Drafting the perfect, eloquent text message takes time and at least a few revisions. Typing along isn’t so hard, but composing a message or caption gets exponentially more difficult when you realize a typo or an auto-correct fail. You’ll have to make an edit and that’s the precise moment your heart drops. It’s when you realize you have to begin mission impossible: the art of clicking back to one tiny space after a word. It’s over, you might as well delete everything and start fresh.
OK that may be a bit dramatic, but thanks to a fortuitous discovery by a fellow iPhone user, there’s a simpler way. When Krissy Brierre-Davis was texting recently, she realized she could hold down the space bar to reach a specific spot in the message she was writing.
That’s right, if you click and hold the space bar, the cursor will move through the message until you stop it. She shared her discovery on Twitter and caused so much commotion and excitement, it went viral.
How come you guys never told me this iPhone trick? I feel duped. pic.twitter.com/2RfRhI4Y1X
— Krissy Brierre-Davis (@krissys_kitchen) November 18, 2018
No more fumbling with oversize thumbs, or full deletes required for a single errant letter. Users of iPhones everywhere can rejoice! And they have rejoiced because the proof is all over Twitter.
I told soggy and he didn’t know and now I’m the official tech master forever and ever pic.twitter.com/s5ZiacSC3I
— Niamh Dunne (@niamhdunnemusic) November 20, 2018
Some are saying this discovery is the highlight of their year.
WHAT????!!!! This is the best thing I learned in 2018!!!!
— CinqueCaps (@CinqueCaps) November 19, 2018
Some even say this discovery is so significant, it is life-changing.
Omg that just changed my entire life.
— e (@e9shaw) November 19, 2018
Others on Twitter pointed out that the feature can actually be pulled off by holding your finger down anywhere on the keyboard, not just on the space bar.
You could literally do this anywhere on the keyboard, smh
— (@SLAIIII9) November 20, 2018
The feature is actually called “trackpad mode.” A similar feature appeared on iPhones with a “3D Touch” function. On those iPhones, you could press and hold anywhere on the keyboard to launch trackpad mode. However, the trackpad feature on the iOS 12 operating system works on all phones. It was released this fall, so there was a slight delay in the news spreading. But now it’s catching on quickly.
So, make sure your iPhone is updated to iOS 12 and start drafting your best messages.