by Dan Moren
Why.are.there.periods.in.my.iPhone.searches
Dan Kois, writing at Slate, bemoans one of my biggest annoyances with the iPhone keyboard:
No, no, I’m not searching for “luxury poisons for the rich.” But my Google searches, like hers, are lousy with periods. According to prosecutors’ filings this week as they urged the judge to deny bail, internet searches found on her phone included “what is a lethal.does .of.fetanayl” and “how to.permanently delete information from an iphone remotely.” I, too, somehow end up typing searches into my phone that are full of periods where I wanted there to be spaces, as if I’m William Shatner, emphasizing.each.word.I.type.
This has driven me bananas for many years now. Is it just my big thumbs missing the spacebar? Or is Apple overcorrecting on making sure the period is in there if I want to type a web address. I’m not saying, unlike Kois, that I never want to put a URL in this field, but I definitely search much more than I enter an address by hand, and this does end up more frustrating than useful.
The latest updates to Apple’s platforms have promised improved autocorrect and predictive text—is it too much to hope they might eliminate the dreaded period problem as well?