Item — HN Reader

This is very interesting, and a really great concept, but I don't think a feature request 'bug report' is the best way to go about this, Apple are extremely unresponsive to feedback, even when you're reporting legitimate bugs.

A better thing to do would be to go out, make it, and get it on as many Android and jailbroken Apple devices as possible. Make it a 'must have' jailbreak app. It worked for notifications. If it's something that makes Android tablets easier to type on than the iPad that'll get their attention too.

3 comments

Android is already much easier to select text with. The arrow under the text that you drag is just so much easier than the magnifying glass that is just cumbersome and awkward to use.

iOS allows you to select text using markers that are dragged as well:. The blue markers you see in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko can be dragged to change the selection area.

The magnifying glass is used to set the exact cursor position, and can be invaluable when trying to position the cursor between similar looking letters on a mobile device.

Text editing and selection on my iPad is a pretty shitty experience compared to my Android v2.3 phone...

There's lots of web pages where it's impossible to select text (sometimes turning off JS helps) on the iPad but the phone does it fine.

In some HTML text boxes it's just impossible to edit anything.

Selecting characters within a word is painful, it's far easier on the phone as it has an optical cursor - later Android phones have dropped this so I wonder if they're painful too.

Just because they don't publicly respond doesn't mean filing the bug report is a bad thing. Increasing the number of reports causes the problem to receive more focus (and visibility) internally. That said, I don't necessarily think that's the most appropriate way to promote this idea.

I would like to try it myself on a device first.

I hope the developer is willing to either: a.) open source his demo so other devs can try it b.) publish the demo in the App Store (or Cydia if Apple says no)

It doesn't even have to go that far - build an editor à la ia Writer [1] or, if willing to dive deeper, an email client. This gives you protection over the intellectual property and acquisition for technology or aqui-hire potential.

[1] http://www.iawriter.com/