On the surface, the iPhone keyboard looks like it did a decade ago, but underneath, much has changed. In addition to the hidden features that have existed for years, Apple has slowly added features and gestures that make typing a bit easier. If you’re still shaking your iPhone to undo text, it’s time to dig deeper. These 10 hacks can help you make the most of typing on your iPhone.
Use keyboard haptics to simulate a physical keyboard
Typing on an iPhone’s glass surface can feel a bit lifeless, especially if you’re used to typing on mechanical keyboards on your Mac. While there’s no way to get a physical keyboard on the iPhone (unless you get something like the Clicks keyboard), you can simulate it. The iPhone has a built-in Taptic engine, which provides subtle vibrations as you interact with the device. While most know it from notifications, calls, and scrolling through various iOS UI elements, it can be enabled for the keyboard too. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and enable “Haptic Feedback.”
Use this hidden gesture to type one number from the main keyboard
When you type on the iPhone keyboard, all you see are letters. To type numbers or symbols, you have to switch to the “123” keyboard layout instead—unless you use this hidden gesture, that is. See, each letter is already hiding a number or alternative symbol behind it. All you need to do to reveal it is to swipe from the 123 key. Once you do that, the keyboard will reveal numbers and symbols. Drag your finger to the number you want to enter, let go, and it’s done. The keyboard goes back to being a keyboard.
Use this camera trick to scan text into any field
The iPhone has OCR (optical character recognition) built into iOS. You use this anytime you copy text from an image in the Photos app. The same feature is integrated into the Camera app, and lets you paste that text straight into any field, bypassing the keyboard entirely. To do so, point the camera towards any text, and the app will frame it in a yellow border. You’ll also see a Live Text button in the bottom-right corner. Tap on it, select the text, and tap the Copy button. Now, open any text field, and you’ll see a suggestion to paste the text you just copied.
Enable one-handed mode to shift the keyboard toward your thumb
If you have a large iPhone, typing with one hand can be extremely difficult. Instead, use the keyboard’s one-handed mode. Tap and hold the Globe key to find options to dock the one-handed keyboard to the left or the right (below the list of all available keyboards). If you don’t see it, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > One-Handed Keyboardand choose Left or Right from here. Once enabled, you’ll see a shrunken keyboard layout docked to one side of the screen. Tap the Arrow button to change the docking position. Unfortunately, unlike Gboard on Android, you can’t resize the keyboard itself, but this does make it much easier to use your keyboard with one hand.
Build a text replacement library for the phrases you retype daily
Apple’s built-in Text Replacement feature can transform a couple of pre-programmed letters into canned responses. That could be your address, an email template for clients, a signature, a repeated sign-off message, anything you frequently type. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement. Here, tap the Plus button from the top, add the expanded response in the “Phrase” field and the trigger characters in the “Shortcut”field.
Double- and triple-tap to select a word, sentence, or paragraph
You can simply drag the iPhone’s cursor to select text. But instead of fiddling with the little cursor point, try tapping on the screen. You can double-tap a word to quickly select it; triple-tap, and you’ll select the sentence. Tap four times, and now the entire paragraph is selected.
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Use these gestures to master quick edits
Once you’ve selected the text, pinch in with three fingers to quickly copy the text. Pinch outwards with three fingers to paste the text. You can also swipe left with three fingers to undo anything you just did. For precise text selection, nothing beats the trackpad hack. You might already know that if you press and hold the Space bar on the iPhone keyboard, the whole thing turns into a trackpad. But you can also use this feature to select text. Keep your finger on the Space bar, but use another finger to move the cursor to select the text.
Reset your keyboard dictionary to improve suggestions
There may be times when the iPhone keyboard goes haywire. Autocorrect might keep suggesting words you never type, or it keeps bringing up specific casual words you type in a group chat, but don’t mean to repeat. If you’re fed up with keyboard suggestions, there is an out. You can reset the whole thing, starting fresh by rebuilding the suggestions library. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary to get started.
Turn on multilingual support to type in two languages with the same keyboard
If you’re multilingual, you might constantly switch between keyboards to type in your target language. Now, you don’t need to do that. You can enable multilingual support to type in different languages on a single keyboard. When you enable two languages, the iPhone keyboard adapts automatically. It knows which language you’re typing and will even provide different suggestions based on it. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard. Choose a language, and then select if you want to add a new keyboard, or if you want to add the language to your existing keyboard.
You shouldn’t trust AI to write for you, but you can use it to proofread and edit text you’ve crafted yourself. And there’s no need to pay for an AI subscription either. If you have Apple Intelligence built into your iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro and later), you can use the Writing Tools feature instead. Writing Tools is integrated into the Notes app, Mail app, and basically anywhere you write text. Select the text, and from the pop-up menu, choose “Writing Tools.” From here, ask Siri to make the text shorter, format it to make it sound more formal, and, of course, to check for grammar and spelling mistakes.
