Thanks for articulating this as I never understood why iOS suffers from this phenomenon. The only other place I've seen "typing too fast" result in garbled input is on Android based VoIP phone handsets, where if you try to "type" numbers too fast some of them get dropped - an amazing example of a device with many orders of magnitude more computing power than what it replaced still managing to be less performant.

Yes, this is why the default iPhone calculator app is completely useless.

These forced animations make tasks take the same amount of time regardless of how fast the hardware gets. I would love to be able to turn off all animations in iphone/ipad UIs.

Probably that's the reason there isn't one on iPad. Let that sink in. There's no calculator on a $1000+ 'Pro' device.

Let what sink in? There are plenty of better third party calculators available than the system calc on iPhone. So much of the angst and frustration comes from self-imposed rules on what is acceptable rather than calmly finding solutions.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the problem being described, but I just tried this and it is impossible for me to type so fast in the iphone calculator app that it misses inputs. The animation completes in the background but does not block anything.

If I type "3 + 6 + 9" as fast as I can, then hit "=", I only get 18 about half the time. Sometimes I get 12, sometimes 15, occasionally something else. This is with a iPhone 11 Pro on iOS 14.4.2. It's ridiculous. I always hear the same number of clicks, though.

I must have never run into this because I don't calculate fast enough, but I just tried it and confirmed it really happens.

Somehow got the "6" key is stuck lit up, and despite having definitely registered a tap, it wasn't included in the addition.

https://i.imgur.com/onkcv59.png

That is extremely strange. Weighing in from an iPhone XS here on the latest iOS, I cannot understand how it is humanly possible to type the numbers fast enough they aren't picked up. I just tried to do it, pressing 3+6+9= as fast as I could, and I could not manage to get it to not detect my taps. I wonder if you have a defective screen? I have no other explanation

Just tested this a few times on an XS Max 14.4.2 and got 18 every time.

Happens to me all the time, especially when repeating the same numbers.

> Yes, this is why the default iPhone calculator app is completely useless.

Well, it's already made pretty useless by not showing you what's it's calculating…

right. it's even more frustrating in light of the amazing advances in parallel processing for these devices over the years, which are essentially being ignored. at the very least, they could offload the animation to secondary threads/processes and unblock the i/o, which would allow the keypresses to be registered correctly even as you wait for the UI to catch up. instead, you're forced to wait for the animation to finish before registering the next input.

the computer should serve the whims of the user, not the other way around.

There used to be a jailbreak tweak called Accelerate that would speed up animations.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/11/12/accelerate/

I still use an iPhone 4S, and thanks to this tweak, I don't feel like my phone is any slower than newer models. Pity I can't browse half the web though (https died due to TLS).

You can. Settings -> Accessibility -> Motion -> Reduce Motion

Workaround. It should capture the touches and send it anyway. Like on macOS for example

That setting only changes the moving animations into fades but doesn't actually make anything faster.

Animations still take the same amount of time blocking interactivity.

It's not perfect though, and it only makes the OS marginally more snappy since it replaces many animations with equally slow fades.

"Pro" used to mean "professional" for Apple. Now it just means "expensive".

The iPad Pro is the only one with the ProMotion 120Hz display. The higher refresh rate is a big deal for pro users who want the pencil to be as low latency as possible.

It’s been at least 13 years that the meaning has changed. Since the introduction of the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

While I do feel they should've continued the plain old "MacBook" designation for the 13" beyond 2008, I've got to admit the 2009-2012 13" MBP was a solid workhorse for a moderately professional user.

In my experience with that whole line I really feel like only the 17" truly deserved the "pro" moniker since it got better options (processors, matte display) than the others.

My 2015 MBPs (I have 2) rock. Ports galore, too. Hence why I've never upgraded.

You've never upgraded because it has a non-upgradeable RAM and SSD. :-|

The SSD can be replaced. I loved my 2015 MBP to death, but the CPU has not aged well for heavyweight languages like C++ and Swift. Switched to an M1 Air with the same 1 TB of storage and 16 GB of RAM.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...

Are you sure it isn't that you are sliding your finger enough for iOS to think you are doing a "scroll gesture" instead of a click?

I hate iOS because the movement limit before a tap gets cancelled is too small for my tastes - simulating "virtual" clicks at 10px limit of motion worked better for my tastes using a browser. Maybe I am just lazy, maybe the capacitance or shape of my fingers is the problem, or maybe I have some motor issue. However I don't on Android devices. I have to allow myself time on iOS devices to make taps work reliably.

I notice it especially on the home screen of my iPad where lazy tapping an app won't open it... Grrrr - there is no other function to a "slight" scroll on the homescreen!

I have seen others have the same issue, so it isn't just me.

I don't swype, and I get my passcode wrong on iOS all the time. It doesn't register the first press if you do it too quickly.

yah that also happens to me sometimes too (and it's maddening), but that's definitely not it here. in these cases, the ui isn't responsive because of the animations.

Ohh, so that's why entering the passcode on my ipad feels so wonky.

I guess this is some kind of legacy thing because the first iphone wouldn't have been able to handle it? Because this seems like an exceptionally bad decision, unless absolutely necessary for some reason.

Must be deep-rooted like the UI render refresh issue on Android. No matter how fast the hardware of an android phone, it will always will be a bit clunky/laggy. "Android has a difficult time dealing with the touch interface because it handles rendering "on the main thread with normal priority," as opposed to iOS, which treats UI rendering with real-time priority." https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/12/07/former_google_int... Also try endlessly scrolling your photos on your iphone and on an android device - the difference in memory management will be apparent.

No matter how fast I type 3 + 6 + 9 into the stock Android calculator (on a Pixel 3a, 2 years old), I can't replicate keypresses getting ignored or laggy, input-blocking animations.

There's also zero lag scrolling through Google Photos. I don't have an iPhone to compare to, but I can't imagine how it could get any better.

If this is actually still a problem 10 years after the linked article was posted, I'd say the main problem is then instead the variety of processing in Android devices. I'd guess I'd see these issues on cheaper phones (maybe I can dig up one of my $79 burners to try with), but I doubt this problem exists on any phones of comparable pricing to iPhones.

Comparing iOS to "Android" might show some clunky/laggy UI in cheaper models, but comparing iOS to iPhone-priced Android phones most certainly won't (most of the time).

[*]: Though, obviously, I expect the sheer amount of variety in Android phones to still produce some expensive, low-power phones that would be an exception here.

From my primitive understanding, many of the iOS animations are basically pre-rendered and played at the right time to cover up any CPU-intensive activities that are happening under the hood. Rather than display a laggy, stuttering input box that captures every keypress (eventually), they've chosen to lock you out from input entirely, force you to sit back and watch the beautiful transition, then allow you to input when the device is fully ready to accept that input.

It's a frustrating design decision to me as well, maybe because I'd much rather prefer a barebones, stripped-down, streamlined experience, but I'm sure it's more psychologically soothing for more people when compared to the laggy experience on some competing devices.

yes, i've heard at least a variation of that explanation before, and it made sense for the first few iterations of idevices, but not so much anymore. apple devices are among the most powerful personal computers ever available. it really shouldn't be that way at this point.

iOS animations are not pre-rendered, and more and more they are even interruptible, even interactive. For example, if you start swiping the home screen you can catch the swipe at any point.

That is not necessarily evidence that the swiping animation is not pre-rendered. It just means that if it's pre-rendered, it can be slowed down, sped up and reversed based on the user's finger's motion.

I can tell you for certain that the OS swipe animations are not pre-rendered (you can easily tell, sometimes one or both of the views involved are animated for example), and I highly doubt anyone would do that. What would be the purpose? It's much more complex to handle, and there's no benefit.

Have never noticed this, but I have "Reduce Motion" enabled in Accessibility settings.

i've tested that setting at some point in the past and found it doesn't help in these cases. from what i remember, the UI still wastes the same amount of time either way.

> every single time i have to enter my passcode, it misses at least one if not two of my keypresses

Wow, I have the same trouble, but I thought it was because my iPhone was old and thus the screen was damaged.

well, to be fair, that could still be, but at least in my case, it's definitely because the default speed at which i enter my passcode is just a little too fast for the UI. i have an old iphone and an ipad pro, and it happens on both.

Thank you! I somehow manage to get my iPhone code wrong half the time. I'm glad it's not only me.