And also increase your typing speed!
We spend hours on our phones typing away at our keyboards but we are not always getting the experience we can get.
There are several ways that you can improve not only the experience of typing on your iPhone but also the speed at which you type.
So here are 7 tips for you to try out.
1. Third-Party Keyboards
The built-in Apple Keyboard is not the most customisable so there is not much that you can change. You can though download a third-party keyboard and the one that I have downloaded in G-board (Google Keyboard).
It’s easy to switch up your keyboard once you have downloaded them. All you have to do is hold and press the globe icon on your keyboard and from there just select the keyboard that you wish to use. You can also just tap the globe and it will switch keyboards, quick switching for if you just have a couple of keyboards.
2. Swipe to Type
I often forgot about this option but it’s a great way to increase the speed of your typing. Rather than tapping away at each letter, you can simply swipe across the keyboard to the letters that spell the word. Your phone is smart enough to understand what you are trying to type.
Granted this is not always 100% accurate but it is pretty good and I find I only have to correct it on the odd occasion. This works great on the apple and g-board keyboards.
3. Text Replacement
If you use certain words all the time you can actually use the replace text feature to use an abbreviation to input the whole word. This is a big time saver when you are typing out message responses.
To set up your text replacement head over to the keyboard section in your settings menu and go to text replacement. From there you can see what you have set up already and you hit the + button to add a new phase followed by your shortcut (abbreviation).
4. Keyboard Shortcuts
There are a few keyboard shortcuts that can come in really handy and some of which you might not have come across before.
- To add a full stop you don’t need to try and find the full stop button you can simply double tap the spacebar on the keyboard and it will add a full stop.
- Want to write a work all in caps lock then double tap shift to turn on CAPS LOCK. Tap it again when you are finished to turn the caps lock off again.
- If you want to add Accents and Special Characters/Symbols e.g. selecting different currencies you can hold down on the character and select with you what to use. Note that this will only work on special characters and letters that have accents.
- Using your Spacebar as a trackpad. This is a great little trick, by holding down the spacebar it will turn into a track that you can use to move your cursor want with ease.
5. Keyboard Haptics
Keyboard Haptics is a relatively new addition to the iPhone with iOS 16. Having haptics on gives you a vibration back every time you type. For me it makes the keyboard feel more responsive.
This is not turned on by default so you will need to enable this. To enable haptic you can go to settings -> Sounds & Haptics-> Keyboard Feedback. Here you can toggle on haptics, it’s in here as well that you can turn off key sounds as well.
6. Dictation
Okay, so this is not necessarily a typing tip, but it is a really useful thing to use. This can be really handy if you’re out and about and you want to capture some quick thoughts really quickly but you don’t wanna get your phone out to type you can just hit the dictation button and off you go.
You can use this in most of your typing apps so for instance, I use this in Ulysses as well as Apple notes. Dictation can be used to respond to What’s App and Apple Messages as well.
Although not perfect it will try to add punctuation as you dictate which is brilliant, you may need to amend some of it but you will find that it does a fairly decent job.
7. Gestures
There are a number of gestures that you can use to amend text etc such as
- To Undo text shake your phone and it will give you the option to undo. You Can also use a three-finger swipe to the left that will undo the last bit of text. You can also swipe right and redo what you have undone.
- Highlighting text can be tricky if you are not sure how it works on the iPhone. I have struggled with this till recently. Tapping the screen once will place the cursor by the nearest word. Tapping twice will highlight the word, and tapping three times will highlight the paragraph. From there you will have the options bar where you can choose whether to copy and paste etc.
- Another way to Copy and Paste is using a 3-finger grab and then taking the 3 fingers moving them out/dropping them to paste. This works across devices so you can copy on your iPhone and paste it on your iPad.
Final Thoughts
These are just some tips and tricks that are out there that can help when it comes to making the typing experience on the iPhone more enjoyable. As well as making it a better experience there are a few on this list that can also help with streamlining your writing processes and also being more productive.
Hopefully, you will find some of these useful if you have not come across them before. PLease let me know in the comment if you have any other tips that you can add to the list.