It's night-and-day different. I think you confused "direct manipulation" with "nothing can happen elsewhere except where I tap." Direct manipulation UIs are ab

It's night-and-day different. I think you confused "direct manipulation" with "nothing can happen elsewhere except where I tap." Direct manipulation UIs are about interactions that correspond to the physical world. Tapping on a virtual keyboard does exactly that. Swiping your finger across a virtual keyboard makes no sense at all. Anyway, turns out iOS already had faster text selection gestures and we just didn't know. (See hej's comment.)