Unleash the Power of Your iPhone’s Hidden Trackpad: Here’s How It Works

Typing on the iPhone and iPad can be a contentious issue. Every recent update to iOS has brought exaggerated claims that “typing is ruined” on the iPhone.

One of the biggest problems iPhone users have when typing is moving the cursor correctly to make edits. The conventional method of tapping and holding a finger down on the screen to bring up a magnifying bubble can be frustrating when you can’t get the cursor to go where you want. 

Luckily, there’s another way to move the cursor when typing in iOS, and it works even if you’re running an older software version, like iOS 15. Read on to learn how to unlock and use your iPhone’s hidden trackpad.

For more, learn about the coolest hidden features in iOS 16 and read full reviews of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models.

How to bring up the secret trackpad on an iPhone or iPad

Here’s how to discover the hidden trackpad on an iOS device.

1. Anywhere you’ve written a block of text, bring up your keyboard and press and hold your finger down on the space key until the keyboard goes blank. You should feel a bit of haptic feedback and see the cursor enlarge for a second, which means you can now use the keyboard as a trackpad.

2. With your finger still pressed down, move it around the entire keyboard to move your cursor, just like you would on your Mac’s trackpad.

3. To place the cursor, simply lift your finger off the screen. You can then use any of the other keys, like Delete, to make any edits in the text. If you want to move the cursor once again, press your finger down on the space key to bring up the hidden trackpad.

Check out the video below to see the hidden feature in action.

If you’re interested in more tips and tricks for the iPhone, check out how to unlock this hidden iPhone feature to quickly ID songs and how to have a secret conversation in the Notes app. And if you’ve got an Apple computer, here are seven of the best hidden features on your Mac.