QuickType

New to iPhone? How to master your keyboard

Enable the One-Handed Keyboard on iPhone

When you first begin using your iPhone, you’ll take some time to get used to everything, especially when coming from another mobile device system like Android. And if there’s one thing you’ll want to get the hang of quickly, it’s the keyboard.

For composing emails, sending text messages, creating notes, and more, your iPhone keyboard gets a lot of use. To help you learn some terrific tricks from the start, we’ve compiled a list of tips for using your iPhone keyboard.

How to master Apple’s new swipe keyboard

Apple's QuickType keyboard on iOS 13 and iPadOS supports gesture typing so you can swipe from one letter to the next in one continuous motion, with Siri intelligence and machine learning making reliable predictions as to what you're trying to type. Follow along to master gestural typing as iDB shows you how to set up and use the new iPhone swipe keyboard.

Hands-on with iOS 11’s one-handed QuickType keyboard

As previously suspected, and officially announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference, iOS 11 provides a new keyboard feature making it easier to type in one-handed mode, whether you're a right or left-handed user. It works on both 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones and is easily invoked at any time via the keyboard's Emoji key.

Andrew O'Hara put together a short video demonstration of this feature in action. Watch it embedded below, then read the rest of the article before meeting us in comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0xDpcCGKA

Subscribe to iDownloadBlog on YouTube

To activate this  keyboard mode, tap and hold the Emoji key on the keyboard.

You'll notice a trio of new icons lined up alongside the bottom of the menu. These icons let you move the entire keyboard either fully to the left or to the right of the screen so that typing with a single thumb is easier.

The keyboard shrinks exactly to the width of the keyboard on a four-inch iPhone.

To return to the normal-size keyboard, tap the Emoji key again, then hit the middle icon at the bottom of the menu. Alternatively, tap the arrow on either side of the keyboard to quickly get back to the normal layout.

What are your thoughts on iOS 11's new one-handed keyboard? Do you think you'll be using it on your iPhone when iOS 11 drops? Share in the comments section below!

This tweak hides the background of the predictive keyboard

If you ever use the predictive keyboard to type faster responses to people from your device, then you’re likely familiar with those ugly separator lines in between the suggested words and the unappealing difference in background color that the buttons have when compared with the rest of the keyboard.

A new free jailbreak tweak called KB - NoPredictiveBackground by pxcex removes the background color and lines from the predictive keyboard buttons, leaving you with much cleaner-looking buttons.

EmojiSuggest brings iOS 10-like emoji suggestions to the predictive keyboard

One of the cool new features of iOS 10 is the ability to input Emojis through the predictive row at the top of the keyboard that tries to guess what you're trying to say before you say it.

When you express certain words, iOS 10 will recommend Emojis to communicate the word instead, and a new free jailbreak tweak called EmojiSuggest brings this functionality to jailbroken iOS 9 devices as well.

PredictionShortcuts adds cut, copy, and paste buttons above the keyboard

Text editing can be so cumbersome on the iOS platform, mostly because of having to tap and hold on text to select it and then having to wait for the editing menu to appear on the screen afterwards.

Fortunately, a new free jailbreak tweak called PreditctionShortcuts adds cut, copy, and paste options right to the QuickType section of the keyboard for ease of access. Best of all, it doesn't even impede on your ability to use the predictive typing features.

iOS 9’s trackpad mode comes back to the iPhone courtesy of 3D Touch

iOS 9 contains a new QuickType feature that lets you slide two fingers on the iPad's screen to activate a trackpad-esque mode. Called "easy text selection", this feature lets iPad users control the cursor by sliding two fingers anywhere on the screen, including over the keyboard, to select, edit, and move text.

While easy text selection appeared in the initial iOS 9 beta for the iPhone, it was thereafter removed and has remained an iPad-only feature up until now. But, as has been highlighted by a user on Reddit, the easy text selection is making an iPhone comeback, as long as you own a new iPhone 6s.

That's because easy text selection has been rolled into the new 3D Touch suite for the iPhone 6s. Indeed, you'll be able to use the trackpad-like features on the iPhone, but only on the new iPhones.