These are the keyboard touch gestures I use the most on my iPhone and iPad

There are a number of touch gestures that greatly enhance the use of the iPhone and iPad. A woman uses an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil

The truth is that the launch of the original iPhone in 2007 was clearly designed for touch gestures. Let’s remember that at that time there were no touch screens in the field of mobile phones – because until the advent of the iPhone there were no “smart” phones – and their creation gave way to the “Multitouch” gestures that we are so used to today. of today.

To pay tribute to this touch functionality of the iPhone and iPad screens, in this guide I’m going to be a little selfish (if you let me) and focus on my favorite touch gestures for iPhone and iPad. They are very useful, greatly improve my productivity and allow me to enjoy great features. Shall we begin?

The touch gestures I use most on my iPhone and iPad

For context, my two main devices are the iPhone XR and the iPad Pro (2018) (although I occasionally borrow my partner’s iPhone 11). They are not state of the art terminals, but I am very happy with their performance. This gives us an idea about how full the support of touch gestures is in the Apple ecosystem. Although in reality this is a mere matter of software, and not of hardware.

With that said, I’m going to compile a list of my favorite iPhone and iPad touch gestures. In the selection, you will see that some of them are only compatible with iPad, this is because the dimensions of its screen are much larger and its tactile gestures allow more versatility.

Drag and drop

Drag-and-drop touch gestures let you open multiple links in Safari

Drag and drop functionality offers many possibilities to iOS and iPadOS users. If you hold your finger on an item and slide your finger across the screen to move the item, you can move images, files, text, etc. transfer between applications.

In addition, there is a very useful trick that allows you to hold your finger on an element and touch other elements with another finger to add them to the selection. Very useful for opening multiple links in Safari, rearranging app icons on the home screen, or transferring multiple documents at once.

Switch between applications

Switching between apps with a simple touch gesture is very efficient

There is a touch gesture compatible with iPhone and iPad that is well known to all users but not many people usually use. I’m talking about the touch gesture that allows us to switch from one application to another.

We can go back to the previous application or to the application we used later by moving your finger on the bottom area line of the applications to the left or right. Easy and simple.

Move keyboard cursor

Even if it sounds extravagant, strange and scary

Another one of the touch gestures I use the most, again on both iPhone and iPad, is to move the keyboard cursor to rewrite a word or correct its spelling. It is possible to move the text cursor while holding your finger on the spacebar on your keyboard and moving it from one side to the other. It is a very intuitive and dynamic system.

On the iPad there is an alternative method of use, hold down two fingers on any area on the keyboard to later move the cursor to the desired point.

select text

Select text in the Notes app on iPad Pro

Touch gestures to select text on iPhone and iPad are very well implemented, basically because there are several methods to do it. I will try to explain it in the best possible way.

Select a word: Click on the text cursor and choose the “Select” option or double tap on a word quickly. Select a sentence or paragraph: Click on the text cursor and choose the “Select all” option or triple-tap a paragraph quickly.

Additionally, once you’ve selected a word, you can use the text selector bars to expand or shorten the selection.

Accents and special characters

Some iPad Pro models do not support this feature

One of the most useful features of the iPhone and iPad keyboard is the shortcuts to accents and special characters.

If you hold down a finger on a vowel, the keyboard allows you to move your finger (without releasing) to a tilde or another spelling character to speed up your writing.

On the other hand, it is also possible to keep your finger on the “123” button on the numeric keypad and, without letting go, move it to the numbers to write a single digit.

Finally, on some iPad models it is also possible to hold your finger on any letter and swipe down to type a special character. The special characters assigned to each key are indicated in a dull gray color.

reply notifications

You can respond to notifications using different touch gestures

And we end this guide to touch gestures with one of my favorites. Not because I use it more often, but probably because I find it one of the coolest.

Both iPhone and iPad offer the ability to hold your finger on a notification in the Notification Center to quickly reply to a message. If you have just received a notification, swiping over it activates the feature.

These are just a few of the touch gestures I use the most on iPhone and iPad. But there is so much more! Apple’s mobile operating systems are packed with touch-enabled functionality for the display of their devices. What are your favorite touch gestures or the ones you use the most?