6 iPhone Keyboard Tricks You Should Know

BY Andy

Published 20 Aug 2010

iPhone keyboard tricks

One of the gambles Apple took with with the iPhone was doing away with a physical keyboard and instead featuring a full QWERTY soft keyboard. 

Some still find it to be a deal breaker but long time iPhone users will vouch for the way their iDevice has helped them enhance their productivity. 

If you've just started using an iDevice then you may have still not exploited the complete functionality that the iPhone keyboard offers.

Here are a few useful iPhone keyboard tricks:

Add An International Keyboard

If you need to communicate with your colleagues and family in different languages, the iPhone offers a one-tap solution to toggle between the different keyboards. To get started, navigate from the Home Screen to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> International Keyboards to add a new language to your active keyboards list. Once done, you simply have to tap on the globe icon beside the space bar on the keyboard to switch to another language.

iPhone keyboard tricks

Add Special Symbol

Can't find the € symbol on your iPhone keyboard? To insert this symbol, you simply have to tap and hold the $ key. You will be shown a list of alternate currency symbols, including  €, to pick from. You can use the same trick to insert many other symbols like an inverted exclamation, longer hyphens,etc by tapping and holding the corresponding keys.

iPhone keyboard tricks

iPhone keyboard tricks

Quick Way To Start A New Sentence

This is a very popular trick although a few of us may still not be aware of. The iPhone keyboard lets you add a period and start a new sentence by simply double-tapping the space bar. This trick is particularly useful while you type long paragraphs of text. In case this feature is not enabled by default on your iPhone, go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> "." Shortcut and turn the feature on.

iPhone keyboard tricks

Quickly Insert Punctuation

This is another trick that is commonly missed. Many users tend to tap on the "123" key to view the list of numbers and symbols to pick. Once done, they tap on the "ABC" key to revert back to the alphabet keyboard. You can avoid this by instead tapping and holding the "123" key. This will show the symbols keyboard from where you may pick the punctuation mark you need. Once you select the symbol that you want to add and release your finger, the iPhone will automatically revert back to the alphabet keyboard.

Quickly Change Domain Name Extension

The Mobile Safari browser comes with a handy .com key for users to easily suffix the domain name extension to the URL in the address bar. You can also use this key to add other extensions like .ORG or .NET. To do this, tap and hold the .COM key to view the alternate extensions to pick from. Interestingly, this list will also include specific country-code extensions if you have the corresponding languages added to your International keyboard list.

iPhone keyboard tricks

Delete Text Using Gestures

The iPhone offers a pretty interesting way to delete text. Instead of holding the delete key to remove the typed text, you may simply shake the iPhone (once to your left and back). This will prompt you with an option to 'Undo Typing'. Tapping this button will automatically delete your recently typed text.

iPhone keyboard tricks

Hope you enjoyed these tricks. Do you have more tricks to share? Write to us in the comments below.