iPhone and iPod Touch Typing Tips

Typing on the iPhone's virtual keyboard can be a challenge for some people. But there are several tips and techniques that can make it easier.

If you find the keyboard too small, more Applications support a second, larger keyboard that will appear if you turn your iPhone on its side. The keys then become 50% larger and easier to find with your fingers.

Iphone Application

To type a capital letter, you would normally touch the shift key, which looks like an outline of an up arrow.

Then you would touch the letter you wish to type. But you can also touch the shift key, and then drag your finger without lifting it to the letter and release. This single touch, drag and release action will type the capital letter as well. You can use the same technique to type letters and symbols by touching the ".?123" key, dragging and releasing over the key you wish to enter.

If you mistype a word and want to quickly replace it, double-tap the word and it will appear inside a selection box with Cut and Copy buttons. Instead of tapping one of these buttons, simply start typing again and the word will disappear to be replaced with what you are typing.

To type letters with accent marks, touch and hold a key like the "e" and wait for two seconds. A list if additional keys will pop up from the initial key and let you select variations that include accent marks. You can also find other special characters this way, for instance a degree symbol with the zero key, and underscore with the dash key, alternate currency symbols with the dollar sign key, more quote symbols with the quote key, and more. Experiment to see what else is available as result vary according to the language settings of your iPhone.

Similarly, when you are typing in a URL and a special ".com" key appears, you can hold down the ".com" key to reveal ".org," ".edu," and ".net."

The iPhone includes an auto-correct feature that will correct slight misspellings, allowing you to type faster without getting every single letter perfect. But this auto-correct feature will also allow you to skip some characters like apostrophes in contractions. For instance, you can type "dont" and it will come out "don't."
Another shortcut is the double space. Tap the spacebar twice at the end of a sentence and you will get a period followed by a space.

You can customize how your keyboard works by going to your iPhone preferences, and looking in the General preferences, Keyboard settings. Here, you can turn off auto-correction, auto-capitalization, and the period shortcut. You can also choose what type of keyboard you are using. For instance, you can switch from English to UK English, or one of many other languages.

iPhone and iPod Touch Typing Tips