Arrow keys anyone???

Several users have remarked "why, with a touchscreen, do we need arrow keys?" Well, let me tell you 2 good reasons. First, it would be MUCH easier to scroll over to the desired place in text, that perform the fiddley operation of locating the cursor accurately by touch. Second, lines of text are often located in tiny fields, such that much of the text is located either to the L or R of the window! How do we reach that text w/o arrow keys?

We really DO need arrow keys, in many circumstances. I think Apple REALLY screwed up to leave them out. As far as I can tell, this is one of the very WORST bungles Apple has made with its touch screen devices.

Apple, when do we get a fix?

I frequently EDIT my texts, which commonly extent beyond the limited size of many fields. Am I overlooking something? If the text I want to edit is to the L or R, or below (or conceivably above) the field, how do I reach it without arrow keys? An URL, which often extends far to the R of the field, is a good example. If I need to edit it, HOW do I reach those parts? There are numerous other cases.

Apple TOTALLY screwed up with this one, as far as I can tell.

Because frequently text extends beyond the limited size of the field. How does one reach those parts w/o arrow keys?

Yankee3 wrote:

Because frequently text extends beyond the limited size of the field. How does one reach those parts w/o arrow keys?

Place two fingers together on the screen and you can scroll within a text box.

It is the reason i hate my ipad. People say they like apple because it thinks like they do. Well, i hate apple becuz they force you to work likey want you to. I dont want to touch the screen while im typing to do what a key should do. Creative thoughts come fast and go faster. Screwing around with a magnifying glass to make a change mid sentence is absoultely frustrating and stupid. Im already typing, why do i need to shift gears to go back two words without deleting the whole word using the backspace key or having to touch the screen away from the keyboard.

Next thing you know apple will remove the backspace key. They already did away with the delete key. Then whats next, the enter key. Next thing you know theyll remove every letter but a p l & e.

If you hate your iPad why are you keeping it. Sell it and buy something that fulfills your requirement.

You will get a fix when **** freezes over.

Hi Anil -- Your comments are not really constructive, but since you asked, I love my iPad and to get rid of it over an arrow key seems like a silly suggestion, don't you think? This is a small but important fix that we're trying to figure out, and sometimes it just helps to get the stress out and gripe a little about incompetent designs.

Of course I should note that I won my iPad, so it was basically free (of course I spent a ton on apps already, and paid an extra $100 for more memory). I think companies other than Apple will be (and are) coming out with better, less expensive products. I never tell my friends that paying full price for an iPad is worth it. It really isn't. So you are correct in suggesting that there are products out there that would better fulfill our needs, I couldn't agree more.

I'm glad you are brave enough to say that in this forum. I hate my iPad, too. I can't stand that I can't do a "select all" to choose a whole bunch of photoes, for example, and that I can't freaking delete any of the thousands of photos that were automatically added when I hooked the iPad up to my computer. Yeah, I know there's some process to re-sync the iPad up to the computer to delete the pictures, but it seems like a pain. They obviously limited the functionality of the iPad so it woudn't replace actual computers & people would still buy both. It's useless to me for anything other than playing Angry Birds.

I plan to give my iPad to my son & buy an actual laptop. I still love Apple computers, but I've had it with the iPad.

To select photos, go to Photos, then click you album or camera roll, then click the top right icon. You can now select multiple photos and press delete to remove. To select multiple quickly, press one photo then drag your finger along the others, then lift finger and click delete. This will enable you to do 35 at a time. It's not select all, but should help.

Geez Julian how much is Apple paying you? So touchy on any criticism or jokes so obviously we need to talk to you line by line like a Mac. Take the general point instead of haggling their syntax. The last comment was spot on about the "honesty" of claiming the zoom/touch option goes anywhere close to adequately moving the cursor or justifying the lack of arrows. The functionality is severely hampered by this lack of arrows FOR A LARGE NUMBER OF APPLES CUSTOMERS. Maybe not you but that doesn't make my or all these others people's problems less valid or make us pathetic people as you imply repeatedly. More I use the iPad I understand the brilliance of it but also the consistent failure of Apple to add options for people to have THEIR IPAD (not yours or even standard) but options to tweak the functionality (I mean two extra keys oh come on). Remember we all paid lots for our iPad too.

If you write lots and use the iPad for one part of your research or drafting, it's infuriating the "touch" you so worship, CONSISTENTLY fails to put cursor in right place. You obviously don't write lots & can't bear that anyone else would dare question Apple. Add in their Dominator-spellcheck that constantly needs backspace or zooming to correct single letters & it's a massive let-down. Its clumsy, slow & totally "un-intuitive" (that word apple so love to use to describe themselves). I often end up backspacing a whole word to correct one letter and its faster than your fabled tap-zoom-zoom rubbish. This is a great example of Apple just "knowing better than their customers": it will continue to hold them back and make their gadgets just handy additional tools with narrow use silos rather than genuine replacement computers.

As for your attitude, simple lack of civil discussion, inability to listen without pretext or to understanding other people's perspectives and lived experience, get over yourself!! Maybe have a break from Apple propaganda cos it's clearly clouding your mind!

thejet909 wrote:

Geez Julian how much is Apple paying you?

You realize you're responding to a post made almost a year ago?

If it weren't for the lack of arrow keys I would love my ipad. As is, until Apple gives me arrow keys (which they never will), I will not purchase another Apple product. If my ipad has taught me anything, it is that Apple doesn't suck any less than Microsoft, it just ***** differently.

Well, now this is interesting... I was just browsing using Photon instead of Safari (I usually switch to Photon when I want to view a Flash video) and lo and behold, arrow keys in a strip added to the top of the keyboard (also tab, esc and del) seems pretty simple! However, it is only there when Flash streaming is enabled. Bizzare.

Indeed interesting. Unfortunately, there's no setting in Photon to enable the use of this keyboard for non-Flash-translated pages.

You could write to the devs to enable it? Of course, it'll only work in Photon but if you navigate to a page with a huge input textarea, you could use it as a note-taker text editor, just pasting the edited text from there to your target app. (Another option is going for the already-mentioned, still free Arrow Note, of course.)

Back to the subject: iOS does support cursor navigation Mac-like. Actually, the shortcuts (line begin/end, next/prev word etc.) on the Apple Wireless Keyboard work in exactly the same way when connected to an iDevice than with Macs.

One can only hope Apple do implement something like the one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4lcypMvv1Y , originally mentioned by Apple. It'll REALLY help text editing, making it much faster and more productive.