Chapter 3. Typing, Editing & Searching
The modern iPhone’s onscreen keyboard is smart in all kinds of ways—automatically predicting words and correcting typos, for example. And if you don’t like the keyboard, you can just choose one designed by a different company.
This chapter covers every aspect of working with text on the iPhone: entering it, dictating it, fixing it, and searching for it.
The Keyboard
The iPhone keyboard appears whenever you tap in a place where typing is possible: in an outgoing email or text message, in the Notes app, in the address bar of a web browser, and so on.
As your finger taps the glass, a “speech balloon” appears above your finger, showing an enlarged version of the key you actually hit (since your finger is now blocking your view of the keyboard).
TIP
If you worry about spies nearby figuring out what you’re typing by watching those bubbles pop up over your fingertips, you can turn them off. Open Settings → General → Keyboard, and turn off Character Preview.
In gray, surrounding the letters, you’ll find these special keys:
Shift (). When you tap this key, the arrow turns black to indicate that it’s in effect. The next letter you type appears as a capital. Then the key returns to normal—the next letter will be lowercase.
TIP
It used to be that the ...
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