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iPhone No Little Magnifying Glass/Focus Bubble? It Was Useful

J

Jamlaw123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 9, 2019
5
12
Is it me or has the little magnifying glass been removed when moving your cursor around on iPhone?

On this screen, I used to be able to press and hold the screen and the magnified view of the cursor would appear for me to drag it around

Appear to only be available when pressing and holing the space bar??

Annoying
 
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After updating to 13 both my wife's phone and mine no longer have the focus bubble that helped you place the focus under your finger. Now if you make a mistake an type a few words together you can select the whole group of letters but it's almost impossible to place the focus where you want it. Was there a technical reason why iOS had to give up the focus bubble?
 
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This is the only thing I’m unhappy about in iOS 13. It’s so much more difficult moving around the text cursor now. That focus bubble was one of my favorite things about iOS.
 
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duggram said:
After updating to 13 both my wife's phone and mine no longer have the focus bubble that helped you place the focus under your finger. Now if you make a mistake an type a few words together you can select the whole group of letters but it's almost impossible to place the focus where you want it. Was there a technical reason why iOS had to give up the focus bubble?
Click to expand...

hi
yes. i also liked that magnifying bubble.
i think it was replaced by the ability to position the cursor by long pressing (anywhere) on the keyboard to move the cursor quickly and precisely.
 
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From Apple:

Cursor navigation
Moving the cursor is even faster and more precise — just pick it up and drag it to where you want. It will automatically snap to lines and between words.
Click to expand...

It’s a little faster, isn’t it? I can’t exactly remember, but wasn’t there a slight delay when bringing up the old magnifying loupe?

I think it’s fine this way, but it may be somewhat harder to see.
 
sunapple said:
From Apple:



It’s a little faster, isn’t it? I can’t exactly remember, but wasn’t there a slight delay when bringing up the old magnifying loupe?

I think it’s fine this way, but it may be somewhat harder to see.
Click to expand...
I would agree with you if I could see through my finger tip.
[automerge]1570810591[/automerge]
niji said:
hi
yes. i also liked that magnifying bubble.
i think it was replaced by the ability to position the cursor by long pressing (anywhere) on the keyboard to move the cursor quickly and precisely.
Click to expand...
I'll look at the new swipe feature which I'm sure I'll never use. I'm just not that speedy.
 
Yeah that was much much better than the BS we have now.

I wonder if anyone actually used this cursor and said " Yeah this is much better option"

Or they just change it for the sake of a change in new iOS update.
 
Agh sucks that you find this solution harder. For some reason I am the opposite. I could never make the magnifying bubble work. I can however now move the cursor without any issues. For me it is faster and more precise.

In iOS 12 I had accepted the fact that I would not edit text there. That bubble was completely unusable for me. I could never put the cursor where I want to be.

I don't know why they changed but there might be other people like me who did not find the magnifying bubble useful or helpful.
 
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revmacian said:
That’s what it does for me. And, after a little practice it seems much more precise than the focus bubble was. A long-press on the spacebar is also a nice alternative to the focus bubble.
Click to expand...

To be honest I did not need any practice at all but I am used to move the cursor like that because of Android. I could tell you that the iOS implementation is a bit better though. Like it is a bit more precise and smoother.
 
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secretk said:
Agh sucks that you find this solution harder. For some reason I am the opposite. I could never make the magnifying bubble work. I can however now move the cursor without any issues. For me it is faster and more precise.

In iOS 12 I had accepted the fact that I would not edit text there. That bubble was completely unusable for me. I could never put the cursor where I want to be.

I don't know why they changed but there might be other people like me who did not find the magnifying bubble useful or helpful.
Click to expand...
Literally the exact opposite for me. I was thinking that without the bubble I'd be done typing anything lengthy on an iPhone.

until I found this....
revmacian said:
That’s what it does for me. And, after a little practice it seems much more precise than the focus bubble was. A long-press on the spacebar is also a nice alternative to the focus bubble.
Click to expand...
I had no idea that this existed. That makes it a lot easier.

secretk said:
To be honest I did not need any practice at all but I am used to move the cursor like that because of Android. I could tell you that the iOS implementation is a bit better though. Like it is a bit more precise and smoother.
Click to expand...
Android has always had one, or at least something similar. Android 9 literally had a clone of the focus bubble.
Remember though that there are many different "distros" of Android. Each manufacturer's was different. Samsung's being the absolute worse IMO. My HTC phones with sense and the AOSP roms I flashed most of the time had a zooming\focus solution that in my opinion are all 10000x better than what is in iOS 13 without it. Aside from the spacebar long-press solution which I think will be a life saver.

For those of you saying the cursor goes above your finger like it's probably supposed to, I imagine you're using a newer phone such as a X or a plus variant? I've got a regular sized iPhone 7 and an iPhone SE (I prefer to not use a small tablet as a phone). Both of which were absolutely horrid to type on with the removal of the bubble.
 
Project Alice said:
I had no idea that this existed. That makes it a lot easier.
Click to expand...

At least you found a way to make it work for you! This is great! Btw this has been the case even for iOS 12 and this is what I have been using.

Android has always had one, or at least something similar. Android 9 literally had a clone of the focus bubble.
Remember though that there are many different "distros" of Android. Each manufacturer's was different. Samsung's being the absolute worse IMO. My HTC phones with sense and the AOSP roms I flashed most of the time had a zooming\focus solution that in my opinion are all 10000x better than what is in iOS 13 without it. Aside from the spacebar long-press solution which I think will be a life saver.
Click to expand...

True about the different distros. I have been using exclusively Sony phones the last 5 and half years so I quite often make the mistake to talk about Android when it could be specific Sony case.

For those of you saying the cursor goes above your finger like it's probably supposed to, I imagine you're using a newer phone such as a X or a plus variant? I've got a regular sized iPhone 7 and an iPhone SE (I prefer to not use a small tablet as a phone). Both of which were absolutely horrid to type on with the removal of the bubble.
Click to expand...

Interesting how we all differ. I am actually using iPhone 8 and a regular 2018 iPad. On both of them I found the bubble completely unusable imprecise. Luckily I found out that I can use the keyboard as trackpad if I touch it with two fingers and I have used this since then.
 
I think the problem like the new way to wake up the Apple TV, it was never documented. I just tried using ‘room above my finger’ as the guide for where the cursor placement is, and it does seem to work. But why are we forced to have to use MR to find the answer, lol.

Also, seems like you get word selection a bit too much and need to de-select. But the cursor does work now that you know how to use it.
 
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leesweet said:
I think the problem like the new way to wake up the Apple TV, it was never documented. I just tried using ‘room above my finger’ as the guide for where the cursor placement is, and it does seem to work. But why are we forced to have to use MR to find the answer, lol.

Also, seems like you get word selection a bit too much and need to de-select. But the cursor does work now that you know how to use it.
Click to expand...

Well while I am young I am sometimes like granny. Seriously I had to read indeed a lot about iOS gestures to be able to use them. Even with iOS 12. I still trigger sometimes the wrong gestures. And I have to re-read them again. I guess I am not the only one and there are some people like me.
 
I tried the long press on spacebar and that works (thanks for that). But what’s the other method?
 
revmacian said:
That’s what it does for me. And, after a little practice it seems much more precise than the focus bubble was. A long-press on the spacebar is also a nice alternative to the focus bubble.
Click to expand...
This forum has stopped sending me alerts on this thread. Thanks to all for posting about the space bar trick. Today I got a message from the Apple support forum with the same solution.

Type with the onscreen keyboard on iPhone

On iPhone, enter information in text fields using the onscreen or an external keyboard, or your finger.
support.apple.com

Turn your keyboard into a trackpad
  1. Touch and hold the Space bar with one finger until the keyboard turns light gray.
  2. Move the insertion point by dragging around the keyboard.
  3. https://help.apple.com/assets/5D5C5...FB/en_US/34a97f24c2f306c728614eb966ed0ef1.png
 
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revmacian said:
You should be able to just grab the cursor and move it. Don’t tap and hold, just tap and drag it.
Click to expand...
The problem with doing this is that I can't see the focus when moving it and then the whole word gets selected.
 
duggram said:
The problem with doing this is that I can't see the focus when moving it and then the whole word gets selected.
Click to expand...
I Wonder if you’re suffering a software bug. I just tap the cursor and move, I don’t give it any time at all. I also tried selecting a word with another finger while I was moving the cursor and the selection wasn’t possible.

Try this, grab the cursor and move your finger down just a bit like you’re drawing the letter “j” on the screen.. and see what the cursor does.
 
revmacian said:
I Wonder if you’re suffering a software bug. I just tap the cursor and move, I don’t give it any time at all. I also tried selecting a word with another finger while I was moving the cursor and the selection wasn’t possible.

Try this, grab the cursor and move your finger down just a bit like you’re drawing the letter “j” on the screen.. and see what the cursor does.
Click to expand...
That works and best of all the focus line stays above the finger so you can see it. Thank you.
 
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I’ve silently gotten on without it until I saw this thread, I feel triggered.

The cursor in iOS 13 is definitely much worse. There was nothing wrong with it and now it’s a right pain. Especially when trying to edit links in Safari.
 
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