AARP Tech Guru Shares 3 Smartphone Keyboard Tricks for iPhone and Android

1 articles · Updated · AARP · Jun 16

Three keyboard shortcuts headline this week’s AARP Tech Guru column: long-press letters for accents, use the spacebar as a cursor control, and set text shortcuts that expand into full phrases.
On iPhone and Android, holding a letter key reveals special characters and diacritics for names and foreign words; on iPhone, long-pressing “e” can surface 10 accent options.
The column frames those tools as ways to make virtual keyboards more efficient now that physical smartphone keyboards—common before the 2007 iPhone era—have largely disappeared.
Ed Baig also urges readers to explore keyboard settings for features such as smart punctuation and haptic feedback, and invites questions for his weekly Tuesday tech column.