The spacebar thing has been there since 3D touch was still a thing… But yeah, agree, they should at least explain these neat little tricks in the Tips app instead of just showing off the obvious stuff.
Apple refused to support “long press” as a standard input model for years and years because the UX sucks and it still sucks today. There’s zero discoverability and the contextual nature of the input means every app (and different elements within the same app) all do something different with the input. Apple compromised with a standard context menu that pops up when you long press an element (e.g. the copy-paste menu), but when 3D touch was introduced iOS went full Android.
Why bother constraining actions to standard UX models when you can create nice, clean interfaces and hide functionality behind long-press inputs that the user will never know exist unless they read documentation (if it exists) or stumble upon it.
Apple really needs to communicate these kinds of shortcuts in a better way.
I literally learned in the last few years you could hold down the spacebar to move the cursor around way easier.
The spacebar thing has been there since 3D touch was still a thing… But yeah, agree, they should at least explain these neat little tricks in the Tips app instead of just showing off the obvious stuff.
The Tips app is actually really nice at communicating what changes in each iOS update!
3D Touch wasn’t restricted to the spacebar though. You could deep press and slide your cursor from anywhere on the keyboard and I miss that.
Same. I miss 3D touch as a whole, it was really neat
I still press down on the screen to move the cursor around. I haven’t had 3D Touch for years on my phone.
That’s how intuitive and effective it was as a feature.
Apple refused to support “long press” as a standard input model for years and years because the UX sucks and it still sucks today. There’s zero discoverability and the contextual nature of the input means every app (and different elements within the same app) all do something different with the input. Apple compromised with a standard context menu that pops up when you long press an element (e.g. the copy-paste menu), but when 3D touch was introduced iOS went full Android.
Why bother constraining actions to standard UX models when you can create nice, clean interfaces and hide functionality behind long-press inputs that the user will never know exist unless they read documentation (if it exists) or stumble upon it.
Whao!!! Hold up… Spacebar to move cursor… can’t believe I went through life without knowing this.