Writing stories on iPads/other tablets - Does it suck for you too?

[Oblimo]

I was gifted the 9.5” inch iPad Pro. It comes with Pages, Apple’s word processor-like thingy, so I’m trying use it to write stories.

It’s been a painful experience for me. Have you had luck with writing using a tablet, iPad or otherwise? Any tips?

My first-world problems with my iPad:

Accessorizing it with a real keyboard just turns it into an ergonomic nightmare of a mini-laptop. I have a dream of lounging on a couch to write, but I don’t have much of a lap.

The on-screen keyboard is a nightmare, for exactly one reason: the UNDO button.

It does not appear on the keyboard in it’s standard mode, displaying the alphabet. But, if you tap the .?123 button to switch to numeric and punctuation keys, an UNDO button will pop up, and the space bar will shrink to accommodate it.

If you tap it, a sentence or even a paragraph can vanish. And I trigger the UNDO button accidentally a lot when I’m typing quickly because half the damn space bar turns into an undo button. When ideas are flowing the random vanishing sentences make me want to convert the device into a iFrisbee.

And selecting, copying, pasting text is yet another nightmare. Does anyone have experience using the Apple Pencil as a text selection and manipulation I/O device?

Alternative keyboard apps seem to be very buggy and keylog every damn thing you type.

The efforts to keep my data out of the cloud are grounded in my own paranoia, so I really can’t complain about the privacy measures I need to take when composing on a device designed to send everything about me to the Apple mothership by default.

 

[KenNicottii]

I use an 8 inch Windows tablet when I’m on the road. I wouldn’t dream of composing anything more than a sentence or two using the on-screen keyboard. Instead I use a fold-up portable Bluetooth keyboard from 1byOne. It’s not much bigger than an iPhone Plus when it’s closed but has real keys on a surprisingly useful keyboard.

I prefer to use a fully adjustable tablet stand by Kitbest, which is lighter and more versatile (can handle full-sized tablets) than my other smaller one by Anker.

Now this set-up works best on a rigid, flat surface – even the fold-down tray on an economy airline seatback. But your desired home usage on a couch or easy chair could be solved by getting a flat board to put on a throw pillow on your lap. This could be a piece of scrap plywood, or many companies offer a ‘lap writing desk’ in various configurations and price points, some with the pillow built in. I’ve used these for handwriting tasks (crossword puzzles, sketching, etc.).

This is one of the issues that I’ve never been able to get past when considering replacing a laptop with a tablet that has the same sized screen. Once you add a portable keyboard that’s not a total compromise, you can be close to the weight of a laptop – so what’s the point.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I do everything on a Kindle Fire, either fast single finger typing on the screen keys, or using a wi-fi keyboard for faster typing. At best, I'm a six finger typist who never learned to touch type. Even so, on a normal sized keyboard, I once tested at 100 wpm with 97% accuracy, which is not lazing around.

I'm still trying to figure out if predictive text helps me or slows me down. I think it mostly helps, except when it doesn't. It's rubbish with smut words, I've found.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I do everything on a Kindle Fire, either fast single finger typing on the screen keys, or using a wi-fi keyboard for faster typing. At best, I'm a six finger typist who never learned to touch type. Even so, on a normal sized keyboard, I once tested at 100 wpm with 97% accuracy, which is not lazing around.

I'm still trying to figure out if predictive text helps me or slows me down. I think it mostly helps, except when it doesn't. It's rubbish with smut words, I've found.

I tried predictive text but it slows me way down - I think my mind is too weird for whatever they use to predict the words. I tried speech recognition as well but that just confuses my mind. I work best on my old Dell laptop which I bought way back when with the largest screen I could get and I have a huge monitor as well with clip on speakers that I really wind the volume up on. Anything smaller doesn't cut it and those small iPad and iPhone screens kill my eyes.

 

[NotWise]

I have a 10-inch Android tablet with an attachable keyboard. The processor is really too weak to run much of a word processor, but it works okay with Google Docs.

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

I write everything on a 9.5" Android tablet running MSWord. I have gotten used to the pop-up keyboard and I'm a pretty good one handed typist. I find it convenient when writing in my easy chair or outside in a Muskoka chair. I convert everything to text to submit. The only thing I don't like is the auto space after a paragraph, because it doesn't translate to text, so I have to put thespaces back. It gives me a chance for a final read (which doesn't always help...).

When I have time to concentrate on my writing, at a desk or table, i still use the tablet, but I type two-handed.

BTW: for anyone born after about 1979, "type" is an archaic term that means the same as the verb form of "key"

 

[nosebone]

I was gifted the 9.5” inch iPad Pro. It comes with Pages, Apple’s word processor-like thingy, so I’m trying use it to write stories.

It’s been a painful experience for me. Have you had luck with writing using a tablet, iPad or otherwise? Any tips?

My first-world problems with my iPad:

Accessorizing it with a real keyboard just turns it into an ergonomic nightmare of a mini-laptop. I have a dream of lounging on a couch to write, but I don’t have much of a lap.

The on-screen keyboard is a nightmare, for exactly one reason: the UNDO button.

It does not appear on the keyboard in it’s standard mode, displaying the alphabet. But, if you tap the .?123 button to switch to numeric and punctuation keys, an UNDO button will pop up, and the space bar will shrink to accommodate it.

If you tap it, a sentence or even a paragraph can vanish. And I trigger the UNDO button accidentally a lot when I’m typing quickly because half the damn space bar turns into an undo button. When ideas are flowing the random vanishing sentences make me want to convert the device into a iFrisbee.

And selecting, copying, pasting text is yet another nightmare. Does anyone have experience using the Apple Pencil as a text selection and manipulation I/O device?

Alternative keyboard apps seem to be very buggy and keylog every damn thing you type.

The efforts to keep my data out of the cloud are grounded in my own paranoia, so I really can’t complain about the privacy measures I need to take when composing on a device designed to send everything about me to the Apple mothership by default.

I will agree with pretty much everything you have said. I have an iPad Mini and my iPhone. I've written a lot of text on my iPad, but I'd say other than my computer, I've written more on my phone than anything. I frequently have one to two hour trips in the car for work where someone else is driving. Having heard and catalogued my millennial co-workers lives repeatedly, I usually start typing on my phone.

For me, the phone is easier for me to type with both hands on the screen. My natural inclination is to use the iPad in landscape view and the punctuation buttons get all weird (using the "shift" key to type an exclamation point or apostrophe). I've also had a number of problems with writing text in Pages that end up in Word on my computer as a shapeless mass of words with no spaces or respect for the paragraph.

That being said, I've written a lot of text that I've integrated into stories that way. I generally just assume it'll take more editing than if I was at my computer, but provides a lot of freedom.

 

[Oblimo]

I'm a pretty good one handed typist.

Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more?

 

[TxRad]

With the size of my fingers, I have enough problems with a laptop keyboard. Anything smaller is totally out of the question.

 

[Handley_Page]

With the size of my fingers, I have enough problems with a laptop keyboard. Anything smaller is totally out of the question.

I agree, but that part of the fun of being a senior citizen, ain't it.

I've had many an argument with keyboard suppliers about a decent keyboard.
The best I ever saw is the old IBM 'Cherry' keyboard that came with the PS/2 machines.

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more?

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat...

 

[oggbashan]

With the size of my fingers, I have enough problems with a laptop keyboard. Anything smaller is totally out of the question.

I plug a full-size keyboard into my laptop on the few occasions that I can't use my desktop with its large screen.

 

[weftandwarp]

Since when is typing an Olympic event? I use one finger and It's okay. I have time to think about what I'm doing. I also have big fingers. It took a while to get to be able to type. I am very much on my own and can't access lectures or courses. They are more than 100 km away and driving at night is very dangerous because of the roos. Every thing has to be very intuitive.


I have android, docs. It is ok. I found with a laptop viruses were a big problem. Every 6 to 8 months I got one. With android there is facility to get rid of them through Google play. Getting antivirus with a laptop was difficult. Reading the terms and conditions of antiviruses they all state they basically do nothing. They try to sell things though. Things I thought I'd already paid for. Also, when paying for them they all seem to think they can take my money every year after whether they're being used or not. I have thought the antiviruses are actually viruses, they are as much of a problem. They often don't do the job. With the android I'm told what antivirus will work and it points to where I can get it. The problem is there isn't a lot of memory and It's a constant battle to find it. Every thing free on Google play brings with it ads. A new tablet with a lot more memory on it has recently been released and in spite of its corpulent price it could be a big advantage. I wish my tablet had a usb port. WiFi is good but not always and it isn't so simple. I have tried iPad and hate them. The bloody passwords are a big problem for me. I threw them out a long time ago and have no desire to get another. Ringing Apple to get access to my iPad was a true nightmare.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have a hard time punching out a text message on my phone, let alone typing on a tablet unless it has a full size keyboard. Even with my laptop, I have a 24" monitor and a full size keyboard hooked up to it.

So, no tablet typing for me and I'm a touch typist, learned way back in high school around 1966 or so. Been practicing ever since. I think I'm up to about 90 words a minute or so.

 

[HeyAll]

On the flipside, these devices are great for editing stories. I've done a lot of editing on my phone and the Google Docs app.

 

[Emirus]

I write everything on my iPhone

I write all my stories as draft emails, using my iPhone, and when ready I convert them to MS Word on my laptop. Takes about 10 seconds. I can then make any alterations I want as regards text size, punctuation, spelling, highlighting etc etc.

The original story remains as a draft email so, as my phone is always with me, I can, if I wish, rewrite any part of the story at anytime and update the draft on my laptop when convenient.

Size of index finger and phone buttons cause an occasional problem but Apple won’t change the phone and I’m stuck with my finger so c’est la vie.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

On the flipside, these devices are great for editing stories. I've done a lot of editing on my phone and the Google Docs app.

True, I download my stuff to my phone and fire up google docs and edit away while I'm lying in bed. Much more comfy than the chair I was sitting in all day.

 

[jsmiam]

....Accessorizing it with a real keyboard just turns it into an ergonomic nightmare of a mini-laptop...

I don't entirely disagree, but I will say a handful of bluetooth keyboards are "easy switch" and/or "multi-device" (there wasn't historically a single agreed upon name, but more and more call themselves "multi-devide" now), where a dial or set of buttons let you have it connected to up to 3 devices at once, and instantly (no setup in between, or detaching from one to attach to the next) switch between them.

I hate to sound like an ad, so I'll just mention the model numbers without the company: K380, K480, and K811. [Edit: Adding more models and more than one brand reference: K780, KP400], I have one, and it does allow real typing on a tablet.

And if you have a model with easy switch, you can type on your tablet and your phone and anything else you have with bluetooth too.

 

[Polyacrylate]

I write on my phone. I use Android models.

I'd rather be on an actual computer, but writing became basically a zen thing for me at work on my lunch break. I had originally been using the app Polaris Office, which I think used to be an Android or Samsung default. I found it would give me this weird error, where it would copy random snippets of text, and paste them repeatedly throughout the document. I finally had enough of that when I was spending more time editing for those errors rather than editing (or, you know, actually writing), and switched to Google Docs. Not quite sure how I feel about that, but it hasn't caused problems thus far.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I write on my phone. I use Android models.

I'd rather be on an actual computer, but writing became basically a zen thing for me at work on my lunch break. I had originally been using the app Polaris Office, which I think used to be an Android or Samsung default. I found it would give me this weird error, where it would copy random snippets of text, and paste them repeatedly throughout the document. I finally had enough of that when I was spending more time editing for those errors rather than editing (or, you know, actually writing), and switched to Google Docs. Not quite sure how I feel about that, but it hasn't caused problems thus far.

Except Google thinks everything saved in their cloud belongs to them.

 

[Kethandra]

I have written at least 5-600,000 words of fiction on iPads over the last four years, using the virtual keyboard. The original iPad and the big Pro [my favorite] . And I can barely text on my iphone - I’d rather use a napkin and crayon than my phone to write.
Sitting at a desk or table is a tough way for me to be creative. Too structured, or something. I wrote on legal pads on my lap before moving to the iPad, also on my lap, ideally with feet up, on a couch.

I use the app Storyist as it has a better virtual keyboard and I never use ‘undo’ when writing as I am not sure what it considers my ‘do’.
I use the Apple Pencil to draw, but not as a tool during writing. I have tried Bluetooth and attached keyboards on the iPad, and always go back to the storyist virtual one.

As you can tell from the above responses, use what works for you. Part of the issue is simply being comfortable enough with your method/equipment that you can forget about it and let the story flow.

 

[MajorRewrite]

Voice

Judging by frequent incorrect spelling of similarly pronounced words, I think that some authors may be experimenting with voice recognition to “write” their stories. It would certainly be a fast way to dump thoughts onto a tablet. Lots of manual editing would be required though.

Is anyone actually using voice recognition to input their stories?

 

[Scareltt]

Two big words

Bluetooth keyboard..

 

[live4thebj]

Bluetooth keyboard. I use mine like a computer thanks to that.

 

[Blind_Justice]

The only writing-related thing I use my 10-inch Android tablet for is quick note taking and re-reading drafts. Any kind of serious writing is done on my full-size desktop PC.

Touchscreen keyboards, even with simulated "clicks", are no substitute for a good mechanical keyboard. I have learned touch-typing on old Triumph-Adler mechanical typewriters, then graduated to an electric Brother typewheel before being allowed to use one of the few 286/12 Mhz IBMs with hardware speech synthesizer in our school's computer lab. These old model M keyboards could take a beating, literally. Nowadays I have to buy these silly "gaming" keyboards if I want a somewhat decent key mechanism, because "office" keyboards are those horrible low-travel, laptop-style abominations. Yikes.