In the past couple of months I have noticed much more difficulty having my taps on links in Chrome iOS register. I'll tap the same link multiple times with no response whatsoever. When this happens scrolling the page a bit and retrying does seem to help. I would estimate that about a third of my initial taps fail to register. This is on the main article links as well as the harder to hit tiny links for comment, upvote, etc. I have no idea if this is an issue with recent updates to iOS, Chrome or this site. It has been quite frustrating. Has anyone else been experiencing this?
by cunthorpe on 11/29/21, 12:55 AM
What I noticed, either in iOS 15 or on my iPhone 13 Pro, is that swiping gestures often don’t complete. That means closing tabs in Safari, switching apps with the bottom bar, often “come back” as if I didn’t swipe fast enough. This is quite annoying because I have to repeat the gesture multiple times for it to be completed.
Safari has been behaving stupidly too: I type n, I see the autocomplete for news.ycombinator appear, I press the Go key… it searches Google for “n”. It’s maddening.
by deergomoo on 11/28/21, 10:46 PM
I have not had that particular issue, but I have noticed another strange behaviour that I only see on Hacker News on iOS Safari.
If I navigate to the comments, then click the article, about 50% of the time, navigating back to the comments doesn’t work. It loads for a little while, but then just displays a static view of the linked article. If I hit back again, I’m on the HN homepage, then I can hit forward to return to the comments and all is fine again. It’s really bizarre.
by flog on 11/28/21, 10:38 PM
Yes! I've been having to double tap links on iOS Chrome, as you've described.
I'm a frontend engineer so this had me puzzled. It's not like there's a zindex issue with something blocking it, as a double tap seems to often work.
by khazhoux on 11/28/21, 10:50 PM
I’ve seen this exact thing, Chrome iOS, for a couple of months now. Not just HN but also reddit and others
by code_duck on 11/28/21, 11:09 PM
I have had that problem in general with iOS 15. Sometimes a tap repeatedly won’t register in a certain portion of the screen.
by hk1337 on 11/28/21, 11:18 PM
I haven’t had this issue in chrome or iOS but macOS safari I have had this issue with what I believe are JavaScript heavy sites like Facebook and Reddit’s new design. As soon as I log into Reddit, the problem disappears because I have settings set to use the old layout.
by spike021 on 11/28/21, 10:28 PM
If you're thinking of what I'm thinking of, I haven't had it happen on HN but have on other sites. It's like the links aren't being recognized in iOS Safari as links, only text.
by aetherspawn on 11/28/21, 10:53 PM
Not had any issues with Safari on iOS.
by Epiphany21 on 11/28/21, 11:56 PM
It happens on my iPad with iOS 15 on random UI elements. I notice it more in Safari since the tablet is mostly for news reading and emails. I honestly think the hit box on some stuff is just too small, like the button for creating a new tab so it's taking me a couple tries to press it correctly. The flat UI compounds the problem for me because I don't actually know the size of the zone where I can tap. I can only see the blue symbol on a white background.
by bluehex on 11/29/21, 1:24 AM
Thank you all for the replies I'm glad to hear that I'm not going crazy. I did have some suspicions that this might not be HN specific but I'd mainly noticed it here since I spend a disproportionate amount of my mobile browsing time here or in YouTube. I couldn't remember if I'd seen it before my update to iOS 15 but from all the comments the WebKit views in 15 are looking pretty suspect.
by pdimitar on 11/29/21, 1:12 AM
Safari has been a bit unresponsive at times on HN for me, yeah. But only when trying to upvote/downvote things. Sometimes I can't do the action unless I scroll a bit back and forth. It's weird. (Using iPhone 12 Pro Max.)
But as another poster said, some of the gestures in Safari can also lag a bit. It's not nice. :(
by peanut_worm on 11/28/21, 10:27 PM
I haven’t noticed anything in Safari
by busymom0 on 11/29/21, 12:17 AM
I did find a similar question posted on Apple's discussion forums. Seems the issue might be iOS specific and not HN related?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253272062
Also, other browsers like Brave, Chrome etc on iOS all use the same WKWebView so I am doubtful there would be difference.
I am the developer of iOS, macOS and Android client called HACK which you can try out if you like.
by oceanghost on 11/29/21, 12:45 AM
Yes. I have to paw at certain things two or three times. The worst is the flashlight icon on the lock screen.
I have to press it like a physical button as opposed to "tap".
by prawn on 11/28/21, 10:45 PM
I've found that my taps to upvote register as a downvote so I've taken to tapping a lot higher than the arrows appear.
Unrelated, but any Reddit thread with more than a handful of comments will reliably crash/reload/crash Safari/iOS for me. It's been quite effective as I usually leave the site and save myself time. Haven't been able to work out if it's common to others or something unique about my phone/setup.
by hendry on 11/28/21, 11:23 PM
I’m having issues tapping on resized YouTube videos on my new iPhone 13 Pro.
Perhaps it’s related or perhaps I’m losing my mind.
by itomato on 11/29/21, 12:43 AM
I’ve been running betas and yes, links are sometimes troublesome.
Responsiveness on pinch zooming feels very different also.
by musesum on 11/29/21, 12:36 AM
Maybe problem with safe area insets? Have been experimenting with SwiftUI DragGesture to replace UIKit's UITouch gestures. Have been getting false negatives and SpringBoard false positives on everything from iPod touch through iPhone Pro Max.
by jjmorrison on 11/29/21, 12:20 AM
Chrome on iOS 15 is super busted. Surprised they still haven't fixed it.
by mucholove on 11/29/21, 1:52 AM
You weren't asking about this—but the most frustrating thing on the new Mac platform is that I don't know where the text-fields are! They blend in to the white background.
So lost :/
by DL302 on 11/29/21, 12:08 AM
I use Brave on iOS and have no problems so far. However, sometimes screentime bugs out for some reason and says that I've been using a certain website for 24 hours.
by edgyquant on 11/29/21, 1:16 AM
I have noticed this on multiple sites and Reddit locks up constantly on the latest iOS (so does the browser when performing certain actions.)
by 55555 on 11/29/21, 3:03 AM
Never had this before today. Now the only way to click a link on HN on my iPhone 13 Pro is to press and hold and then open a new tab.
by jackconsidine on 11/28/21, 11:37 PM
I've had this issue! I made a mental note today when having to tap a link three times to open. I have a Google Pixel 3, though.
by 42droids on 11/29/21, 12:01 AM
Yes, left (hand) finger taps are rarely registered the first time. Glad someone else also noticed this… (Chrome, iPhone SX)
by bdastous on 11/29/21, 1:19 AM
100% yes for Chrome in iPadOS. It seems like it wants to register some type of selection event rather than a tap.
by yuppie_scum on 11/28/21, 10:04 PM
Octal is a good client for HN on iOS
by DantesKite on 11/29/21, 12:29 AM
Highlighting text is also busted.
by hkc on 11/29/21, 12:03 AM
You can try a client like Octal or Hack. I prefer Octal but Hack has notifications.
by rajangdavis on 11/28/21, 11:04 PM
Had noticed this more with upvoting here and less with normal text links
by ozzythecat on 11/28/21, 11:26 PM
No issues in Safari or Chrome. I’m on an iPhone 13 with the latest iOS.
by icedchai on 11/29/21, 12:53 AM
I noticed this when I updated to iOS 15.
by msie on 11/29/21, 2:12 AM
I don’t have problems but i am using ios 14.
by xbar on 11/29/21, 12:15 AM
Yes.