Are apostrophes a problem on Android?

[+TeamMoehrke]

I've got a couple of lab sites that have apostrophes in their answers. A couple of cachers have stumbled on these, while others have had no problems. It seems the common denominator might be mobile OS. The folks who have not had problems all seem to have iPhones, while the two who have struggled have Android phones.

Has anybody else see a problem like this? And if so, what might the answer be?

[CacheShadow]

I don't *know* -- but I can make a pretty good guess.

 

"Smart apostrophes" may be the root cause; there are situations where I have seen someone begins to type words (e.g. "Roget's Thesauraus") on an iPhone and the device sees the first few letters (e.g. "R-o-g") and it decides to be helpful and fill in the rest automagically.

Well, it seems that smart apostrophe can be interpreted different by some apps/software in a way that's different from if someone simply typed it in manually.

 

To us - the input looks the same; to the device - the smart apostrophe and manual apostrophe could be interpreted different - which doesn't help when you try to have things match.

 

As you're suggesting it works on iPhones -- was the Adventure Lab created/updated with an Apple iOS device?

 

(It might be an idea for HQ to recommend answers with apostrophes not be used, because of such anomalies).

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/344310/how-to-turn-off-smart-punctuation-on-your-iphone-and-ipad/

https://studentaid.gov/help/smart-punctuation

 

 

[+CAVinoGal]

53 minutes ago, TeamMoehrke said:

I've got a couple of lab sites that have apostrophes in their answers. A couple of cachers have stumbled on these

 

I'm one of those who stumbled; we were able to complete 3 of the 5 locations but could not find any answers, with or without apostrophes, that would work for those other 2.  Maybe TeamMoehrke can rework the questions so the answers don't involve apostrophes, or just leave them out and mention that in the question - no punctuation?

 

And since I discovered that I can see and answer the questions for those 2 locations even though I am not on site any longer, I'm curious if I'll have to go back and re-visit before I'll get credit for those last 2, or if that will happen once I am able to answer?  And if the date will be the original date I visited, or the date I get the correct answer?  Since I can't write a log until I get all 5 complete, I'm thinking that date will be the date I get the last two answers.  Just curious...

Edited January 13, 2020 by CAVinoGal

[+TeamMoehrke]

2 hours ago, CacheShadow said:

I don't *know* -- but I can make a pretty good guess.

 

"Smart apostrophes" may be the root cause; there are situations where I have seen someone begins to type words (e.g. "Roget's Thesauraus") on an iPhone and the device sees the first few letters (e.g. "R-o-g") and it decides to be helpful and fill in the rest automagically.

Well, it seems that smart apostrophe can be interpreted different by some apps/software in a way that's different from if someone simply typed it in manually.

 

To us - the input looks the same; to the device - the smart apostrophe and manual apostrophe could be interpreted different - which doesn't help when you try to have things match.

 

As you're suggesting it works on iPhones -- was the Adventure Lab created/updated with an Apple iOS device?

 

(It might be an idea for HQ to recommend answers with apostrophes not be used, because of such anomalies).

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/344310/how-to-turn-off-smart-punctuation-on-your-iphone-and-ipad/

https://studentaid.gov/help/smart-punctuation

 

 

 

[+TeamMoehrke]

I did create them on my iMac, and tested them on my iPhone, so that all stayed within the ecosystem. 
One of the answers includes this word - Bro’s - here cut and pasted on my iPad. How is that apostrophe different what an Android phone types? I'm guessing it's actually a single quote character rather than a true apostrophe.

Edited January 13, 2020 by TeamMoehrke

[+baer2006]

1 hour ago, TeamMoehrke said:

- Bro’s -

This is Unicode U+2019 "Right Single Quotation Mark" ...

1 hour ago, TeamMoehrke said:

I'm guessing it's...

... while these are Unicode U+0027 "Apostrophe".

So the fault lies in iOS, because no matter how an apostrophe is graphically displayed, it should be encoded using the proper Unicode code point.

Edited January 13, 2020 by baer2006

[+TeamMoehrke]

7 hours ago, baer2006 said:

This is Unicode U+2019 "Right Single Quotation Mark" ...

... while these are Unicode U+0027 "Apostrophe".

So the fault lies in iOS, because no matter how an apostrophe is graphically displayed, it should be encoded using the proper Unicode code point.

so now my question is, if I copy/paste this Unicode apostrophe in to the two answers will it cause problems for iPhone users... what is the best solution that works for both platforms?

[+baer2006]

16 minutes ago, TeamMoehrke said:

what is the best solution that works for both platforms?

Simple : Don't use an answer phrase with an apostrophe. If you don't want to change the actual answer, just remove the apostrophe and add "(Omit the apostrophe)" to the question.

 

My own ALC is in German, and I have taken care not to use any possibly "problematic" character in answers, like umlauts. Foreign cachers might speak enough German to understand the questions, but they still have no umlaut characters on their phones (and even if they do, who knows which character encoding incompatibility dramas might ensue).

[+TeamMoehrke]

3 hours ago, baer2006 said:

Simple : Don't use an answer phrase with an apostrophe. If you don't want to change the actual answer, just remove the apostrophe and add "(Omit the apostrophe)" to the question.

 

My own ALC is in German, and I have taken care not to use any possibly "problematic" character in answers, like umlauts. Foreign cachers might speak enough German to understand the questions, but they still have no umlaut characters on their phones (and even if they do, who knows which character encoding incompatibility dramas might ensue).

So I've changed those two questions to eliminate the punctuation

[+CAVinoGal]

3 hours ago, TeamMoehrke said:

So I've changed those two questions to eliminate the punctuation

And I've been able to complete the lab!!

The last two stages show as finds today, 1/13/2010, the first 3 a week ago, 1/6/2020 when we actually did them.  But it was cool that I could enter the answers today, here at home, and not have to revisit the actual location!