Tips & Tricks

Typing

22. Hold Shift Whilst Typing

Sometimes you just need the next few letters to be capitalised. Typing My PC is BROKEN! or upper-case abbreviations such as LMAO. The phone allows you to use the shift key just like you can on a computer; simply hold down the shift key whilst you type.

23. Shake To Undo & Redo

When typing in any application, or when using cut, copy, and paste, you can shake the phone to undo your typing. Shake again to redo. Your phone will pop up a query to double check.

24. Double Tap For Shift Lock

The title here says it all, but this feature is disabled by default. To enable, tap the settings icon, then tap general, then keyboard. Turn enable caps lock on. Now you can double tap the shift key to turn caps lock on. It will turn blue when locked.

25. Hold keys for extras

If you hold down a letter on the keyboard, a pop up appears containing various accented versions of the character. You can do the same with certain punctuation characters to reveal alternatives.

26. Punctuate Quickly

To quickly enter punctuation or numbers while using the keyboard, press and hold the 123 button and, keeping your finger down, slide to any number or punctuation button. When you release your finger that one character will be inserted and the usual qwerty keyboard will reappear. You can use the same technique to quickly insert single digit numbers into text.

27. Alternative Currencies

One of the keyboards many secrets is that it hides multiple currency symbols for insertion into e-mails, notes, or sms messages. The default currency symbol depends on your phones settings and if you hold your finger on this you'll get the alternatives. You can combine this with our previous tip to insert any currency symbol with one lift of the finger.

28. Get A Bigger Keyboard

Turning your phone sideways will get you a bigger keyboard in all the in-built applications including notes, text messaging, e-mail, and safari. In safari however, once you are editing the address the orientation is locked, so turn your phone sideways before tapping the address bar.

29. Get A Magnifying Glass

In most apps displaying or editing text provide a magnifying glass which is handy for positioning the cursor in the right place, or selecting a particular word for copying. Hold your finger over the text for a second and a small magnifying glass appears for precise control.

30. Add To The Dictionary

If you are writing something and the iphone flags a word as mis-spelled, cancel the correction and the word will be put into the dictionary. If you use obscure words, acronyms or colorful language a lot this feature can be a time saver. Sometimes you might need to make the correction once for each different application.

31. Quickly Insert A Period

If you tap the space key twice, the iphone will instead insert a period (full stop for those of us in the uk) and a single space. You can also achieve the same effect if you use two fingers to tap the space key at the same time.

What if you actually want two spaces? Simply tap once then wait for a couple of seconds before tapping again.

Next time, tips and tricks on battery life.