iPhone & iPad Keyboard Tips
So, you've got the basics down - making a phone call, taking a photo, using Safari to search the web.

Here's some keyboard tips that may make things easier for you and perhaps even more fun!
So you want to type the degree sign ... 98°
Your keyboard has many hidden secrets. One is when you long press a key, you get additional options.

To use the degree symbol ° you would long press on the zero "0" and the degree sign pops up. Slide your finger to the symbol and release. You have just added that symbol to your email, message/text, etc.
Hold down the period "." to get more symbols ...
Another shortcut includes holding down the '.' (period). The symbols that appear change dependent on which field you are in.

After holding the key for a second, a pop-up appears on your keyboard giving you the option to add characters and symbols. When the symbol appears, slide your finger to that symbol and release. You have just added that symbol to your email, message/text, etc.

The two examples below are using the period "."

  • Experiment with letter keys and you will see accented letters for other languages.

  • The question mark and apostrophe can be inverted.

  • The dollar sign shows other currency symbols. Have fun!
MESSAGE field:
After holding the period key for a second, a pop-up appears on your keyboard giving you the option to add an ellipsis (3-dots).
TO Field:
After holding the period key for a second, a pop-up appears on your keyboard giving you the option to add .com .org etc.
The space bar ...
The space bar has a few magic tricks too.

  • Double tap the space bar. You will automatically add a period to the end of your sentence as well as a space. This first needs to be enabled:
  • Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable "." Shortcut

  • Use the keyboard as a track pad to move the cursor. This helps to position the cursor when making corrections to your typing. Hold down the space bar with one finger for a second and you will see that it goes blank. Move your finger in the direction you want the cursor to move.
  • So you can move the cursor just like in a track pad. Cool!
The Quick Path swipe keyboard ...
Lifting your finger to type each letter is so yesterday! Try swiping - or as Apple calls it "Quick Path."

When you swipe type, you don’t have to lift your finger from the keyboard between key presses. It’s especially helpful when you’re typing one-handed. It’s also usually faster than two-handed typing due to the much higher error rate when you use your thumbs.

First, enable this feature:
Settings > General > Keyboard
iPhones - enable Slide to Type
iPads - enable Slide on Floating Keyboard to Type
iPad Special Instructions:
On the iPhone you just start swiping.

On the iPad, you need one additional step.

Remember that Quick Path is intended for a smaller keyboard - so to make the iPad keyboard look like the iPhone keyboard, just use two fingers to pinch it smaller. Then start swiping! PS - Two finger pinch out to expand to the full size keyboard.
On the iPhone I have started swiping the word "typing". The actual swiping isn't obvious but you can see I captured the letter "i" as I was moving through the keyboard.

And yes, I could have tapped the word "Typing" in the predictive text area instead of completing the swiping movements.
Here I have finished swiping the entire word and I just take my finger off the keyboard. The word "typing" shows in my text area.

You may find this a useful alternative to the regular hunt and peck method.
Want to get to the numbers and punctuation,
just slide to the "123" and keep sliding.

Also, Quick Path is intuitive, so if you are typing "going to the store" vs. "too easy" - you can't double-swipe a letter, but once you swipe "to" and follow by "easy" it will add the second "o" - amazing!!!
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