It has been almost 3 years since the Textexpander app/SDK was deprecated on iOS in favour of a keyboard-only solution that has never made it out of TestFlight. As a subscription service, I struggle to understand how this situation can be allowed to perpetuate. Yes, I get testing is required, but this timeframe is becoming rather daft.
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We appreciate the question, and it’s incredibly valid considering the length of our mobile beta. I’d love to share some context.
The biggest hurdle we’ve faced is delivering a seamless TextExpander experience within the limitations of third-party keyboard support, particularly on iOS. We’ve been testing different keyboard SDKs to overcome these platform-level roadblocks.
Rather than hold back until everything is “final,” we chose to develop in the open so customers like you can still use TextExpander on mobile while we continue to improve it.
That said, we also need to balance resources. The majority of our usage happens on desktops, so our team’s efforts are often focused there to continue delivering the features and improvements most of our customers rely on every day.
Still, we’re committed to making mobile better, and the ongoing beta is part of that commitment.
We truly appreciate your feedback and patience, and we’re working toward making TextExpander great wherever you type.
For others reading this thread who would like to use the mobile betas, you can find instructions for installing them here.
J.D.
TextExpander CEO
Thanks for the clarification on the iOS situation. I still feel this could be fixed if you wanted to. However, as someone who has used TextExpander since it was “Textpander” – prior to Peter Maurer selling it to SmileOnMyMac – it’s clear that Textexpander’s target audience has changed markedly in that time. I’m just an individual, not a corporate health care provider, which seems to be the focus of your company’s blog posts these days. So, yes, I see that iOS is not a core area for you. It feels like you should just kill it off completely if you can only devote limited resources to it. At least we all know where we stand then.
And as for “continue delivering the features and improvements most of our customers rely on every day,” as a subscriber, I’ve seen very little by way of enhanced functionality within my Mac’s TextExpander in recent years, apart from it turning into a far from easy on the eye, non-native app. A quick scan of the release notes for the past few years and it’s predominantly bug fixes with little in the way of new features.
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You raise some great points, and I genuinely appreciate the conversation.
From many conversations with customers and my own personal needs/wants, I know there is demand for mobile functionality from individual users to enterprise customers. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in it, even if progress sometimes comes slower than we’d all prefer.
J.D.
Great comment which needed to be said. Thank you.
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I recommend the WordBoard app
instead of TextExpander for IOS, sadly.
I used to love the IOS version of TextExpander when it was functional.
I am surprised that most customers use it on their desktops rather than on mobile.
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Thanks. I’ll likely let my subscription lapse, purely because I can achieve similar with either Alfred or Keyboard Maestro, which I both use on the Mac. With Textexpander now sitting within a vast portfolio of tech and healthcare companies within Summit Partners, I expect there’s much “leveraging of synergies,” going on, and as already mentioned, it’s a very different entity to when I started using it c.2005.
Can you tell me how Keyboard Maestro compares to TextExpander in your uses?
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I do appreciate your response but stronglly disagree with your logic. In almost all industries, the accelerating demand is toward mobile. Of course healthcare will be slower than almost all industries due to the compliance and regulatory environments but the trend is clear…people prefer, for many reasons, to use IOS and iPad when possible.
The lack of functional iOS/iPad TextExpander support is the only feature that has me scoping out competitive solutions. I will move overnight if I find one. It’s that important and frustrating in its absence.
Looking for options…
Well put. The deprecation of mobile is a strange oversight that certainly could come back to bite this company’s future.
Please let the rest of us know what you find in your search.
Amazing what $41.4m won’t buy you.
I have a Mac but the iPad is my main device. The non-beta app is still available to me. I use it every day even though it hasn’t been maintained and crashes frequently.
The beta keyboard is a good start, but the letters are barely visible on the iPad Pro 13 inch because they overlap. I still use it occasionally because it works OK when my keyboard is connected. But I would like the ability to use the up and down arrows on the physical keyboard when the beta keyboard is in use.
I usually enter snippets in TE online and then wait a few seconds for them to sync to the iOS apps.
These workarounds have allowed me to continue using and benefiting from TE on mobile devices for everything from simple snippets to robust JavaScript snippets.
I continue to use TE on my iPad and iPhone every day.
The lack of arrow key support is one of the main reasons I may let my subscription lapse. There is no point on keeping it for my Mac (where other options are available) if I can’t also use it on my iPad. It’s frustrating having to constantly switch keyboards.