Typing long texts using the smartphone keyboard can be a frustrating task. When writing on a computer, if you have an afterthought or a typo just use the mouse or touchpad to select the unwanted word or phrase and change it, but on the touch screen of smartphones you have to select the words with surgical precision, a which often requires several attempts before being completed successfully. In recent days there has been a lot of talk about it on social networks because there is an iPhone and iPad keyboard function that simplifies all this, and many users are only now discovering it even though it has been around for some years. Some of you surely already know it, others surely don't.
How come you guys never told me this iPhone trick? I feel duped. pic.twitter.com/2RfRhI4Y1X
– Krissy Brierre-Davis (@krissys_kitchen) November 18, 2018
The function has already existed since 2015 but has been improved with the latest iOS 12 software update. Basically when using the Apple system keyboard, instead of trying to move the cursor directly to the written text by pressing on the position where you want position, you can transform the keyboard into a touchpad on which to move the cursor freely. To do this, just hold down on the space bar – but it also works anywhere on the keyboard – and this will become an empty space on which to move your finger and thus move the cursor.
Just found out about this space bar trick on the iphone! And its not only the space bar, click and hold any letter on the keyboard and it'll work? pic.twitter.com/DGkKjHJZ4w
– ARWA (@MrsShelbyy) November 20, 2018
Also, on devices equipped with “3D Touch”, by pressing deeper you can select a word or an entire paragraph. For models that do not have the “3D Touch” function such as the iPad and iPhone XR, all this is possible, as already in iOS 11, only by holding down the space bar and not anywhere on the keyboard.
The new iOS 12 and macOS Mojave
