Here’s another iPhone-only tip: If you type your message and then tap the emoji icon, you’ll see the words that can be replaced with an emoji that starts to glow orange. Tap any glowing word to replace it with the corresponding emoji.
Easy text editing
Your phone’s keyboard isn’t just for typing, but it can also be used to select, edit, and navigate around what you’ve written. Depending on your device screen size, this can be difficult to do.
A useful feature for the iPhone keyboard can help here: Long press Space and the keyboard will turn into a trackpad. You can drag your finger on this trackpad to move the text cursor more precisely.
On Android, you can find the equivalent by tapping the three dots at the top of the keyboard, then selecting Edit text. Then you get keys to move the text cursor and quick access to copy, paste and select functions.
Save typing time
Did you know that you can have your phone replace custom acronyms with longer strings of text? So instead of repeatedly typing “coming soon” you can simply type “bts” and let the phone do the rest.
If you’re using an iPhone, go from Settings to Shared, Keyboardand Replace text. Then you can use + (plus sign) to add new shortcuts. As you type these acronyms, the substitutions appear as corrections above the keyboard.
On Android, tap the gear icon above the keyboard and select Dictionary and Personal dictionary. Choose your language and on the next screen you can tap + (plus sign) to set up new shortcuts, which again appear as suggestions above the keyboard.
Use your voice instead
Another trick on phone keyboards is to not use the keyboard at all, but instead dictate text with your voice. You may find it a lot faster, especially in cases where you don’t have both hands free to use your phone.
Enabling dictation couldn’t be much simpler, whether you’re using an iPhone or an Android handset. Just tap the microphone icon (below the right keyboard on iOS, above the right keyboard on Android) and start speaking.
You will soon understand it and you can introduce punctuation and other special characters just by saying them. To return to normal, tap the keyboard icon (iOS) or tap the microphone icon again (Android).
Switch keyboard completely
You’re not stuck with the software keyboard that comes pre-installed on your phone: On both iOS and Android, there are a number of different third-party alternatives to choose from.
SwiftKey is one of the most popular options: It was developed by Microsoft and is available for iOS and Android free. It aims to learn your typing over time, making more and more accurate predictions and autocorrections.
If you want to try something really different, give Typewise freemium for iOS and Android formerly. It uses a unique honeycomb template, with lots of customization options, and it promises to increase your typing speed by up to 33 percent.
