Lifestyle

iPhone keyboard hack: turn your keyboard into a mouse pad

Your iPhone has a hidden mouse pad and it's going to change the way you edit your phone text forever.

It’s happened to all of us. You’re typing away on your phone only to realise you’ve made a mistake about halfway up your otherwise perfect message.

Then the struggle begins, as you try to place that little bar cursor in just the right place to delete that extra letter.

After about 20 minutes you give up and send your message with the mistakes anyway, or don’t send the message at all.

This sneaky little iPhone hack is going to change that forever.

It’s a comparatively new iPhone addition which has managed to slip into our lives without the fanfare it truly deserves.

Your iPhone keyboard now doubles as a mousepad.

READ MORE: Closing apps to save iPhone battery is actually a myth

Technology website IMore has put this simple guide together to help you bring your trackpad to life.

–Launch the app you want to use and bring up the keyboard.

— Press firmly on the keyboard. Swipe your finger around to move the cursor.

— Press deeper to select text. (It’s almost like relaxing slightly and pressing again—the equivalent of “clicking” on a laptop trackpad.)

–Let go and finish.

I asked our Health and Fitness editor Ellie to try it on her iPhone 6, and she managed the keyboard transformation with ease.

Once you remove your fingers, the trackpad will transform back into a keyboard.

See the iMore tutorial (including images) here.

Your keyboard has now turned into a trackpad which will track your fingers movement and allow you faster and more precise editing.

No more of those finger blocking edits.

Bonus iPhone hacks

Boost battery life by turning off vibrate

This can be found in Settings > Sounds. You can also turn off location services for a further battery boost.

Switch on low power mode

Again, we’re not sure how we’ve managed without this little nugget of knowledge. If you have iOS9 and your battery is low, head to Settings > Battery and turn on Low Power Mode. This turns off non-essential tasks, meaning you can get up to four hours more battery life from your dying device.

Invert colours for better browsing at night

Screen too bright for night browsing? Just go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Invert Colours, and you’ll get a black background with white text. Just that bit easier on the eyes.

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