My technical meanderings and other nonsense. Published since 2002. No, really. I'm *that* internet-old. I remember the days of One thing I do not get about the iPhone touch-screen keyboard is that it always shows upper-case letters, even when I do not have caps-lock pressed:
Why not show me lower-case letters when caps-lock is off?
This is not a major deal, but sometimes I want to see what the lower-case letter looks like, while considering things like aesthetics and legibility.
That’s an interesting note, Matt. Don’t all keyboards show just uppercase letters?
Still, since the iPhone’s keyboard is software based, it’s totally possible to switch back and forth.
I wonder how it’d impact usability and typing-speed to have the letters change back and forth.
Caps-lock functions like more like Shift in that it’s only active for one character (though I think there’s a setting somewhere for that). And even if you don’t use caps-lock, the letter immediately following punctuation is auto-capitalized. In this case, would you have the keyboard switch only to switch back immediately after the character is tapped?
Haha, yeah. I didn’t even think of that stuff. Good points. It would probably be really confusing if it kept switching from lower to upper case, and vice-versa, while typing.
But still, sometimes I just want to “see” the lower case character, you know? Even though I know what it looks like (I have a mental image of it), it reinforces it to see it.
On Android Phones, the letters change from lowercase to uppercase. Its not confusing, i even feel better with that and its one thing i miss on the iPhone.
ShowCase from Cydia fixes it. :)
I agree. Showing lowercase is less confusing when you are trying to type as you know what the letter will look like on the screen as you type. Just having uppercase means having to look to confirm that you didn’t trigger capslock by accident. Its just simple aesthetics.
I also use Showcase (jailbreak app via Cydia) since Apple neglected to implement this basic, common-sense feature. Once you see the no-brainer superiority of Showcase you’ll wonder why Apple chose to be so half-assed with the iPhone keyboard. Honestly, without jailbreak apps such as Showcase I’d be using another brand of smartphone.
Inability of the iPhone to display lower-case letters is ridiculous and needs to be fixed (it was obviously left out by Apple intentionally). Because the keypad is on screen, it should display the lower-case characters. Android does this (basically any OS other than iOS does this).
Another glaring omission is the inability of the iPhone to connect to a Mac/iMac by bluetooth. Any other BT phone can do this. And another is the inability of the iPhone to accept file transfers between phones via BT (such as jpegs and contact files). Absolutely unacceptable. And again, all were intentional omissions by Apple (remember that the original iPhone 2g couldn’t even send an mms?)
What the iPhone does well it does beautifully. But what is doesn’t do is deliberate and inexcusable, at least regarding basic functions and uses.
especially when typing passwords that are ase sensitive this is EXTREMELY annoying. It should display lower case when typing lower case and upper case when typing upper case.
Also annoys me how you can’t hold a keydown to do alternate char, numbers or symbols.
Today I’ve been made the unwilling user of a work supplied iPhone 4 – I hate the always uppercase keyboard already. My trusty HTC Android (personal phone) is much better.
You buy Apple, and you have to do things the Apple way. Open Source rules…
(Don’t bother flaming. I’m just angry with work, and the phone just compounded it. Having said that, the Nokia E5 they gave me before was pretty pants too!)