It might sound weird at first, but, if you want to, you can turn your iPhone’s keyboard into a trackpad. When typing on our iPhones, we often struggle to place the cursor correctly, end up highlighting wrong words, or unintentionally deleting letters. This can be particularly frustrating, especially when there is a lot of text on the screen. Many users face this common problem.
Fortunately, Apple has a hidden feature in its iPhones that solves this problem. This feature allows users to precisely navigate and edit text on the screen.
To turn your iPhone’s keyboard into a trackpad, you don’t need to download a third-party app or go through complicated menus in the Settings app.
Enable the trackpad mode on your iPhone
You can turn your iPhone’s keyboard into a trackpad by touching and holding the spacebar. This trackpad mode helps you accurately place the insertion point, similar to the trackpad on a MacBook.
- While typing or editing text, press and hold the space key at the bottom of the iOS keyboard with your thumb until all the keys fade away.
- Drag your thumb around to move the cursor on the screen. The entire keyboard acts as a trackpad, but the keys will reappear once you lift your thumb.
- Dragging your thumb quickly covers more distance on the screen, which is helpful when navigating through a large text file.
- Moving your thumb slowly provides higher precision in placing the cursor.
- You can also enter trackpad mode, use another finger to select text, and then use the trackpad to adjust the selection.
You can use this hidden trackpad mode while writing messages on WhatsApp, summarizing lectures on the Notes app, or drafting emails on Gmail or Apple Mail. The feature also works on iPads.