10 Typing tips every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch user should know

10 Typing tips every iPhone, iPad, and iPod user should know

1. Shake to undo

Most people usually find out about this feature when they accidentally drop their phones. If you make a mistake or enter in incorrect text, you can undo your typing by shaking your device.

When you shake your device the last entrance that you typed, uninterrupted, will be erased. So whether you type one letter or one sentence, the entire message will be undone. This comes in handy when needing to delete large amounts of text instead of jabbing at the delete button constantly.

2. Speedy Contractions

Contractions are created to combine two words and make it shorter. But when you are typing a contraction on your iPhone it can take longer than just typing he will if you miss the apostrophe. Instead of hoping auto-correct knows you meant he’ll instead of hell, you can actually type helll and auto-correct will add the apostrophe for you. Type “welll” and it will automatically jump to we’ll. This saves time and makes sure that you actually enter what you meant.

3. The domain shortcut

If you are using Safari on your iDevice you can skip typing the .com domain into your URL. Instead, tap and hold the period key and box of possible domains will appear. Tap on .com or .edu and head over to your webpage.

If you use Google Chrome this option is built into their auto suggestion. Since Apple’s predictive text is disabled in Safari and other applications, it can’t offer the same. Apple should probably look to add that in iOS 9.

4. Adding “Smart” quotes

I once had a job that forbid the use of “smart quotes” or the curved variation of the standard quotation marks. The default quotes on your iPhone, also known as dumb quotes, are straight not as sexy — IMO. To input a smart quote, hold the quotation key to reveal the option in the hovering menu.

5. Adding symbols and currency

Perhaps you are traveling in Europe or find that you need the cents symbol for this really important text. Well you find it just by looking at your iOS keyboard. Instead, tap and hold the $ sign to bring up different currencies. You can also tap and hold, the exclamation mark, period, comma, and more to bring up other symbols and options.

6. Starting a Sentence

You iOS 8 keyboard knows that most humans speak in complete sentences. It has a handy feature that automatically adds a period and space after each sentence. Whenever you type a sentence, double tap the spacebar and period and space will be added allowing you to being a new sentence more quickly. If for some reason this is not enabled by default, go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard and ensure that the “.” Shortcut is enabled.

7. Say it with an accent

While I did take three years of Spanish in high school, I’m still not fluent enough to add the Spanish keyboard to my iPhone. But for certain phrases or words, adding an accent might be necessary regardless of fluency. To add an accent tap and hold the letter in question. Most common letters with accents are vowels A, E, I, O, and U.

8. ALL CAPS

Yelling through text is made possible with all caps. Instead of tapping the shift key for each letter you want to capitalize, just double-tap the shift key to lock it on Caps mode. This way you can type abbreviations like CIA or FBI without unnecessary extra taps.

THAT WAS SUPER HELPFUL RIGHT?

9. Entering Numbers and Punctuation

When you need to enter just one number or punctuation mark, you don’t have to switch to the other keyboard. Instead, hold down the “123” key and select the number or punctuation on the numerical keyboard. Once you have made your selection release the key and it will automatically return to the standard keyboard. Saves you a couple of seconds, which really do add up eventually.

9. Hyphen vs em dash

Even if you are confused on the proper use of the em dash and hyphen, you might as well know how to place in your text. On the numerical keyboard, or using the speedy trick from number 8, hold the hyphen key to bring up the option for en dash, em dash, and bullet point.

10. Adding third-party boards

These are all tips for the stock iOS 8 QuickType keyboard. However there are many people who enjoy swiping to text or other features offered in third-party keyboards. To add a third-party keyboard, go to Settings -> General -> Keyboards -> Keyboards -> Add New Keyboard.