Typing is not BAD on the iPad

[Blakjack]

I read a lot of reviews and many of them state that typing on the iPad is a task in itself if you want to type long e-mails, reports, and other things of that nature. In my book, that's a load of crap. I can honestly say that I can type faster and just as correct(because of auto crrct) on my iPad than I can on a physical keyboard. Not being able to feel the keys is not a problem at all. Now i must admit that I have never been good at typing without looking at the keys on a physical keyboard so I can kind of understand that people who are good at this have to now look at the keyboard on the iPad. But not being able to type long e-mails and small one page essays is exaggerating the inability to do so. Am I the only one who loves typing on the iPad?

 

[CristobalHuet]

Agree 100%. When I first got my iPad, I was worried the typing would be horrendous...like Steve said, it's "a dream to type on". I love typing on my iPad, it's effortless and easy, especially since I'm coming from a cramped netbook keyboard.

I can get up to 50 wpm on there, which isn't as fast as my typing on my regular keyboard (up to 90 wpm), but still acceptable to me. I look forward to typing up some essay assignments for next term on there.

 

[calvin2006]

My wife commented a couple nights ago, "Wow! You are really fast typing on your iPad!" I'm not as fast as a physical keyboard, but it's not too bad. The auto-correct is generally good, though I've found it does some illogical things as well. For example, when I type 'ive' (for I've) it switches it to 'vie' instead. I'm not sure, but I would think the more common correction should be the contraction of I have. Also, sometimes it seems like my iPad ignores keystrokes, but maybe I'm just missing the keys.

 

[Blakjack]

U gotta really get in there and stroke her(the pad) right Calvin. If u don't, she won't be good to u.

 

[Baracus]

I find it absolutely fine and dandy too. Kind of relaxing. The auto-correct does do some weird things like putting a caps letter in the middle of a word sometimes, but on the whole it's loads better than I imagined it would be.

Was thinking I would have to get the BT keyboard but it's really not necessary... and I do write some pretty lengthy blog posts and documents up on it and getting faster all the time.

Another bonus is that my girlfirend is getting an early night tonight and she asked how long I was going to be typing for (on my PC atm) coz she can't sleep with the keyboard noise... I just said it's OK I can type on the iPad coz it's quiet!! Winner

 

[antiprotest]

A while back someone started a thread here who absolutely refused to believe that anyone could type fast on the iPad. I pointed out that he was imposing his own incompetence on the rest of humanity, using himself as the standard of what is possible for all of mankind. Some people type fast, some slow. He was slow. Because of his bad attitude, I am glad he has to suffer slow typing.

 

[saberahul]

A while back someone started a thread here who absolutely refused to believe that anyone could type fast on the iPad. I pointed out that he was imposing his own incompetence on the rest of humanity, using himself as the standard of what is possible for all of mankind. Some people type fast, some slow. He was slow. Because of his bad attitude, I am glad he has to suffer slow typing.

Lol... why be glad for his loss? Anyways, I find typing a feasible task on the iPad. I like not being able to push down on the keys or on a screen like my Storm 2. I'd say I get about 50 WPM on the iPad which isn't bad at all and I'm constantly improving. Compare to my physical keyboard typing, 130 WPM, it's definitely a huge drop but more fun

 

[ChrisGonzales90]

Typing is easy too. Sure if your in to the whole hands on the proper keys crap that they teach you in school it may be hard but if your like me and know the keyboard real well and type fast with one key at a time it's so easy.

 

[Consultant]

I was surprised that I can touch type on the iPad using horizontal keyboard.

 

[harry*333]

From my experience it takes about a day to a week to fully adjust to the iPad keyboard
Auto correct is very handy, but sometimes I find it overly sensitive

 

[wyneken]

From my experience it takes about a day to a week to fully adjust to the iPad keyboard.

I think it took me a little longer than that -- I've been using physical keyboards since back in the days when I wrote on a manual typewriter -- but now that I've adapted, I find the physical keyboard kind of annoying. Why do I have to type the final letters of all these words? What's this "period" key for?

Auto correct is very handy, but sometimes I find it overly sensitive

I find it kind of bizarre sometimes. It's able to look at totally garbled strings of letters and magically divine what I wanted to say, but then it will look at a simple word that has one incorrect character -- which lies adjacent to the one I mistakenly typed -- and offer some totally off-the-wall "correction."

Speaking of which, who ever uses the word "vie"?

 

[ACbc]

I amk absolutely hated typing on the iPad when i first received it. Found it very awkward. I am a self proclaimed blazing fast typer on my iPhone though. However at some point everything just clicked and now i can type pretty fast. Not quite the speed ofd a physical keyboard but pretty close. The trick for me was learning to just lay the dang thing flat on my lap while typing. I normally have it in my two hands right next to my face so i just have to adjust sitting positions when doing heavy typing. Problem solved!

 

[ajones46]

Does anyone else's iPad miss contractions, capital I's and other easily misspelled words when they really get typing fast? Like if I'm really cookin, it'll miss EVERYTHING and I'll have to go back and fix it, or just slow down my pace to start off with. I find it kinda frustrating that the iPad can't keep up.

 

[keyofnight]

The typing is okay—I enjoy typing on the iPad, when I can get it right. The problem is that it's such a new type of keyboard, and so there are new roadblocks to touch typing. Consider the following:

• First, the shift key acts funky when you delete a capitalized word. Even when I've turned off the "auto-capitalize" feature in the preferences, the shift key will still light up when I've deleted a capitalized word. I then have to turn off the shift key or delete the space behind the word—deleting the space is quickest. Either way, I wish I could turn this crap off.
  
  
• Why doesn't the `.?123` button act like a shift key? If I tap the `.?123` button, I have to tap it again to return to a regular keyboard! The only way I can quickly type numbers is to tap, hold, and slide…but this takes time, and it isn't very "touch-typey." It should, again, act like a "shift" key. If you tap and hold it, you should be able to type numbers and punctuation as long as you have it held down.
  
  
• Also, why is it so difficult to type symbols? "#+=" and so on. I think that the `#+=` key should have a "slide-through" behavior: if you tap-hold-slide from `.?123` to `#+=,` the keyboard should change into the symbol keyboard where you can continue to slide to the symbol of your choice. When you release, the keyboard should return to the normal layout.
  
  
• What about alternative layouts? One-handed typing in portrait would be excellent with the proper layout. QWERTY, by itself, doesn't cut it. What about one-handed QWERTY layouts, or one-handed DVORAK layouts?—Either choice would make typing more efficient. I could imagine doing transcription on the iPad, with reliable enough software and an efficient layout. I understand that it costs time and money to adapt new keyboards to a touch-screen…I'm not sure if this is a reasonable request.

Also, if you guys have the same problems I do, please submit user feedback. We have a saying in our family: a closed mouth doesn't get fed. Let Apple know what the problems are directly!

Honestly, I might jailbreak in order to experiment with all of the cool things I might be able to do with keyboards and typography on the iPad.

 

[bigjara]

I agree

Typing on the iPad is really easier than i thought it would be. Do you guys remember how super heros would have all these advanced computers that they would type on the touch screen so fast??? That's what i feel like lol!

 

[Crosbie]

Coo, I hadn't even noticed the "slide-through" behaviour. I like it. Gonna get used to that, then find myself trying to do it on a normal keyboard like so many other iPad keyboard tricks... double-space for a full stop... expecting autocorrect for MacBook, iPad and iPhone...

 

[scirica]

I think typing on the iPad is relatively easy and comfortable. Having said that, I'm sitting here typing with an Apple BT keyboard and using a Dell BT mouse as well. When I'm sitting watching TV in the living room this is a dream setup. When I'm browsing and emailing late at night before I fall asleep, I'm perfectly happy with the built-in keyboard!!

 

[blackNBUK]

For typing plain text the iPad keyboard is definitely good enough that I can type faster than I can think. My pain points are entering numbers and symbols, and editing text. I haven't yet learnt where all the other characters are so it breaks the flow when I need to type them. I'd also love to have cursor keys so I can quickly go back a few words to make a change.