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How big is iPad keyboard compared to iPhone x2 x4??

B

bobright

macrumors 601
Original poster
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I am curious can you type using all your fingers as you would a real keyboard?

I am looking to purchase one but have not got my hands on one.
 
The iPad keyboard is in an uncanny valley between the iphone's thumbable size and a full size apple hardware keyboard.

I've gotten used to it and can type fairly well on it, but there is a learning/adjustment period.
It's just a fact of life with touchscreen keyboards as I've yet to find another software keyboard that behaves as well.

Initially, I found the vertical keyboard easier than the horizontal, but now the horizontal keyboard is easier.
 
The size and spacing of the keys are almost the same as on a physical keyboard, but you get no tactile feedback. Also, touching a key will press it, whereas on a physical keyboard, just touching a key won't do anything, you have to actually exert pressure. So these differences make typing on the on-screen keyboard quite a different experience, and as other posters have said, there's a learning curve. But most people I know manage to get a decent speed on it, though I'm sure few people achieve the same speed as on a physical keyboard.
 
Night Spring said:
The size and spacing of the keys are almost the same as on a physical keyboard, but you get no tactile feedback. Also, touching a key will press it, whereas on a physical keyboard, just touching a key won't do anything, you have to actually exert pressure. So these differences make typing on the on-screen keyboard quite a different experience, and as other posters have said, there's a learning curve. But most people I know manage to get a decent speed on it, though I'm sure few people achieve the same speed as on a physical keyboard.
Click to expand...

Agreed completely. You'll get used to it fairly quickly. Similar to the learning curve of the iPhone's keyboard.
 
It is possible to "touch type" or use all fingers on the iPad, and if you turn it horizontally, the keyboard isn't that much smaller than a full size computer keyboard.

But without the tactile feedback, it's just not the same. I've timed my typing speed on the iPad, and the best I've been able to do is roughly 30 wpm, which may not sound too bad, but normally I can type over 100 wpm.
 
I'm a decent typist, but I find the only way to type on a touch screen is to do the old two finger hunt n peck. You can't approach typing like you would on a physical keyboard.
 
BlindMellon said:
I'm a decent typist, but I find the only way to type on a touch screen is to do the old two finger hunt n peck. You can't approach typing like you would on a physical keyboard.
Click to expand...

On the iPhone I use two fingers to type, but on the iPad I can use several fingers to type provided I'm looking at the keyboard.
 
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Great info y'all are awesome

Can not wait to get iPad 2 I'll have one in 2 weeks tops 😀

actually may be longer depending on backorder 🙁
 
I've gotten pretty well adjusted to typing in portrait. It's all thumbs but it works well for me.

Typing in landscape is great. It's the same thing as a real keyboard basically, just without tactile feedback.
 
I don't *quite* touch type normally in landscape - I tend not to use my pinkies or thumbs at all. I think the pinkies are because you can't rest your fingers on the keys, you have to hover, so it's just easier to use the longer fingers for everything, and the thumbs are because on a normal keyboard I hit the space with both thumbs at once, but the iPad picks this up as two spaces so I just stopped using my thumbs altogether.

I made a blog post about three weeks after getting the iPad about my most common errors, and I will say that two months in I still have many of these problems regularly (especially missing the spacebar). But for the most part I'm impressed with the typing and autocorrect.
 
It is a learning curve but I can type a reasonable speed horizontally. Personally I find the vertical keyboard too small, and the iPad too big, too type effectively. Horizontally I can't quite touch type but I'm faster and more accurate than I am either vertically or on my iPhone.
 
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