Dear Apple
Fighting bad design in Apple products one thing at a time.
The blog went down with a Posterous boat and all the recent posts are lost. I am looking into switching to a self-hosted solutions meanwhile. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Viewing all posts tagged "keyboard"
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Getting “Save As” Back in Place
The second best things in Mountain Lion, after the fact that it works faster, is that you can get “Save As” back. But of course it is hidden somewhere in the file menu behind the horrid ⇧⌥⌘S shortcut. Save As was completely absent in Lion, and this is clearly a step forward (or backward) but it is not in place yet. fortunately it is easy to put it back where it belongs.
Launch System Preferences > Keyboard, Application Shortcuts and add two new ones:
“Save As…” (three dots) - ⇧⌘S
“Duplicate” - ⇧⌥⌘S
As a side effect this will replace “Duplicate” with “Save As” in File menu. Beautiful.
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iPad Keyboard Prototype
One of the things that needs improvement in iOS is keyboard. iOS5 introduced the splittable keyboard, but frankly that ain’t cutting it. The main issue when editing text - there are no arrow keys, so you can’t quickly correct what you’ve just typed.
Of course if you are going to use iPad for serious writing, coding or remote system administration you will need an external keyboard anyway. But the ability to quickly go back and forth in the line and easy text selection would make lives easier for many of us nonetheless.
Here is the concept from @danielchooper that should be implemented from the day one. I hope Apple will do this for iOS6 at least and hire Daniel as well. You can help to get this through to Apple by following the instructions in the video description on Youtube.
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No, I don’t want to reopen my windows
Dear Apple, reopening windows sounds cool, and actually is cool when you are installing an update and had to reboot. But when I say do not reopen windows could you please make it so the next time computer boots up the windows stay down? It’s really annoying that it keeps re-opening everything despite my intentions. Thank you.
On a side note, as you are fixing this, it would be useful to have a keyboard shortcut, something like keep Cmd-Option-Control-Shift-N-W (No Windows – get it?) that I can keep depressed when my computer boots to be spared of the auto-resume.
Ok, jokes aside, at least let us make sure that the application gets launched without restoring windows. Say, keep shift depressed when opening it. And another useful shortcut would be to close all other windows of the app. Since Cmd-Option-W closes all windows, Cmd-Option-Shift-W could Close All Windows Except Current.
Until then I have to train myself to close everything using Cmd-Option-Q (Quit and Close All Windows) if I don’t want to see all the windows popping up next time. The only problem is - why I have to decide for the next time right now? Don’t you feel that there is some sort of usability speedbump.
I should be able to decide if I want to see windows restored when I launch an application or turn the computer on, not only when I am closing the app or shutting the power down.
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Please make Preview cool again
You know Preview, right? It can do lots of cool stuff with images and PDF files and we had great releationships until Lion came. First of all, now there is no “File > Save As”. Ok, there is an Export command, which you must select it from the menu. But I just press Cmd-Shift-S all the time and it doesn’t work anymore. There is no such shortcut. Same story is with Adjust size, I’m pretty sure there was a keyboard shortcut before.
Small thing, you might say - just go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts, add Preview.app and set all the shortcuts you want. So I thought, but if it was so easy – I wound’t be writing this.
For starters, both commands end with Ellipsis. So to add it to Applicaton Shortcuts you actually should type the menu commands exactly and that means use the actual character …, not three full stops …. This alone is a major nuisance which should be fixed. Why I can’t just type Export or Export-dot-dot-dot and have to fish for this character first?
So, after checking and re-checking different combinations, Preview won - none of the shortcuts worked. I don’t know if it’s something with Preview itself or the Keyboard Preference Pane, but my Shortcuts for other apps work just fine, only Preview doesn’t seem to care.
There is also another issue when copying graphics from pdf files – Preview starts behaving bit wierd, but ok, this is unrelated. For now just make everything work as it was please. Thank you.
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Assign hotkeys to launch applications in Mac OS X
Couldn’t miss this $2.99 utility in Mac App Store. Launch it! allows you to easily create keyboard shortcuts to launch or activate your most used applications. Stop command-tabbing and get right to the app you want with Launch it!
Weights only 700kb and does just what I says it does. No extra-functionality and works like a charm. Why something like this is not built into Mac OS by default?
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Damn You Auto Correct!
Just found this funny site related to auto-correction goofs. Dear Apple, please invert auto-correction behavior if you don’t have other ideas on how to improve typing in iOS.
More fun stuff at damnyouautocorrect.com
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Disappointed by the lack of keyboard backlight in new Macbook Air?
Not to worry, solve this with style.
via Yanko Design
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Disappearing keyboard layout switch.
Dear Apple, please add this to the list of things to fix in iOS4.2
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Google Acquires Impressive Touchscreen Keyboard Startup BlindType
Google has just acquired BlindType, a very impressive technology that allows you to type on touch screens without even looking at them. See our past coverage of the startup here.
BlindType doesn’t force you to type using a virtual keyboard at the bottom of your screen, which is the norm on most smartphones. Instead, you just start typing wherever it’s convenient— BlindType analyzes the position of your finger taps relative to each other to determine which characters you’re typing (check out the video below to watch it in action).
Dear Apple, why Google, not you? You think your iOS keyboards are perfect already and we don’t want anything else? That iPad keyboard is not too wide to thumb-type? That it’s convenient enough? Or that your auto-correction in iOS is flawless enough? And we don’t need anything else right? What about Swype keyboard?
And guess what, I even tipped you already! How is that for revolutionary?
Here is another video of what Android users might expect soon:
via TechCrunch
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Wireless Apple Keyboard with Magic Trackpad combined
Nice idea, just a tad pricey and looks bit bulky. But anyway, dear Apple, take a note. I could use a keyboard with built-in trackpad.
And while you’re on it, please make it USB-powered or even better USB-chargeable.
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