Typing on the tiny iPhone keyboard is always a challenge. But while it might not qualify as the most optimal experience in the world, you can make your messages, emails, captions, and tweets more precise by using your phone’s native software keyboard to the best of your ability. While there are plenty of third-party keyboards out there that promise to make the keyboard more enjoyable, Apple’s own default keyboard offers some nifty touches of its own. Here are some tips on where to find them.
Smiley shortcut
You can access a number of special functions for the iPhone keyboard via Smiley emoji icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Touch and hold to open a menu with quick access to keyboard settings. You’ll see a list of all the keyboards installed on your phone, saving you a trip to the Settings app. Most people have a native language keyboard and only an emoticon keyboard. The iPhone app allows you to add a second language keyboard or even load a third-party keyboard from the App Store. You’ll also see the keyboards of installed apps that install their own keyboards. If you have third-party keyboards installed, you will see a globe icon instead of a smiley face icon. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Clever punctuation
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If you want your text to look more polished and easier to read, smart punctuation — like curly quotes and em dashes — is easy to create. Smart quotes know which end to wrap in the quoted material and that’s why they are smart. When you type a double dash, the keyboard knows it should be one long dash and automatically places it. One more thing: if you turn on the period shortcut, when you’re done typing a sentence, you can double-tap the spacebar and instead of two spaces, you’ll get a period and a space. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Touch and hold for alternatives
If you tap and hold certain letters, the keyboard will display a series of alternative characters — for example, accented characters, where you just have to slide your finger to select the right one. Not every key has an alternative. Pronouns also work for punctuation and even emojis. On the emoji keyboard, if you tap and hold on an emoji, you’ll get different options for skin color, for example, and you can choose one for the default skin color. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Emoticon hunt
Sometimes it’s hard to find the exact emoticon you’re looking for to express the right emotion for your message. While on a Mac you can use a search term to locate a specific emoji, there is no text search box on the iPhone. However, if you just type a word in a message, iOS automatically suggests the closest emoji. You can use a word, an emoji, or both. When you see one of the suggestions appear, press the spacebar first. The suggestions stay there, and you can then tap one to have both the word and the emoji in your message. You don’t need to know the exact name of the emoji. For this to work, you need to enable predictive keyboard to see which emoticon the keyboard displays in response to your word. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Left and right keyboard
As you tap and hold for quick access to keyboard settings, you’ll see two small keyboard icons on either side of the middle, with tiny arrows pointing in opposite directions. Choose one of these to change the way you type, using one hand or the other. These icons only appear in portrait mode, and selecting one of them moves the entire keyboard to one side. You can touch Arrow on either side to return to the full-size keyboard. This is especially handy for larger-screen iPhones, as it helps you control your thumb better. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Dot as a domain name
You can use the dot key on your keyboard to automatically insert the domain address. Launch your mobile phone’s web browser or search engine and tap Address bar to access the keyboard. Type the name of the page, then tap and hold Period key. You’ll see a menu with options like .com, .edu, and org. Swipe to choose the right one. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Keyboard as a trackpad
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You can transform your keyboard into a trackpad by touching and holding your finger on Spacer. This will allow you to drag your finger to move the cursor through the text. If you have a device that supports 3D touch, you can touch and hold anywhere on the Keyboard to invoke the trackpad action, and the keys will become blank. In addition to allowing you to move the cursor more easily, this feature makes it easier for you to select text. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Check the definitions
You can touch and hold any word in a text document to trigger a series of actions related to the word or phrase, such as cut, copy, paste, replace, bold, italic, underline, search, split, and indent or shrink. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Text replacement
Text replacement is a native feature of the iOS keyboard and you can set it in the keyboard settings. To go Settings > General > Keyboards > Text Replacement to type short text replacements for phrases you use frequently. So instead of typing “I’m on my way” you can type “omw” and the keyboard will type the whole phrase for you. If you sign your personal letters with “peace and love”, you can type “pl” and the keyboard will know what you want to say. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
QuickPath drag
With the iOS 13 update, Apple has widely shared the QuickPath feature. This is a huge time saver as you can type whole words by swiping across the keyboard letter by letter instead of having to touch each individual letter. Siri and general machine learning combine to predict what you say. To enable or disable this feature, use the Clear Slide-to-Type and Slide-to-Type options on the standard iOS QuickType keyboard. Before this software was available, users had to recreate this experience with a third-party keyboard like Microsoft Swype, SwiftKey or Google Gboard. To activate either option, go to Settings > General > Keyboard. Then simply use the swipe typing tool in iPadOS 13 or iOS 13. Simply tap the first letter and then slide your finger to each subsequent letter. The keyboard will predict and reflect your word. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Dictation
If you’re in a bind and can’t type on your keyboard, writing a note or sending an email is still possible. Select the dictation option in Settings > General > Keyboard and turn on Dictation. A confirmation alert will appear on the screen. Once you activate this feature, you can click the microphone and speak into your phone, which will translate your speech into text. If you need to perform a formatting rule, such as adding a period or using the tab key, simply say, “Tab key” and the tool will automatically perform the tab function, add a period, or whatever you tell it to do. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Tap and slide
Let’s say you want to add just one number or punctuation mark. You don’t need to point and tap each button individually. You can simply tap Number key (123) and slide your finger to insert commas, colons, & signs, dollar signs, and any number without lifting your finger from the keyboard. When you’re done, the keyboard automatically returns to its original state. This swipe gesture saves time and effort because you don’t have to readjust the keyboard or manually switch back and forth. Similarly, to add a capital letter, tap Shift key, slide your finger to the letter you want to add, and then release your finger. This feature works identically in iOS 13 and iOS 14.
Hide that keyboard
We know—the software keyboard seems to take up quite a bit of screen space. If you’re in the middle of a file or trying to read over text, the keyboard can get in the way and get in the way. With iOS 13, you can drag the keyboard to the middle of the screen so it doesn’t block your view, then tap it when you’re done to return it to its normal location. In iOS 14, you have to tap and drag the keyboard down to the bottom of the screen to hide it, then tap the screen again to bring the keyboard back into view.
Custom fonts
With iOS 13, you can download and install custom fonts to further control the look and tone of your messages. Now you can dress up your documents with vintage, modern, formal or playful fonts right from your keyboard. For both iOS and iPadOS, you can install custom fonts by downloading specific font apps like Fonteer and Font Diner from the App Store, applying them to compatible apps on your phone, and managing them in Settings. These new fonts work through the app you plan to use them with — they’re not compatible with all apps on your device.
Unfortunately, with iOS 14 this process no longer works as advertised. We tried the Font Diner, Fonteer and iFont apps. They all, in some way, either install font profiles, and in the case of Font Diner, even list their 13 free fonts as part of the default font list. But we couldn’t get any of them to work in any Mail or Pages document. They just don’t show up as available fonts. There has been some discussion about the issue on the Apple forums, but there is no official explanation as to why there is such a big difference in the performance of third-party fonts with the updated OS.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn