PHONE, E-MAIL, & TEXT MESSAGES
TYPING TIPS For many, the biggest challenge of the iPhone (aside from resisting buying one) is getting accustomed to the virtual keyboard. Whether you’re coming from a full-size computer keyboard or a thumb-based smart phone, here are some ways to tap into the iPhone’s typing features. Catch and Release The iPhone differs from most other keyboards in that it registers the key you’ve pressed when you take your finger off the key instead of when you tap on it. It takes a little getting used to, but the added benefit is that if you press a key and see that it’s the wrong one, you can easily slide your finger to the correct key. In fact, here’s a real time-saver: The next time you need to add a punctuation mark, press and hold the .?123 button until the numeric and punctuation keyboard appears, slide your finger to the key you want, and release it. Not only will you type the punctuation mark, but you’ll find yourself back in alphabet mode without having to press the ABC key. Unlock Caps Lock Typing in all caps may be considered impolite, but sometimes it’s necessary. The caps lock functionality isn’t enabled by default; to turn it on, go to Settings: General: Keyboard and tap on Enable Caps Lock. Then, when you’re typing, quickly double-tap on the shift key; it’ll turn blue to tell you caps lock is on. Tap on it once more to disable caps lock.
you meant to type. This means you’ll often get better results by powering through a word even if you notice you pressed a wrong key, rather than constantly pressing backspace to delete your mistakes. Once you’ve typed a few more letters, the iPhone will likely figure out what you meant and will offer the suggestion in a text bubble. To accept the iPhone’s suggestion, just press the spacebar or a punctuation mark. If the iPhone’s being a little overeager, tap on the suggestion and it’ll go away. Dismiss the iPhone’s suggestion for the same word twice, and it’ll add the word you actually type to the internal dictionary. Zoom In If you discover a typo, it’s easy enough to fix. Simply tap on the spot where you want the cursor to appear, and then tap on backspace to clear your mistake. However, controlling the cursor this way can be challenging. For more-precise results, tap and hold on the text to make a magnifying loupe appear. As you drag the loupe around, the text insertion point will follow it so you can easily position the cursor exactly where you want. Bang On There’s a tendency, born of conventional typing, to try to avoid accidentally pressing multiple keys. This habit can lead to trying to press only the desired key—which on the iPhone means that more often than not you end up pressing the wrong key anyway. Don’t worry about pressing too many keys; the iPhone only registers one key at a time. Just press the key you want as squarely as possible and let the iPhone’s corrective measures go to work for you.
Department of Corrections No matter how good a typist you are, mistakes happen. Fortunately, the iPhone’s pretty darn smart. By looking at the letters near the ones you typed, it can deduce with surprising accuracy what
THE MACWORLD iPHONE SUPERGUIDE
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