I'm a Samsung/Android user. I like it, it seems easy. I've been issued an iPhone at work. So far... I hate it. I know now the source of Samuel L Jackson's anger -- he carries an iPhone. This thing is absolutely infuriating at time.

Having gotten that out of the way, I'll get to the point. I can't stand the keyboard, particularly within the texting app. The keyboard on my Samsung is a simple, clean, five-row thing, the top row being the 0-9 set. The iPhone keyboard doesn't offer the number keys, so I have to tap the 123 button at the lower left, get my numbers, then tap the same location again to go back to letters. That's a little annoying.

More annoying is that if I turn the phone to landscape, there's a pile of clutter on the screen. The lower half is keyboard (still no numbers), the upper half is message area. Well, part of it. The upper left section shows a list of text conversations I've had, and the right side shows a piece of the current conversation. Between that window and the keyboard is a row of icons for other applications. I can't see where that's useful at all right now.

Questions:
1. Is it possible to get rid of that conversation list at the upper left? How?
2. Are there better (five-row) keyboards that you'd recommend? A quick surf of the App Store shows plenty of flashy, fancy, multi-color, script, bubble, froo-froo keyboards, but so far I haven't seen a simple five-row like what I'm used to.

I'll learn this thing, but not without a bunch of help. Good grief....

Thank you, SF.

Now that you have taken the mark of the Necromonger, your pain will go away, and you'll be able to see the underverse!

I agree the keyboard numeric/alpha button is a PIA, a throwback design to the old phones with tiny screens, apple should fix this, jmo...

Be interesting to see what people say...

Edited re landscape, those icons are for images, gifs, emoticons etc, mine show right below what I'm typing and above the keyboard.

You can change the Keyboard options/features in Settings/General/Keyboard, plenty of options and that's where you'd add a new keyboard.

Mines not doing it now but I think when that happens swipe the message section to the left and it will go away

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
...so I have to tap the 123 button at the lower left, get my numbers, then tap the same location again to go back to letters. That's a little annoying.

This is not the answer you were looking for, but, after you tap your numbers, just tap the space bar and the keyboard will convert back to letters automatically.

I can't answer your specific questions...

I don't believe you can clear the "Conversations" in landscape mode.

Back when I was Android (like 8 years or more) the talk to text speech recognition sucked and was worthless. Don't know if it has improved, but I do know talk to text works great on my iPhone and I speak more often then type. Say the numbers individually or as a whole "one one one" or "one hundred eleven" and it returns "111" either way.

I can empathize. With the advent of telehealth thrust upon me I have had to learn a myriad of platforms and ways of doing things. I am my own IT so I have to figure out that certain browsers will work with certain applications etc. The companies constantly change telehealth platforms.

The sad part is that there Human Factor Psychologists that could pretty much figure this out. They worked with NASA in terms of where to put controls etc. I think part of this is due Microsoft and Apple fighting for market share. Standardization works well and there is no drastic learning curve.

You can download and use the Gboard (Google) keyboard. That's the one I use. The number row is across the top and you just have to long press for the number rather than the letter. Instructions for download, install and activation:
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/h...d-on-ios-and-android

Why doesn't the damn thing come with a manual? I would have never figured mine out had I not been on a flight to Paris sitting next to an 18 year old co-ed who trained me for about 6 hours.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
Why doesn't the damn thing come with a manual? I would have never figured mine out had I not been on a flight to Paris sitting next to an 18 year old co-ed who trained me for about 6 hours.

They link you to an online tutorial that walks you thru all features step by step.

Frustrating for a lot of people I'm sure, but they aren't the only ones doing away with paper manuals - I've noticed a lot of stuff I get these days has a piece of paper with either a QR code or an address to go online for the manual and/or tutorial.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
You can download and use the Gboard (Google) keyboard. That's the one I use. The number row is across the top and you just have to long press for the number rather than the letter. Instructions for download, install and activation:
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/h...d-on-ios-and-android

I hadn't messed with that for years - I set that Gboard a long time ago and just forgot about it. I looked online to see what's new, and there's maybe a better alternative called Swiftkey. I just downloaded and installed it. It puts a full row of numbers across the top, so you don't even have to long press for a number. I'm going to use it for a while and see how it goes.

https://www.guidingtech.com/be...-numbers-row-on-top/
https://support.swiftkey.com/h...-iPad-or-iPod-touch-

Here's a screenshot after loading on my phone:

^^^
That's looking better! I'll try to get hold of that shortly.
Another difference is that the Samsung has "dual function" keys. Examples: I can hold down the F key and get a dollar sign, hold K or L to get ( or ), etc.

quote:

Why doesn't the damn thing come with a manual? I would have never figured mine out had I not been on a flight to Paris sitting next to an 18 year old co-ed who trained me for about 6 hours

^^^^^^
Yeah. I learned on my own with a book I purchased. Same way I learned how to use a computer. It would have been nice to have instruction.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
.... a flight to Paris sitting next to an 18 year old co-ed who trained me for about 6 hours.

I dunno, that doesn't seem like a terribly horrible experience.....

Google Fu returns a PCMag list of the top 10 Keyboards, and a howto on setting them up..

Top 10 Keyboards

I'll second Swiftkey.In addition to the layout you can also change color scheme and the size of the keys. https://support.swiftkey.com/h...s/200442562-Settings

quote:

Picture of 911Boss

email sent.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
Why doesn't the damn thing come with a manual?

There is a manual for each Apple device. Search for it by device name, and it should take you to a link that will download the manual to iBooks.

Thank you, downtownv and those who have recommended Swiftkey. I got that downloaded a few minutes ago and will give it a try.

BamaJeepster: thank you, too, for the screenshot. Is there a setting that allows you to turn the phone landscape with that keyboard? It's not happening here...

Similar but different: is there a better texting app than the built-in one? I like Textra on my 'droid, but I don't think it's available for iOS.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Thank you, downtownv and those who have recommended Swiftkey. I got that downloaded a few minutes ago and will give it a try.

BamaJeepster: thank you, too, for the screenshot. Is there a setting that allows you to turn the phone landscape with that keyboard? It's not happening here...

Similar but different: is there a better texting app than the built-in one? I like Textra on my 'droid, but I don't think it's available for iOS.

You can use Swiftkey on android too & it will learn your most used words & make better predictions & autocorrect. No more fcuk & hte.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Thank you, downtownv and those who have recommended Swiftkey. I got that downloaded a few minutes ago and will give it a try.

BamaJeepster: thank you, too, for the screenshot. Is there a setting that allows you to turn the phone landscape with that keyboard? It's not happening here...

Similar but different: is there a better texting app than the built-in one? I like Textra on my 'droid, but I don't think it's available for iOS.

Turn it landscape before you hit the new message button to begin typing. Once the keyboard is up it locks into that orientation - I believe that's true even with the default keyboard.


I've never looked into any replacement text messaging apps. I'll take a look and let you know if that's possible.

ETA: It does not appear to be possible to replace the default text messaging app without jailbreaking your phone and I don't even know if jailbreaking is still a thing. I used to immediately jailbreak my iphone as soon as I got it, but Apple kept improving their security and taking all the best ideas/apps from the jailbreak community and incorporated most of them as features on new phones. I quit jailbreaking several years ago, it was getting to be more of a pain for little gain.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Turn it landscape before you hit the new message button to begin typing.

Aha! That works. Thank you.
(I still want to get rid of that row of app icons, and the message history bit on the upper left. Those just waste space.