TEXT REFLOW UPDATE – WILL APPLE SKIP THIS FEATURE IN IOS5?

You gotta know by now that I’m not going to get up off of the lack-of-text-reflow nag fest I have going on against Apple. I was motivated to write an update about this thanks to Jeffrey Koenig (who I improperly called “Jeff Koe” in my podcast) submitting such a great comment recently to my text reflow blog post that I originally wrote in September of 2010.

I bought my iPhone 4 in August of 2010. I soon discovered that iOS4 did not have text reflow, and I was sorely upset. Before I had my iPhone 3GS, I owned the crappy LG-Vu (a sad excuse for an iPhone alternative at the time) and it had text reflow. So I came into the Apple world fully knowledgeable about the great benefit of this feature. I would have been better off not knowing it existed.

In fact, after polling several of my friends who are fellow iPhone owners, I would say that 95% of them have no earthly idea that text reflow even exists. That wasn’t a good sign.

I’ve messed around with a couple of alternative browsers. They are great. One is the Mercury browser, and the other is the Atomic browser (click the links to read my blog posts about them).

Both of them allow you to change the text size, and they do actually reflow the text… sometimes. If a site is not coded correctly, you get spotty results. Either the lines of text will lose their font and start overlapping, they won’t increase in size, or they will still fly off the right side of the screen when you increase the size. But they are better than nothing.

But why should Apple iPhone owners have to put up with this when they could simply build this into the Safari browser itself? Why does Apple consider this a non-issue? How can this company boast of being on the top of the heap when it comes to smart phone technology and operating system functionality without this very basic and extremely useful feature?

The biggest disappointment to me is the fact that there are several people like myself that have poor vision but like to use their iPhones phones as reading devices. We are told that we don’t need to zoom in to increase text because we have a Retina display that is so amazingly clear that you can read microscopic text size with ease. I truly believe that the Apple geniuses who tout this crap think that we are either idiots, or just plain insensitive to our most basic needs.

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But the five-dollar question is…

WILL APPLE ADDRESS THIS IN IOS5?

Probably not. I’m not going to bet the farm on it. Matter of fact, I won’t even wager a wooden nickel. There’s too much at stake here. It would certainly damage their reputation to admit that they left out such an obvious simple feature that has been around on Android devices for years on end. They’ll sweep this under the rug like everything else and keep on moving (i.e. “antenna-gate”, fragile crack-prone design, etc.).

If Apple announces that the next iPhone will be the slightly improved but warmed-over “iPhone 4S” and not a completely redesigned unit with a larger screen, I am done. Same tiny screen size + no text reflow = FORGET IT.

Actually, I do sincerely hope they address this in iOS5. I haven’t heard anything, and I’d love someone to inform me if they have. If you are an iOS5 beta tester and you are aware that text reflow has been added to the Safari browser, PLEASE share this with me and give a solid reference. I want to know about it whether I make the switch to Android or not. I need closure on this.

If they don’t, I’m hanging up my hat on the fact that the powers-that-be (or geniuses-that-be) at Apple will continue to operate the ship with their heads in a warm, moist place.

Check out my podcast below and listen to me rant and rave about this like a rabid dog, and then join the conversation!

Carlton Flowers
Smart Phone Social Activist
www.carltonzone.com
www.microbusinessplans.com
www.twitter.com/carltonf

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 CZ Podcast - Will Text Reflow Come To iOS5? [15:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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A WAY TO GET TEXT REFLOW ON AN IPHONE… SORT OF

You all know that lack of text reflow on the iPhone Safari Browser is a serious bone of contention with me. For those of you that are not aware of it, text reflow is the fantastic feature that allows the text to be re-wrapped downward when you zoom in on the text of an article on a website. Safari browser does not do this.

To the contrary, Apple thinks its a great idea to have sentences fly off the right side of the screen when you zoom in, forcing you to have to pan side to side just to read. For people that use their iPhones heavily as a reading device, this is a major annoyance.

The Android browser dynamically reflows the text when you pinch to zoom in on an article. Some people don’t have the best vision, like myself, and they like to increase the size of text when reading. Sure, Apple claims that the Retina Display eliminates the need for increasing text size, but the geniuses at Apple headquarters weren’t smart enough to realize that microscopic font sizes, no matter how “crisp and clear”, are still not readable. That’s why text reflow is so important to people who are not blessed with 20/20 vision.

Well, I was about to chunk my iPhone 4 and sell it to the highest bidder on eBay and replace it with an Android device until I found the Atomic Web Browser for iOS devices. Someone on a forum made my day when they discovered my constant nagging about the lack of text reflow, and they pointed me in the direction of this 99-cent browser. So I purchased it immediately, and I am extremely happy!

Atomic Browser does not have automatic or dynamic text reflow. However, it will allow you to increase or decrease the font size of an article, and it will reflow the text upon resizing. It will not activate reflow when you pinch to zoom, but this is close enough to get me by! I have been reading like a mad man on my iPhone 4 ever since purchasing this browser. Sure, text reflow does not work very well on non mobile-compliant sites (which Apple claims as a reason for not allowing it… lame!), but most of the sites that I read on, mainly Gizmodo Mobile version, are compliant.

With text reflow, I can increase the font to a large size, and then flick the page down and read at a rapid rate. Why? Because you don’t have that pesky sideways panning, nor do you have to wait for graphics to reload every time you pan over to catch the extra 4′ of sentences that are off the edge of the screen. It is liberating, and I love it.

This does not by any means let Apple off the hook. Actually, it makes me even more upset to know that something as simple as this could be added to the Safari browser with relative ease. It’s a feature that would not cost five minutes of time for one of the iOS programmers to fix, and they could roll out a minor update to activate it.

My advice to Apple? Start treating your loyal customers like you care. Take the easy requests like this one and knock them out. Basically, quit making excuses and get ‘er done.

Carlton Flowers
Non Koolaid-Drinking iPhone Fan
www.carltonzone.com

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TEXT REFLOW SEEMS STANDARD FOR ANDROID OS… WHY NOT iOS4?

“Text Reflow”, or the function of word wrapping text when you zoom in on an article using your smart phone browser, seems to be a normal feature on Android smart phones these days. But this is lacking on the iPhone iOS4 platform. I am a heavy article reader, and I rely on my iPhone 4 to keep up-to-date with trends within the fields that I do business.

A major annoyance to me is the need to scroll horizontally to read articles when zooming in using the Apple’s Safari browser. When I pick up an Evo 4G or a Droid X, the text automatically re-wraps itself beautifully when you zoom in on an article or document. This is especially handy for those that like to speed read. In fact, you can download several programs on the net that basically provide the function of flashing text in groups of 2 or 3 words at a time to facilitate rapid reading. When you zoom in using an Android device, you can increase the text size as much as you want and it will reformat the text to allow vertical reading. You can easily flick down the page and rapidly read any article much faster than you could be scrolling sideways.

The folks over at Apple seem to think that text reflow is not necessary because the Retina display is so clear that you don’t need to zoom in on text to ease reading. I don’t understand this argument, and I think it’s an excuse to get around the fact that the Android platform has outdone iOS4 in this one single area. It doesn’t matter how clear the screen might be. If you can’t read tiny text on a printed document because of poor eyesight, you’re not going to be able to read it on a Retina display either. So you are left to zooming in to a decent size, and having to scroll back and forth horizontally to get through an article. It is very cumbersome to say the least.

Text reflow is almost a deal-breaker for me. I absolutely love my iPhone 4, but I would consider trying to get out of my contract and sell my device just to be able to have a device that I could use to speed read information in the manner that text reflow allows. I’m not a programming expert or software developer, but I would have to assume that this is an easy fix (or addition) for the Apple developers. In order to stay ahead of the competitors (who seem to be catching up rapidly), why not put the Apple ego aside and get this done?

I have started a blog page dedicated to drumming up support for text reflow on iOS4. If you are an iPhone user and you see the benefit of having text reflow for reading purposes, please click on the link and post a response on my blog page. I want my iPhone 4 to be my primary reading device, and I’ll do just about anything to have this feature!

Carlton Flowers
Techno Geek

http://carltonzone.com/blog/iphone-text-wrapword-re-flow-discussion-page/

UPDATE! I have found a temporary solution to the text reflow issue with the Safari browser! Read about it in my latest blog post here:

http://carltonzone.com/blog/quasi-text-reflow-on-an-iphone/

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