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Comment by pcammeraat | Hacker News Reader

If you tap and hold on the spacebar it essential becomes a trackpad. That let you move the cursor in all directions.

You just changed my life.

This is not in any way a criticism of you: it is positively absurd how many people are unaware of this. As bad as text editing is for those who know most of the tricks, the fact that many of the tricks are unknown to a substantial number of people is off-the-charts bad on Apple.

That doesn’t help with selection, does it?

You can select text this way too; once it’s in “trackpad mode”, tap the keyboard with another finger, and it will start text selection.

Wow, I had no idea! But the selection is not fluid at all and really difficult this way

I’d say the main problem is that it doesn’t work while operating a phone single-handed, when you only have a thumb available, but on iPad I can see it being useful after some getting used to.

I tried on an iPad. That works but it’s really not a good experience, unless I’m doing it incorrectly. On an iPhone it’s also pretty awkward, I don’t think I will ever use that feature but it’s good to know it exists

On an IPhone and I struggle with the trackpad mode as well. I frequently might want to select a block of text, but the OS really only wants me to select to here and no more. Cannot pin down what arbitrary threshold I am missing.

That's a neat trick. It seems to only work to extend the selection to the right? Meaning:

1. Long-tap with your right thumb, drag the cursor to the end of a sentence 2. Tap with your left thumb (to the left of your right thumb) and drag to the left to select the sentence -- nothing happens 3. Drag your right thumb to the right to make sure you understand what's happening and you're doing it right -- the selection extends, yay! 4. Again try dragging your left thumb -- nothing happens.

How could Apple's human interaction people let this ship?!

Thank you. Had no idea this existed.

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