The space bar trick on your phone

[Keyser S]

It is also useful to make you own shortcuts

 

[Lexad]

what in the kentucky fried fuck?

 

[CloseTalker]

I've known about it for years, but I definitely remember the first time learning about it being a fucking revelatory experience. I don't really blame people for not knowing, it's not a super well publicized trick

 

[nihilence]

Nice. I'll file that tip away into my brain.

 

[Delicious Waffles]

Holy fuck. That's a game changer for me. I always make a mistake so I'll try and tap where I want the cursor to go. 95% of the time, it doesn't work. This is great. Thank you!

 

[Regiruler]

never Knew about that

 

[jwk94]

This did not work for my Samsung.

Click to shrink...

Might be dependent on the keyboard. Works in SwiftKey.

 

[Huey]

Yeah we've even had threads on it before here:

This small iPhone detail just might be thread-worthy

So I just had my mind blown about something that you can do on the iPhone. I've wasted so much time doing this the inefficient way.

www.resetera.com

 

[lunarworks]

It used to work if you pressed down anywhere on the keyboard. I wonder why they changed it to only limit to the space bar. I thought they removed the feature because of that.

Click to shrink...

That was before they took away the pressure sensitive screen.

It was such a good feature, but wasn't used enough.

 

[Couleurs]

I use it a lot since iOS text selection can be pretty awful

 

[Truly Gargantuan]

Every few years, especially after I get a new phone, I look up new and neat stuff you can do on Android so I've known about this for a while now.

 

[KezayJS1]

I was today years old...

...honestly had no idea and now it's a game changer. Text game is about to manifest greatness!!

 

[apieceofstrange]

Lol this thread gets made like once a year. It's been a thing on iOS since 3d touch. The double and triple tap on the back of the iPhone shortcuts was more mind blowing to me.

 

[blacklotus]

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AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAYHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[Disco Infernal]

I thought this was common knowledge on iOS. For years and years.

 

[Laserbeam]

Yeah, it works on Android, at least it does with Swiftkey.

 

[SuperEpicMan]

I wonder how many people also don't know you can tap the top edge of the screen to scroll to the top.

Worked with mobile devs who didn't even know that 😂

 

[HardRojo]

Yeah it's been on third party keyboards and android devices for ages now. I think iOS added it a year or 2 ago.
Edit: Seems like it's been there for a while now. Ah well, I had been using SwiftKey for a while until iOS added swiping and this feature.

 

[Greg NYC3]

Someone posted the tip (I think here or at the old place) for iPhones and then I tried it and realized that my Android phone supported it too.

Yeah it's been on third party keyboards and android devices for ages now. I think iOS added it a year or 2 ago.

Click to shrink...

Oh, if it was that recently added to iPhone then I saw it here.

 

[The Lord of Cereal]

A couple years ago I enabled that on my moms phone. Got tired of sending texts for her while she was driving and having to go to the period manually, so I dug through the settings and enabled it.

I've personally been using it probably for like 5 or 6 years now on iOS. Super handy

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

It was better when it wasn't limited to the space bar

 

[HardRojo]

Oh, if it was that recently added to iPhone then I saw it here.

Click to shrink...

Apparently it was there when iPhones had pressure-sensitive inputs and put back after some time.

 

[Instro]

Damn that's cool

 

[BlinkBlank]

This thread title reads as a "1 simple trick" advertisement.

Also, yes, I do use the space bar as a cursor.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

I learned this the day I switched to iPhone from Android in 2019. I dunno if Android (using Google Keyboard) did it prior to that, but it was one of the first things I learned on my first day as an iPhone user lol.

I think it has to be enabled in the settings but double-tapping space bar will create a period so you can end sentences quickly while typing too (or, like I said, the option to toggle this on exists somewhere).

 

[Deleted member 29674]

Doesn't seem to work with swype.

 

[NewDust]

Knew it, and it is still terrible to move the cursor a single space. It either brings up the language settings or moves more than one space.

 

[ResetGreyWolf]

working for me on android

Click to shrink...

Hm, not working for me.

Click to shrink...

There are tons of different keyboards on Android, but this is the default behavior for keyboards on Android. If you haven't changed keyboard and still don't have this behavior, then you may be using a custom keyboard made by your phone manufacturer. You can change it in the settings.

 

[grmlin]

How can people not know this? How do you move the cursor?

 

[elLOaSTy]

Sucks for anyone just finding out about something thats been pretty key to navigating on iOS for the last 8 or so years but also good now you know. Im shocked this is like a thing that is unknown.

It used to work if you pressed down anywhere on the keyboard. I wonder why they changed it to only limit to the space bar. I thought they removed the feature because of that.

Click to shrink...

When they removed force touch I believe it was, it could have been 3D Touch whichever was the first one where we got the secondary level of tap input is when it first started. Then when you couldn't press in and measure pressure they moved it to a spacebar long press

Edit looked it up.

So it was 3D Touch on iPhone when we got to iPhone 11 it was discontinued thats when the cursor was moved to the spacebar only. It was better when we had 3D Touch tbh. SO yeah its going on 8 years old and started back with the iPhone 6s

 

[CloudWolf]

Pretty sure this has never been a thing in any of my phones. My current phone just asks me to change the language of the keyboard.

 

[Sirhc]

What the shit...omfg it actually works.

The fuck didn't you nerds tell me this years ago!?!

 

[Massive Nights]

I suppose it's just on iPhone?

Click to shrink...

This was Android years before they implemented it on iOS.

 

[Morphis]

I knew about it, learned it here on Era lol

 

[javac]

imagine typing on a phone for the last 5+ years and not knowing this, condolences to everyone

 

[EndlessSummer]

Yup, knew about this :P

 

[Sirhc]

How can people not know this? How do you move the cursor?

Click to shrink...

You peck at it with your finger like a fucking neanderthal because HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS WHEN NOBODY TELLS ME!?!?

 

[ClearMetal]

I... I can't believe this works. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming and I don't want to wake up.

How do you move the cursor?

Click to shrink...

With my big fat fingers on the text and a lot of cursing.

 

[subrock]

It was better when it was force touch, but space bar is a fine compromise

 

[Desma]

I discovered it by accident last month

 

[mhayes86]

I discovered it from a previous thread here on it a year or two ago.

 

[Karamsoul]

🤯

 

[EagleClaw]

I feel really sorry for the people that didn't know about that.
Moving the cursor with fingers inside the textfield is the worst.

 

[davepoobond]

uhhh... yeah, folks.

 

[jonamok]

JFC I had no idea. I'm always moaning about a lack of cursor keys. Serious life hack. Thank you OP.

 

[bruhaha]

Sucks for anyone just finding out about something thats been pretty key to navigating on iOS for the last 8 or so years but also good now you know. Im shocked this is like a thing that is unknown.



When they removed force touch I believe it was, it could have been 3D Touch whichever was the first one where we got the secondary level of tap input is when it first started. Then when you couldn't press in and measure pressure they moved it to a spacebar long press

Edit looked it up.

So it was 3D Touch on iPhone when we got to iPhone 11 it was discontinued thats when the cursor was moved to the spacebar only. It was better when we had 3D Touch tbh. SO yeah its going on 8 years old and started back with the iPhone 6s

Click to shrink...

Makes sense, RIP 3D touch. I recall before that it was 2 finger swipe on keyboard which also no longer works?

 

[Irrotational]

Just testing it but I don't know what keyboard I have on Android...

Ok it works but only left right and I only have space on my screen to scroll a few characters at a time...

Edit - I have Gboard

 

[Carbon]

It's a setting on many Android keyboards. It's not always turned on by default though.

 

[TheSkullPrince]

How the fuck didn't I know this lmao

Just tried it and my mind is fucking blown 😭😂

 

[Deleted member 36578]

I had NO idea. Wow