Select all always appears if you have no text selected and never appears if you have some text selected. Insane UI decision by apple but that's how it is.
It honestly doesn't surprise me. Apple is not some bastion of good design. They are mediocre at best, always have been.
It was pretty hilarious to me that for so many years the keyboard on iOS only had CAPITAL letters. No matter the state of the shift key, the letters on the keyboard just stayed the same. After many years they finally figured it out, but it's one example of many about how Apple just doesn't have the great UX people claim they do.
In editable text fields you can tap a word a few times and it'll select the whole paragraph, if that's any help.
What drives me insane though, is double tapping a word is supposed to select that word. But I think starting in iOS 18 it started selecting the word and a random amount of surrounding words, but only about half the time. I couldn't tell you what it could possibly be trying to do but it's maddening.
It’s using AI to try and determine if it’s a proper noun or other scenario where multiple words are really one semantic term. Except it’s really really bad at it and it’s almost never the behavior I want, but there’s no way to turn it off. (I vaguely remember there was a WWDC talk sometime a couple years ago where they went into how this works)
Just keeping my finger on the word works for me every time to select it. Double tap works only works in the edit fields. Also works reliable for me here in the hacker news post editor, as long as I do it in the middle of the word.
It's still there, it's just difficult to know when it will appear. Sometimes it takes one more tap than expected, or sometimes one must deselect a word and tap again, or change focus away and back again. Very sloppy UI.
My favorite ( /s) IOS hassle - aside from running around on 12% battery at all times, didn’t I buy a pro max for the extended capacity ? -
… is not being able to paste into an empty box unless I type a letter there and select it/clobber it/overwrite it
And I just LOOOOOVE not being able to tap a URL in safari and get to the end of it to add parameters or change a path anymore…
Just gave my MacBook that hasn’t been turned on in months away(i haaaaate Tahoe) and been using GrapheneOS on a pixel 7a.
so far I’m not in love with it but I’m getting used to it and starting to like downloading apps anonymously (if I name the app, I’ll probably get scolded) anyway this might be the end of the line for me and Apple.
Select all always appears if you have no text selected and never appears if you have some text selected. Insane UI decision by apple but that's how it is.
Which means you can't select all on text which isn't editable - insane!
I have a JavaScript share sheet shortcut that forces a select all on any page. Really useful.
Something like this:
var result = [];
body = document.body;
sel = window.getSelection(); range = document.createRange(); range.selectNodeContents(body); sel.removeAllRanges(); sel.addRange(range);
selString = sel.toString();
// Call completion to finish completion(selString);
It honestly doesn't surprise me. Apple is not some bastion of good design. They are mediocre at best, always have been.
It was pretty hilarious to me that for so many years the keyboard on iOS only had CAPITAL letters. No matter the state of the shift key, the letters on the keyboard just stayed the same. After many years they finally figured it out, but it's one example of many about how Apple just doesn't have the great UX people claim they do.
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In editable text fields you can tap a word a few times and it'll select the whole paragraph, if that's any help.
What drives me insane though, is double tapping a word is supposed to select that word. But I think starting in iOS 18 it started selecting the word and a random amount of surrounding words, but only about half the time. I couldn't tell you what it could possibly be trying to do but it's maddening.
It’s using AI to try and determine if it’s a proper noun or other scenario where multiple words are really one semantic term. Except it’s really really bad at it and it’s almost never the behavior I want, but there’s no way to turn it off. (I vaguely remember there was a WWDC talk sometime a couple years ago where they went into how this works)
3 replies →
Just keeping my finger on the word works for me every time to select it. Double tap works only works in the edit fields. Also works reliable for me here in the hacker news post editor, as long as I do it in the middle of the word.
It's still there, it's just difficult to know when it will appear. Sometimes it takes one more tap than expected, or sometimes one must deselect a word and tap again, or change focus away and back again. Very sloppy UI.
Yeah, it is still there, and there is a pretty clear cut logic for when it will appear.
If you tap while a word is selected, it won’t appear. If you tap on the cursor while a word isn’t selected, it will appear.
If by "clear cut logic" you mean a consistent process, then sure. But if you mean intuitive, I must disagree.
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My favorite ( /s) IOS hassle - aside from running around on 12% battery at all times, didn’t I buy a pro max for the extended capacity ? -
… is not being able to paste into an empty box unless I type a letter there and select it/clobber it/overwrite it
And I just LOOOOOVE not being able to tap a URL in safari and get to the end of it to add parameters or change a path anymore…
Just gave my MacBook that hasn’t been turned on in months away(i haaaaate Tahoe) and been using GrapheneOS on a pixel 7a.
so far I’m not in love with it but I’m getting used to it and starting to like downloading apps anonymously (if I name the app, I’ll probably get scolded) anyway this might be the end of the line for me and Apple.
They're a modern tech company. They need to changes things every so often no matter what downsides come with the change.
YES. WHY?! GOD WHY!?!!?!?!?! I'M GOING INSANE!!