They fixed the period/space bar issue in Safari!!! Woohoo!!!

[michaelmccain]

I heard it's fixed in iOS 8.3 beta 2. Can someone confirm this?

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Confirmed! https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1849330/

 

[ann713]

Wait, this was a bug? HAPPENS to me all the time. I thought I was accidentally tapping it with my big thumb. Thank goodness.

Edit: I see, they've made the space bar bigger!

 

[michaelmccain]

Yes. I guess it wasn't a bug. Just bad design. But they fixed it!!! : ).

 

[sunking101]

Excellent! That sucks so badly on previous versions of iOS8.

 

[taran420]

wow and here I kept blaming myself for typing like an idiot

 

[C DM]

Seems like when you have other keyboards and/or emoji enabled along with dictation there really isn't much more room to make the Go button smaller (and increase the spacebar) so I'm not sure it would have much of an effect in that configuration (which I'm sure a lot of people have).

 

[gordon1234]

wow and here I kept blaming myself for typing like an idiot

Well… technically the only issue here was a spacebar that was shorter than optimal. As long as you actually hit the bar and not the period, it worked fine. Really what they did was just try and make it more idiot-proof.

 

[sunking101]

On the 6+ especially, the stretch to hit the tiny space bar results in hitting.the.period.key.all.the.time.
How often do you need the period versus the space? It shouldn't be the 'go to' button. Terrible design and I'm so glad they've amended it.

 

[taran420]

Well… technically the only issue here was a spacebar that was shorter than optimal. As long as you actually hit the bar and not the period, it worked fine. Really what they did was just try and make it more idiot-proof.

i wonder if the older iOS had a bigger spacebar (I never paid attention). If it did (I am assuming it did) then it really comes down to what you get used to. I have been using iOS since 2008 and gotten used to a certain typing motion. Obviously them making a change to the layout shows that it was a problem for a lot of users. Really what they did was that they realized the new layout wasnt working and went back to the older one

 

[macduke]

i wonder if the older iOS had a bigger spacebar (I never paid attention).

Yes and no. Let me explain.

Prior to iOS 7 Safari didn't have a unified url/search bar. So there was never a space bar when entering addresses (because URLs don't support spaces unless you use %20 encoding), and when searching you didn't usually need to enter a period. So the space bar was wider before, and on the new version they cut off the right side of the spacebar and put a period key.

This is something I've never gotten used to since iOS 7. I still put periods in all the damn time. Luckily Google is usually smart enough to know what I mean. I even think that many other people do this because it auto-fills the results with periods between, haha.

This was a really poor design choice on Apple's part. What's even more ridiculous is that on my 6 Plus, they didn't even make the spacebar noticeably bigger. They just made everything bigger. Lame.

If iOS 9 literally just had bug/performance fixes and fixed the period key, I would be the happiest iOS user of all time.

 

[shenfrey]

There was no reason for the period key. We can access it the same way we always have, with the 123 key.

Thank goodness Apple have stopped pulling this ridiculous prank.

 

[C DM]

There was no reason for the period key. We can access it the same way we always have, with the 123 key.

Thank goodness Apple have stopped pulling this ridiculous prank.

That is a URL/address bar first, and a search bar second, at least by typical design, but could be treated 50/50, and given the prevalence of "dots" in URLs it's fairly appropriate to have it there, as they did before the search bar was integrated into the URL/address bar.

 

[shenfrey]

That is a URL/address bar first, and a search bar second, at least by typical design, but could be treated 50/50, and given the prevalence of "dots" in URLs it's fairly appropriate to have it there, as they did before the search bar was integrated into the URL/address bar.

Hmm, appropriate or not it wound up many people.

 

[sunking101]

That is a URL/address bar first, and a search bar second, at least by typical design, but could be treated 50/50, and given the prevalence of "dots" in URLs it's fairly appropriate to have it there, as they did before the search bar was integrated into the URL/address bar.

True but how many people spend the majority of their time typing in web addresses? Most people Google/Bing where they want to go and for me, most of my initial typing is a search phrase. The space bar trumps the period key 99% of the time for me.

 

[C DM]

True but how many people spend the majority of their time typing in web addresses? Most people Google/Bing where they want to go and for me, most of my initial typing is a search phrase. The space bar trumps the period key 99% of the time for me.

Not sure how many people type URLs, hard to say. Many people type them on desktop browsers, although many don't, the usage is likely somewhat different with mobile browsers, but I don't think it's one of those obvious things necessarily despite what it might seem like to some people based on their own use and perhaps the use they associated with various others.

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Hmm, appropriate or not it wound up many people.

Yes, the usability implementation should have been better from the beginning.

 

[Weaselboy]

[Mod Note]

Please continue the discussion on the existing news thread.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1855556/