would have to dumb it down to a 3rd grade level to make my point. I'll try. Now pay attention this time.

Touching the screen is fine to get you CLOSE to where you want to be. If you think you can consistently position the cursor in the middle of a word that is on your screen at what, about 6 pts. or so, by using your fat fingers, you are less than honest to say the least. Now pay attention here. I said CONSISTENTLY. I did not say ONCE IN A WHILE. So when I do get close, it would be very helpful if I had another mechanism to move the cursor instead of repeatedly trying to touch the screen and get it in the correct place.

And by the way. I don't know what iPad you are using, but mine has scroll bars when it needs them. And some of the apps I have do have extra wide buttons. The vowel comment was a joke Julian.

Talk about mind numbing,

There seem to be only 3 static display keys on the standard text entry keyboard of the iPad. Because the arrow keys should always be available during text entry, the expectation would be that they should be static as well. I suspect one of the design goals of the iPad keyboard was to provide full size keys for the main keyboard. That would be my reasonable explanation for why the arrow keys are not present - a lack of space.

For folks that have obviously adapted to the current iPad text entry method and have answered tons and tons of questions here, hour in and hour out, I am surprised at some of the non-constructive replies to folks that have developed some level of physical keyboarding skills and are disappointed that those skills can not be used on their iPads. It seems part of the value of the user to user community is to pass along lessons learned and reasonable solutions and workarounds until Apple improves their devices, which they tend to do more often than not.

It never occurred to me someone would suggest that there be 8 text cursor position keys. I suspect that was a hard sell when displays had fixed sized character cells. I could see folks complaining about how up and down keys should work. If I were Apple, I would never implement software arrows keys even if there seems to be a status bar above the keyboard where they could live.

Unlike the original Mac OS, iOS does not have a desktop/office metaphor to fall back on for its mutli-gesture/tasking paradigm. Except for a 3 Stooges movie, where in the natural world would one expect performing the same gesture with 2 fingers vs. 1 finger would produce different results? Not everyone reads through the users guide before trying to use a new product and some folks don't have questions until they want to do something new with a device. I doubt there are many folks that bought their iPad in order to post to these forums. Maybe a light tap in the right direction...

The forward and back arrow keys are unambiguous text cursor control keys, usually.

And I have typed in enough stuff to where I do not a scroll bar indicator in this text box. And yes, I did use some of my new found skills to go back and make some corrections.

You are the one who's way too dense.

Touch and hold to position the cursor accurately and consistently... Geez!

That's nice. Obviously, they aren't of much interest to me as I've owned the case almost since it was released and couldnt recall. :-)

Best of luck.

5haun said it best: "The magnifying glass is a mouse replacement, but we all know that a mouse is not a full replacement for cursor keys, so why do people think the magnifying glass is?"

The arrows are not meant to replace the magnifying glass. They would simply make it easier when you have to move the cursor one or two places which I find myself needing all the time.

Optional arrow keys like in the iSSH app seems to me a really great compromise. The app developers have added an extra row of keys that include four arrow keys (and tab key) which can be hidden. I use my iPad in meetings to take notes and find it really slows me down to have to take my fingers off of the keyboard to reposition the cursor. Often I find myself backspacing and retyping text because it is just faster for me to do this. When I chat with other iPad owners the topic of missing arrow keys frequently comes up as a source of disappointment. This is an easy one for Apple to fix. I really hope that they take the time to listen to their users on this subject.

IrwinS wrote:

This is an easy one for Apple to fix. I really hope that they take the time to listen to their users on this subject.

Are you telling them what you want? We're all just your fellow users. Submit your feedback to Apple:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

"How can an arrow key be faster? Say I type something and the fascist iPad spell checker changes it to something else, and I want to delete a single character. I touch in the desired word and end up one character to the left of where I want, so what is quicker, zoom in, touch again, zoom out, and backspace, or just arrow key right and backspace. There is absolutely no way you can honestly think the zoom zoom option is better or faster.

PC, iOS 4, PCs"

This comment excactly nails the problem. You either need arrow keys or a forward delete to solve the problem of precision corrections.

The other problem is that users cannot always use the zoom in approach because not all Apple apps support it. Yes, contrary to what the fanatics claim, Apple's UI implementation is not consistent. For example, touch compose in Mail and try to zoom in. Also, even when you do zoom in within app that supports zoom, like Safari, you still have to touch and HOLD to reposition within a word, and that's A LOT slower than a tap on an arrow key. For the zoom in, touch, zoom out approach to work, all apps would have to support it, and the precision would have to auto-adjust depending on the zoom level.

Appl's UI decisions are often well thought out, but obviously NO ONE at Apple did any serious UI re-evaluation when they decided to use the same touch-oriented OS on a screen larger than the iPhone. Oops.