Craig Federighi Explains How Scribble Feature in iPadOS 14 Was Developed

[thefourthpope]

Overall I love this feature but some pieces need to mature a bit.

On occasion the text entry box is exclusively at the bottom of the screen or remains too tiny. Hopefully they can come up with some sort of expansion / alt entry box solution.

The pop-up keyboard options aren’t seamless — I wish we could choose the default location.

Too frequently, Scribble will move the cursor while writing and insert new words in the middle of the sentence.

But, this has still been a net positive for my daily iPad use. Less substantial than the magic keyboard, but still an excellent upgrade

 

[subjonas]

Been wanting this from pretty much the beginning. This to me is the most natural way to input text for the tablet form factor. Can’t wait to start using it.
Writing on glass though is still the big downside. I hope they can figure out how to make it feel exactly like pencil on paper someday. Matte screen protectors only help somewhat.

 

[Jony Ive and Co.]

Why is Macrumors always a beat slower than 9to5Mac in reporting?🤔

This article appeared more than 24 hours earlier on 9to5Mac....

 

[Abazigal]

Everyday, thousands of MacBook screens are touched and people are bewildered that nothing happens. Touchscreens have been standard for over a decade now - it’s bizarre that there are computers costing thousands of dollars that don’t have touchscreens.

The fact that it’d be used so little didn’t stop Apple from including the touchbar - why on earth haven’t they made their products “Just Work” by including a touchscreen yet?

Seriously - have any kid who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

I have read and reread your rationale as to why Macs ought to have touchscreens and it seems like your argument boils down to "just because".

And honestly speaking, I haven't exactly seen touchscreen PCs take the world by storm either. Yes, they are there, and I suppose having a feature you hardly use is better than not having it, but it feels like this is there purely to tick off a checkbox, not so much because it legitimately improves the end user experience.

 

[MauiPa]

Great, now bring it to other languages than English and Chinese. I had to wait 5 years for QuickType in Dutch.

That sounds like an opportunity for you to create that in an app

 

[MauiPa]

Everyday, thousands of MacBook screens are touched and people are bewildered that nothing happens. Touchscreens have been standard for over a decade now - it’s bizarre that there are computers costing thousands of dollars that don’t have touchscreens.

The fact that it’d be used so little didn’t stop Apple from including the touchbar - why on earth haven’t they made their products “Just Work” by including a touchscreen yet?

Seriously - have any kid who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

Seriously, you reach across the keyboard to touch a screen (well I suppose someone does), as opposed to doing touch on the touchpad that is right there by your fingers already. This isn't windows, the touchpad is very touchy, works like touch only easier and without moving your hands across the screen. I personally tried using a tablet device as a laptop, was so annoyed by having to reach across the keyboard to touch the screen - I got a MBP instead.

Engineering is all about compromise. One thing about touchscreens is that they are generally of lesser quality for the same price, or way more expensive, and use a lot more battery. Maybe that is becoming moot now as 5nm technology and ARM is coming out with way better battery life. But it has not trickled into the reviews I've seen. I prefer a non-smudgy, wide color, sharp, bright screen over touch any day. And I never let children play with my computer - that is for cheap laptops or tablets.

So your point is taken, but I just happen to disagree with you

 

[tegranjeet]

Why is Macrumors always a beat slower than 9to5Mac in reporting?🤔

This article appeared more than 24 hours earlier on 9to5Mac....

glad the good folks here aren't working the weekend

9to5Mac is a vomit of a UI

Edit: to stay on topic. I found scribble to be problematic and turned it off quickly. pretty awesome tech though

 

[MauiPa]

a great feature
however
aapl should have came up with this years ago

​

I know right? Just like the holographic display. I can't wit for that. AAPL - you should have come out with this years ago!

 

[TVreporter]

My handwriting these days is pretty much scribbles. This app is a tech-miracle if it can decipher my chicken scratches.

 

[Elijen]

I alway try three times then revert to the traditional keyboard when iOS fails to recognize the word I typed. It definitelly needs more work.

 

[kazmac]

Okay, this almost makes me consider using Notes more often (stopped once the current features were locked into iCloud, which could = subscription).

Still want Apple to make a Surface Studio (if I could draw on my iMac screen and have the display on a floating hinge, yay!)🙂 Dreaming the good dream, while still using iPads. 😋

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Seriously, you reach across the keyboard to touch a screen (well I suppose someone does), as opposed to doing touch on the touchpad that is right there by your fingers already. This isn't windows, the touchpad is very touchy, works like touch only easier and without moving your hands across the screen. I personally tried using a tablet device as a laptop, was so annoyed by having to reach across the keyboard to touch the screen - I got a MBP instead.

Of course - I'd never propose ditching the trackpad on a laptop. The issue is, the trackpad isn't always in a convenient spot. When you're sitting at your laptop on a desk or table, sure, it's in a handy and natural spot. When you're relaxing on a couch reading an article or watching a video on your laptop, with the laptop on your lap, knees, or chest the screen is in a much more natural spot - the trackpad is in an awkward spot or at an awkward angle.

When somebody else is working at their laptop and you're pointing something out to them, the screen is in a much easier to touch spot than the trackpad. This is admittedly a much less common use-case than the one of using it on a couch that I detailed above.

 

[ghboard2010]

Hmmmmm. . .,
The screen shot shows Carmel. Could that be macOS 11.1?
Jus' wonderin'
Maybe, maybe not
we'll see

 

[travelsheep]

Remember, stroke order was invented by Apple, not by the Chinese in the Qin dynasty ;-)

who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

I doubt it. As much as I would love a MacBook Pro Convertible, I think Apple will continue to want to have the double sales MacBook Pro + iPad. That's why there's no SIM card going into the MacBook either.

 

[ChromeAce]

Why would.Craig be pretending this wasn’t developed 24 years ago for the Newton?

 

[ChromeAce]

Everyday, thousands of MacBook screens are touched and people are bewildered that nothing happens. Touchscreens have been standard for over a decade now - it’s bizarre that there are computers costing thousands of dollars that don’t have touchscreens.

The fact that it’d be used so little didn’t stop Apple from including the touchbar - why on earth haven’t they made their products “Just Work” by including a touchscreen yet?

Seriously - have any kid who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

A new, next-generation touch Mac is replacing ’s laptops. Not sure if you’ve noticed. It’s called an iPad. Or are you also looking to buy a horse with wheels on it?

 

[Anox]

It easy to say, you English speaking (and writing) people, but lack of Spanish, French, and other common languages makes it completely unusable.

And please, don't say it "recognize" Spanish with English keyboard. Not accents, not ñ and if there is a near misstyped in English language, it changes. For example, "culo" (bottom, butt), is converted in "cult".

I would hope that the feature get expanded, but it doesn’t make it completely unusable...

 

[Anox]

Everyday, thousands of MacBook screens are touched and people are bewildered that nothing happens. Touchscreens have been standard for over a decade now - it’s bizarre that there are computers costing thousands of dollars that don’t have touchscreens.

The fact that it’d be used so little didn’t stop Apple from including the touchbar - why on earth haven’t they made their products “Just Work” by including a touchscreen yet?

Seriously - have any kid who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

This is a very problematic way of looking at it,
Making things simple, isn’t necessarily making them the easiest way out

Mac’s are computers that in my opinion are not designed to compete with iPad or iPhone
In terms of how you use them rather what you can do on them

just because every other tech company decided touch should work on everything doesn’t make it good or true

traditional computers have a unique place even with the existence of tablets/smartphones and it should be respected with all its history and evolution,

I personally don’t hope for touch screen Macs the use case will be so specific that it will cause even more confusion then not, I hope that if they do go down that path it will be better thought out then just : touch screen Macs...

 

[Wahlstrm]

First I thought it was broken because it kept converting 90% of my words wrong, no matter how "nice" I wrote them..

Then scribbled something in English that I could hardly read myself and it worked like charm..

Guess it will be a few more years before this will be useful..

 

[AudiA4]

Newton technology all the way. I’ve been surprised they haven’t had it on iPhone and iPad since day one.

Agreed...I mean, this is nice, but nearly as revolutionary as Newton 2.0 handwriting recognition from basically 20 years ago (which worked remarkably well, given the hardware level at that time).

 

[rafark]

Thanks to Scribble and iPadOS 14, an iPad‌ can be used almost entirely with touch and tools

An iPad can be used entirely by just touching it, and it’s been possible since day 1 (2010).

 

[Pakaku]

Everyday, thousands of MacBook screens are touched and people are bewildered that nothing happens. Touchscreens have been standard for over a decade now - it’s bizarre that there are computers costing thousands of dollars that don’t have touchscreens.

The fact that it’d be used so little didn’t stop Apple from including the touchbar - why on earth haven’t they made their products “Just Work” by including a touchscreen yet?

Seriously - have any kid who hasn’t used a Mac before use a MacBook for a few hours. I guarantee they’ll touch the screen at least once and consider it broken when nothing happens. Literally every phone, tablet, and non-Apple-or-budget laptop has a touchscreen - it’s just a given that a MacBook should, too.

Whether or not it's actually a good feature, I always see the Touchbar concept as a good compromise between 1.) having a touch-senstitive screen somewhere, and 2.) sticking to an ergonomic laptop design

There's a concept called Gorrila Arm, and the Touchbar gets around that issue by keeping it in the range where you're typing anyways. Normally you don't hold a laptop by the screen, which you do with an iPad or iPhone, so it's less ergonomic to have it up there. Maybe it's okay for quick taps, but not to the full use of an iPad

 

[chiltonwebb3]

There was something you could write in Ink, something like "what is Rosetta" and it would give you some secret answer, which was the same secret answer it would give you on the Newton. That's how people knew Ink was just reused Newton code. But none of this is that complicated, I'm surprised it's taken them this long to give us back what we had on a device um... 25 years ago.

 

[slothinker]

Personally I didn't find this featured to work particularly well in terms of making a note or creating a checkbox. The recognition part is amazing, however.

I'm looking forward to the YouTube videos ... perhaps I'm just not doing it right.

 

[JohnStrass]

".....,you can use an ‌Apple Pencil‌ to write in any text field, and the written text is then converted to typed text.."

You mean like my Newton from 15 yers ago ???