This is How iPad Text Entry Should Be in iOS 6 (Video)

Entering and editing long blocks of data on the iPad is tiresome and time consuming. Apple could change the way we edit text with iOS 6, and if they do I hope Apple is watching this amazing iPad keyboard demo.

Instead of taping and holding or using the magnifying glass, Daniel Hooper’s iPad prototype keyboard uses gestures and methods to insert text, select text and paste text in an iPad document.

The demo also shows how we could use a swipe of the finger across the keyboard as a virtual arrow key.

The best way to understand how this new iPad keyboard works and how awesome it is is to watch the video below.

The video, seen on the idownloadblog, comes from YouTube user Daniel Hooper. In the video’s description he shows how you can help the Apple developers discover this awesome system of typing gestures and controls.

I want it, so I followed the steps for reporting a New Feature bug report at the Apple Bug report site. You can too, just follow the steps below.

In order to post a new feature report do the following:

1. Go to bugreport.apple.com, sign in and click “New Problem“
2. Set the Title to “Editing Text on iPad (duplicate of rdar://11365152)”
3. Set the Product to “iPad”, Version Number to “N/A”, Classification to “Feature (New)” and Is It Reproducible to “Not Applicable”
4. Copy the letter below and paste it in the Problem Details section then click submit

I just saw Daniel Hooper’s iPad keyboard demo and I want that for my iPad! (Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGQTaHGQ04Q) Apple says the iPad is the future of the Post-PC world; if it’s going to be my primary keyboard, I want a better way to edit text!

Tapping directly on text to move the cursor works well for small portions of text, but we don’t just write short portions of text anymore! When performing lots of edits in larger documents the direct interaction metaphor falls apart for cursor control. Even short portions of text can be painful to edit when you need to move the cursor to a precise location. Would you ever want to write a document on your computer without using the arrow keys? This is the reality iPad users face because they do not have the equivalent of arrow keys. There is a better way.

Take advantage of gestures by making a drag over the keyboard UI move the cursor. Move the cursor in word increments when dragging with two fingers. And finally, let the user select text while dragging when they hold down shift.

Based on Apple’s past pattern of implementing new features like this, they’ll likely wait forever and act like no one ever thought of the idea before their engineers.

Not sure if Daniel Hooper cares about credit, but I’m happy to let Apple think they made it up so long as they add the feature.

It’s not clear if the video above shows a jailbroken iPad, or if it is video editing magic. If this iPad keyboard prototype becomes an iPad jailbreak tweak it might be the app that leads me down the dark side of jailbreaking my iPad.