Apple Brings Back Magnifying Glass For Selecting Text In iOS 15

Apple's text selection magnifying glass has reappeared in the iOS 15 beta, and Apple's own site confirms its return by listing it as a feature. The Verge reports: Bringing the feature back is a reversal from when Apple made the decision to dump it in iOS 13, which is a bit of a rare occurrence... The new version of the text magnifier seems to be a bit smaller than the old one (in case you've forgotten what it used to look like, you can see a great demonstration here), but it's at least better than the nothing that appears in iOS 13 and 14.

It will, at the very least, solve the biggest problem with the current selection system: that your thumb is covering the text you're trying to select, which makes it a little difficult to see what's being selected until you pick your thumb up from the screen. Then, if you're like me, you'll probably sigh seeing that the wrong thing is selected, then struggle with the text selection handles to try to highlight what you were actually going for (squinting at the small screen the whole time).

Keyboard Cursor anyone?

[xandora]

Doesn't iOS have a keyboard cursor? Press and hold anywhere on the keyboard, and after a couple seconds you can control the actual cursor within the text entry field. I swear this was a feature when I had an iPhone a couple years ago...

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[xandora]

Oh, *that* kind of text selection. /facepalm

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[sg_oneill]

Yeah it does. And when I found it I thought it was the cleverest bit of UI design I had ever encountered and was baffled apple didn't point it out to people.

I'm kinda glad the magnifying things coming back though. My eyesight is kind of garbage these days, and increasingly I'm coming to rely in these assistive sorts of things just so I'm not constantly typing like a man in the grips of a frontal lobe seizure (hard to spell good when ya cant see good, and autocorrect turns bad spelling into utter chaos)

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[flyingfsck]

The problem with magnifying glass features, is that it wastes space on screen. As my eyes get worse, I think what I want is a simple magnifying feature that will increase the size of the whole page and allow me to scroll around the page by tilting the tablet/phone slightly.

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[AmiMoJo]

Probably because it's all ripped off from Android so they don't want to draw too much attention to it, preferring to concentrate on stuff that is more original in their presentations.

Android had a cursor and this zoom-on-selection and zoom-on-cursor-move feature for years. Also you can slide left/right on the space bar to move the course with precision.

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[tlhIngan]

Probably because it's all ripped off from Android so they don't want to draw too much attention to it, preferring to concentrate on stuff that is more original in their presentations.

Android had a cursor and this zoom-on-selection and zoom-on-cursor-move feature for years. Also you can slide left/right on the space bar to move the course with precision.

Actually, iOS had the magnifying glass selection since the beginning. It wasn't for selecting text - copy and paste didn't exist yet, but iPhone OS 1.0 had i

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[cob666]

This was kept the way and expanded when copy and paste was added (feature copied from Android)

Sorry, but copy/paste existing WELL before Android.

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[aeortiz]

It's still there, just press and hold the spacebar, and the cursor is now controllable by dragging your finger.

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[JasonM314]

Yes, but if you're trying to copy text out of a context that isn't editable (say, a web page), then you don't have access to the keyboard.

thank the maker

[elliott666]

So grateful, its removal has been a pain in the butt continuously every day since its removal. (like, even in composing this post)

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[leptons]

Apple UX is simply the best! Until it isn't. And then maybe they will fix it? Or double down on keeping it removed again. And then put it back just as whimsically as when they took it away. Gotta love aPpLe UX.

Touch UIs

[peppepz]

It's almost as if... touch interfaces were excruciatingly bad for doing even the most basic work. But of course it can't be, everyone knows that the PC is dying and we do everything with tablets these days ;-)

What is it?

[AndyKron]

I like apples but I don't like Apple

Better with magnifying glass

[omfglearntoplay]

I've always hated trying to move the cursor around. The magnifying glass might help a little, but if I can just consistently remember to press and hold under the spacebar (or the spacebar) I'll be happier. So many frustrating moments when typing on a modern phone, man they annoy me every time... I'm always going to compare them to a keyboard.

Anyway... that rant aside, the thing that I still have no answer for is highlighting portions of text on an iphone. Always takes several tries and very annoying.

re

[michaelhammond]

Regardless, restoring this feature will prove to be significantly helpful, as text selection will be more accurate and efficient, and might even improve productivity for some users, depending on what you're doing. https://www.achieveessays.com/ [achieveessays.com]