I wish I could take a peek into the brain of whoever came up with that idea -- ideally, after removing it with a large, sharp rock.
On the other hand, it's obvious that given a message like "My address is 123 Xyzzy Rd, come anytime," the user would only want to select a subset, not the entire message.
Right, it saves typing when using some of the words elsewhere, and or when there's something in the bubble like a URL or awkward Unicode character. Copying the text is much quicker than regenerating it from scratch—or it ought to be!
Also, with an address and or phone number it saves making copying errors (I regularly copy text this way).
Yeah, right. But it's not just confined to Android apps, for years selecting text with the mouse and copying from within Windows Firefox has been flaky, it can work but often it doesn't. If I want such copy to work for certain then I highlight the text and use Ctrl-c/v to finish the job.
Similarly, selecting some text such as part of a URL is nigh on impossible in Firefox (the URL becomes a single entity). Also, when selecting such text it's better approached starting after the text rather than before and working backwards—and even then it's best to start from a few words further on and discard the extra after the paste. Sometimes, with 'awkward' pages it's best to do a 'Select all' on Android or Ctrl-a elsewhere then paste into a text editor and fine tune one's selection from there.
It's ridiculous. I cannot understand why this hasn't been fixed, surely I'm not the only one who experiences these problems.
Because editing text on mobile is so tedious for all the reasons already outlined, this is basically the extent the of "editing" text that I do on my phone and it still drives me crazy! Stripping the UTM parameters from a url I've pasted into the address bar, pressing down, and watching the cursor sloooowwwwly move all the way to the end is excruciating. Likewise, the cursor often disappears on me as well.
> 4. UNDO, UBDO! I'm typing this into my browser's HN edit box! If I accidentally refresh the page before posting
Haha, I obsessively copy all if I'm writing > a couple sentences on HN on mobile; accidentally refreshing has wiped my text far too many times
Yeah, right. ...But unfortunately I think we're preaching to the converted. :-(
And a physical keyboard does not require you to be looking at it, just to use it.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k480-multi...
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k380-mac-m...
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-mechani...
At the time I bought my Bluetooth Armaggeddon keyboard (see link) a year or more ago I looked at the Logitech ones and decided on the former specifically because it was more compact and almost an ideal size to use with a smartphone although I wouldn't make that decision now for reasons stated.
Moreover, despite being a mechanical keyboard, my 'A' key has deteriorated to the point where I have to push hard (often I only notice after the speller picks up the missing 'A'). This is another reason not to recommended it. And to make matters worse the key is soldered to the board in an awkward way (I was planning on swapping it with a key that wasn't used as much but it was too much trouble). There are other reasons too including bad (buggy) software that drives key LEDs. All up, it was a bad choice.
This stuff is always changing so I'll do another survey, also I've had good results from Logitech in the past so they'll be high on the list.
BTW, at the time I bought the Mk-17 Am. I'd first done a bit of a survey and I noted several comments/reviews that lamented the lack of Bluetooth keyboards due to the fact that there was little demand for them. I suppose that makes sense with WiFi availability but it also indicates that few bother to use an external KB with their phones or tablets. Thus, despite editing text on a mobile being such a pain it seems few do anything about it.
Incidentally, the mouse I use with my phone is the Logitech dual wireless unifying/Bluetooth model M590.
https://nextrift.com/armaggeddon-mka-17-hands-on-surprisingl...
I absolutely agree, typing or editing text on a smartphone is just horrible. There are many times I've started to write an email or post to say HN and I've been so frustrated I've aborted the process and restarted it on my laptop. It's down outright infuriating I have to do this.
[I just hope someone of influence at Google reads these posts and acts accordingly. If people at Google don't understand then it's just another instance—like Microsoft the king of offenders—of where Big Tech won't fix the damn obvious (I wish someone would write a book about it and fully expose the problem).]
1. You mention the keyboard matter. I went to the trouble of buying a small Bluetooth keyboard to use with the phone to help with the problem and it was hopeless, for starters, it had no separate keypad and I couldn't use any of the multiple alternative ways of keying ALT-# etc.—to key in, say, a Unicode character. None of the known 'fixes' actually worked for some reason.
Question (to anyone): we have any amount of hardware available but no decent small Bluetooth keyboards—why on earth not!? There's precious few Bluetooth keyboards anyway let alone decent small ones for portable use or that are convenient to use with smartphones. Manufacturers where the hell are you?
2. The finger problem and selecting text. First, there's the selecting text problem. Either one's fingers are too big or selecting text is difficult because the resolution and or sensitivity of the screen is wrong and it cannot be adjusted. Yes, some phones have a 'glove' mode but it's nigh on useless. Why don't phones have a sensitivity control that makes selecting text with a finger much, much easier?
3. Along the same lines, selecting or editing, say, a URL from a browser address line is painful. When the URL text exceeds the screen width then trying to get to the end of the text is a damn awkward. More often than not either one can't, or the highlight comes on and soon as one tries to get the cursor back the URL disappears altogether. Getting the cursor into the correct position between the text and the GUI element is usually difficult, why doesn't Google allow some blank spaces here so it's easy to edit? Surely, it could be made so that tapping in this vicinity and sliding right would place the cursor at the end of the text without losing it? Editing here really does need fine tuning.
4. UNDO, UBDO! I'm typing this into my browser's HN edit box! If I accidentally refresh the page before posing (which is damn easy to do) then I will have lost everything and have to start over again. Why on earth hasn't the 'undo' problem been solved with browsers, especially so on smartphones? It was solved 30 years ago on wordprocessors so why not with browsers?
If I know I'm going to type some long text on my phone then I'll first do so in a text editor and save continually as I go then copy the finished text to the browser. I should NOT have to go to this amount of trouble, it's stupid and ridiculous that phone ergonomics aren't easier. (They say smartphone sales are slowing, well I'd suggest they'd quickly pick up again if Google fixed these important ergonomic issues.)
5. That raises the problem of where are 'undo' plugins for browsers? If browser manufacturers won't do 'undo' then why doesn't someone provide one (if ever a browser plugin was needed for a smartphone then this is it). BTW, there used to be an excellent plugin that did this for desktop Firefox called Lazarus but I haven't seen it for years. Lazarus not only did undos but also kept track of multiple edits—one could go back to any edit point even days or weks later and use or reuse it. Why are we now deprived of such a useful tool nowadays? There's no doubt computers are getting harder to use these days—not easier.
Right, I'm damn annoyed with the primitive smartphone environment I'm forced to use. It may have been OK 10 or more years ago but it's not OK nowadays. It's notable that with every new version of Android that Google adds junk I mostly don't need (and often useful features are removed that I do need and done on the pretext it's for security or such). It really is high time Google started to address these essential usability issues that everyone needs and wants.
This is such an issue one has to question what's going on at Google. Are people at Google incapable of entering more than one line of text into their phones at a single sitting? Can't they comprehend any concept longer than a single Twitter/X entry at a time? Given the neglect, one has to wonder.