Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 77: Speed Up Your Touchscreen Typing

Level Easy

Platform iOS and Android

Cost Free

The software keyboard on mobile touchscreen operating systems is both a blessing and a curse: If your smartphone doesn’t include a hardware keyboard, your phone has considerably more screen real estate and less bulk; but if you don’t know how to best use that software keyboard, touchscreen, and the few buttons on your device, you can waste precious time hunting and pecking at your screen.

On the flip side, you can save a lot of time typing on and navigating through iOS or Android if you know the right tricks and shortcuts. This hack describes how to type on your smartphone faster and more efficiently.

NOTE Many of the tips in this chapter apply to both Apple’s iOS operating system (which includes the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) and Google’s Android operating system (which encompasses a broad range of smartphones and tablets). The following text notes when a tip is specific to one operating system or another.

Don’t Look Before You Leap

You may have mastered touch typing on your desktop keyboard, but typing on the smartphone software keyboard can make you feel like you’ve reverted to the classic, time-wasting hunt-and-peck method you abandoned years ago. If your touchscreen typing style involves examining the keyboard and pecking out one character at a time with your index finger, backspacing, and correcting every typo as you go, you have plenty of room for improvement. Your parents may have ...