The iOS 7.1 beta seems to be way more in flux than previous betas, adding odd little experiments (f.lux-style white-point adjustment) and handy – and surely temporary – little tweaks for developers (manual deleting of install files). But one thing that has been going crazy throughout the betas 1–3 is the keyboard.
And man is the keyboard in iOS 7.1 beta 3 a pain in the ass.
Before you drop your caffeinated soft drink and head straight for the comments to jerk out a complaint, let me say that I’m aware that a beta is a beta, and subject to change. But it’s also a great way of following the design decisions made by the iOS team.
The problem in the latest beta is the shift keys. Or rather, the fact that the highlight that shows a key-down state on the shift keys is the wrong way around. Take a look at the screenshot above. Which one shows the shift key as shifted? White or gray? Hint, it’s gray.
The problem is that the gray key matches the gray-looking backgrounds of the surrounding keys, which are colored to make them stand out from the regular QWERTY letter section of the keyboard.
And it’s not just me either. Killian Bell, our Android-supremo-in-residence, just said this in our chatroom:
To me, Apple has the shift colors the wrong way around. It’s white when it’s not selected, but grey when it is selected — surely it should be the other way?!
Surely it should. Given the changes in the betas so far, I fully expect this to go away soon. But I thought it might be worth pointing out for two reasons. One, it shows how the betas evolve before settling on a final version and two, I really, really want to make sure Apple does change this one as it’s driving me crazy.
