4 ms·

It was never available on iPad, and is no longer on newer iPhones. It's replaced by a long touch, but this cursor control function has disappeared.

monocularvision 7y ago
Long touch the space bar in the keyboard to get the trackpad-like functionality back.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  Thank you. I had trouble activating this feature. On iOS it seems to work anywhere on the keyboard, not limited to a particular key.
  - egypturnash 7y ago
    Two-finger touch anywhere on the keyboard also turns it on, though I usually find that pretty awkward.
- TrickyRick 7y ago
  Thank goodness it's still around! Yet once again, no way of knowing that feature is there without being told.
cma 7y ago
It is on iPad, two-finger touch the scroll bar and it does it.
- selectodude 7y ago
  I hate how utterly undiscoverable stuff like this is. I use the force touch trackpad on my iPhone constantly and always wished it existed on the iPad.
  - derg 7y ago
    Yep, for all the pride they take in the "it just works" and their "simpler" UI, they certainly love to hide useful features and just not tell you about them upfront. Yeah, you can read and play around with the phone to learn but something simple like cursor and text adjustment should be priority no. 1 in terms of alerting the user that a function actually exists.
  - cma 7y ago
    It doesn't work well either. If the cursor is already selecting a span of text it can be hard to return it to a single movable cursor and the two finger drag on spacebar thing will just move around the multiselection in a broken way. There is probably some other secret shortcut to toggle, tapping in the text or double tapping just seems to do things at random and rarely gives back a single cursor.
derg 7y ago
I am actually kind of annoyed they removed the force touch on newer iphones. I used it so often on my keyboard. The tradeoff was a 4-hour longer battery so there was probably more gained than lost there but the usable area to move the cursor shrunk considerably (to a long touch on the spacebar only) and makes it harder to use.

monocularvision 7y ago

Long touch the space bar in the keyboard to get the trackpad-like functionality back.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Thank you. I had trouble activating this feature. On iOS it seems to work anywhere on the keyboard, not limited to a particular key.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  Two-finger touch anywhere on the keyboard also turns it on, though I usually find that pretty awkward.
TrickyRick 7y ago
Thank goodness it's still around! Yet once again, no way of knowing that feature is there without being told.

cma 7y ago

It is on iPad, two-finger touch the scroll bar and it does it.

selectodude 7y ago
I hate how utterly undiscoverable stuff like this is. I use the force touch trackpad on my iPhone constantly and always wished it existed on the iPad.
- derg 7y ago
  Yep, for all the pride they take in the "it just works" and their "simpler" UI, they certainly love to hide useful features and just not tell you about them upfront. Yeah, you can read and play around with the phone to learn but something simple like cursor and text adjustment should be priority no. 1 in terms of alerting the user that a function actually exists.
- cma 7y ago
  It doesn't work well either. If the cursor is already selecting a span of text it can be hard to return it to a single movable cursor and the two finger drag on spacebar thing will just move around the multiselection in a broken way. There is probably some other secret shortcut to toggle, tapping in the text or double tapping just seems to do things at random and rarely gives back a single cursor.

derg 7y ago

I am actually kind of annoyed they removed the force touch on newer iphones. I used it so often on my keyboard. The tradeoff was a 4-hour longer battery so there was probably more gained than lost there but the usable area to move the cursor shrunk considerably (to a long touch on the spacebar only) and makes it harder to use.