Keyboard Shortcuts for iPhone & iPad [Updated for iOS 7]

Here are the 10 most useful shortcuts that will help you type faster using the on-screen keyboard of your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The screenshots have been updated for iOS 7.

Tip #1: If you want to type special characters with accent marks (like the letters à or è), simply tap and hold the corresponding alphabet key for a while and it will pop-up a list of related accented characters for you to choose from. Don’t release the key before making a selection else the choices will disappear.

Tip #2: When you are done typing a sentence, double-tap the space bar on the keyboard and it will automatically insert a dot (or period) followed by a space. The next alphabet that you type will be written in uppercase without you having to press the Shift key.

Tip #3: The iOS keyboard is pretty smart at adding apostrophes. For instance, if you need to type “doesn’t”, just forget the apostrophe and quickly type “doesnt” – the keyboard will automatically insert the apostrophe at the appropriate place. You can also press and hold the comma key to get the apostrophe without switching to the numeric keyboard.

Tip #4: The numeric keyboard (.?123) on your iOS device shows the dollar ($) symbol by default. However, if you need to type the Pound or the Euro currency symbol, just hold the $ key and you’ll see a long list of alternative currency symbols.

Tip #5: If you want to change the style of quotation marks or need to use a longer dash punctuation mark instead of the default hyphen, press and hold the corresponding key. For typing the degree symbol in your email message, switch to the numeric keyboard and hold the ’0′ key for a while.

Tip #6: Typing the whole sentence in capital letters is often considered rude but there can be instances where you may have to type a word or two in uppercase.

In the default setting, you’ll to have to tap the Shift key after typing every single character or you can “Enable Caps Lock” under Settings –> General –> Keyboard and then double-tap the shift key to turn it into a Caps lock key. They will stay dark until you press the key again.

Tip #7: While you are inside the Safari browser, type only the domain name and then press and hold the dot (.) key. It will offer you an option to add popular domain extensions (or TLD) like .com, .org or .net to your web address with a tap.

Tip #8: You can also use the dot key in the Mail app of your iPhone or iPad to type email addresses quickly. While typing an email address in Mail, press and hold the dot (.) key and you’ll get a list of domain extension to auto-complete your email address.

Tip #9: You can split the iPad keyboard into two and type faster with both your hands while holding the device. While the on-screen keyboard is visible, press and hold the keyboard icon in the lower right and choose the Split option. If the option isn’t available on your iPad, go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard and toggle the Split Keyboard option.

Tip #10: Here’s another useful but undocumented keyboard trick that will help you quickly switch between numerical (123) and alphabetical (ABC) keyboards on your iOS device.

Let’s say you are typing a document and need to insert an email address in your text. Now the “@” symbol is not available on the alphabetic keyboard so you’ll first have to switch to the numeric keyboard (?123), tap “@” and then again switch to ABC mode.

That’s three keystrokes for typing one key. There’s a simple option as well – just press the ?123 key, slide the finger to reach the “@” key and then lift the finger up to release the key. You can use the trick to type numbers, punctuations marks, currency symbols and all other characters that’re found only on the numerical keypad of your iPhone or iPad.

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Posted at 09:48 |  by Unknown

Build beautiful slide decks on your iPad with Haiku Deck

 

You're on the train to work. Inspiration strikes. You've just figured out how to double market share and save the company. Now you just have to sell the idea to the team.

Sure, you could pull out your laptop, wait for it to boot, run PowerPoint, and start the slow, laborious process of building a killer presentation.

Or you could pull out your iPad, run Haiku Deck, and start the fast, fun process of building a killer presentation -- and finish it before the train reaches your stop.


You're on the train to work. Inspiration strikes. You've just figured out how to double market share and save the company. Now you just have to sell the idea to the team.

Sure, you could pull out your laptop, wait for it to boot, run PowerPoint, and start the slow, laborious process of building a killer presentation.

Or you could pull out your iPad, run Haiku Deck, and start the fast, fun process of building a killer presentation -- and finish it before the train reaches your stop.


This is not hyperbole: Haiku Deck is one of the coolest slide-makers I've ever tried, in part because it's incredibly easy to use, and in part because it's smart.

As you probably know, half the battle in crafting a nice-looking slide is finding appropriate artwork to go with it. Haiku Deck lets you add your own, of course, but it also searches millions of free (i.e. Creative Commons-licensed) images based on the words you've chosen for that slide.

So, for example, if you enter words like "sales" and "money," you'll quickly get a list of thumbnails that match. Tap one you like and presto: You've got the perfect background for your slide.

You can also opt for a solid background color or insert your choice of bar, pie, or numeric charts, with manually entered labels and numbers.

Ultimately, Haiku Deck is all about whipping together attractive slides, and it's great for that. When you're done, you can share your deck via Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail, or get embed code for use with your blog or Web site. You even have the option of exporting your presentation for further tweaking in, say, PowerPoint or Keynote. Here's a sample, one that introduces Haiku Deck itself:

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

However, the app is definitely somewhat limited. It doesn't support sound, transitions, or animations. You can't manually place your text, and I couldn't figure out a way to change the background color for charts. In fact, trying to make any major slide changes often caused me to lose the work I'd already done. There's no "save" option as such.

That said, once you figure out Haiku Deck's mechanics (it took me all of about 10 minutes to fully learn the app), you'll find it a great tool for building short, simple, attractive slide decks on the run. And you can't beat the price: it's free. (There are additional themes you can buy, but I think most users will find the free ones sufficient.Haiku Deck helps you build slick slides like this one.

This is not hyperbole: Haiku Deck is one of the coolest slide-makers I've ever tried, in part because it's incredibly easy to use, and in part because it's smart.

As you probably know, half the battle in crafting a nice-looking slide is finding appropriate artwork to go with it. Haiku Deck lets you add your own, of course, but it also searches millions of free (i.e. Creative Commons-licensed) images based on the words you've chosen for that slide.

So, for example, if you enter words like "sales" and "money," you'll quickly get a list of thumbnails that match. Tap one you like and presto: You've got the perfect background for your slide.

You can also opt for a solid background color or insert your choice of bar, pie, or numeric charts, with manually entered labels and numbers.

Ultimately, Haiku Deck is all about whipping together attractive slides, and it's great for that. When you're done, you can share your deck via Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail, or get embed code for use with your blog or Web site. You even have the option of exporting your presentation for further tweaking in, say, PowerPoint or Keynote. Here's a sample, one that introduces Haiku Deck itself:

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

However, the app is definitely somewhat limited. It doesn't support sound, transitions, or animations. You can't manually place your text, and I couldn't figure out a way to change the background color for charts. In fact, trying to make any major slide changes often caused me to lose the work I'd already done. There's no "save" option as such.

That said, once you figure out Haiku Deck's mechanics (it took me all of about 10 minutes to fully learn the app), you'll find it a great tool for building short, simple, attractive slide decks on the run. And you can't beat the price: it's free. (There are additional themes you can buy, but I think most users will find the free ones sufficient.

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Posted at 05:08 |  by Unknown

Put Office on the iPad for tablet success, analyst advises

Armed with a $900 million argument, an analyst has raised the Office-on-iPad banner, saying that the flop of the Surface RT gives Microsoft a chance to make billions in lemonade from its lemon.

" 'Protecting' Windows RT by keeping Office off of Apple's iPad and Android tablets isn't working," said J.P. Gownder, a principal analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, in a recent blog. "It's instead creating risk for Office as users find other ways of getting things done."

Gownder tied Microsoft's recent $900 million write-down of the Surface RT by Microsoft to a renewed call for the company to sell its ubiquitous productivity suite on rivals' tablets.

"The biggest asset Windows RT has is actually based on an app that Microsoft hasn't released—Office for Apple's iPad," Gownder wrote, referring to the operating system that powers the Surface RT. Windows RT bundles Office Home & Student 2013 RT, which includes touch-based versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word that run in a special "desktop" mode.

Outlook will join that roster this fall when Microsoft ships Windows 8.1 for RT.

Clamor for Office on tablets

Gownder's unsolicited advice to Microsoft wasn't out of the blue; a horde of analysts and pundits have called on the Redmond, Washington, software company to pull the trigger on Office for tablets powered by Apple's iOS or Google's Android.

But last week's $900 million write-down, which Microsoft said was to cover steep discounts and excess inventory, was the proof that the software giant's Windows RT/Surface RT pitch had fallen on deaf ears.

In turn, that made Microsoft's presumed strategy of withholding Office from other tablet platforms indefensible.

But Gownder, like other analysts before him, also pointed out that Microsoft may have already missed an opportunity. "Microsoft's problem [is that] workers and consumers are already exceptionally productive with their tablets. [And] there's a hidden danger of holding out on Office for iPad and Android tablets—competitors tend to fill the gap and users establish different habits," Gownder said.

He cited examples, including Apple's iWork—which Apple will take to the Web later this year—Google's Quickoffice, Evernote and other mobile apps that users have taken up in the absence of Office.

Gownder contended that Microsoft could recoup its Surface RT losses, and make more besides, if it offered Office on iPad. "If 10 percent of the 140 million iPad owners bought Office for $99.99, Microsoft would earn $1.4 billion in top line revenue, or $500 million more than the Windows RT write-down last quarter," he said.

Gownder may have based his math on the $100 annual subscription price for Office 365 Home Premium, the consumer-grade Office rent-not-buy plan. Assuming Microsoft does deliver Office for the iPad and Android tablets, it will most likely follow the same strategy it used last month for Office Mobile on the iPhone, requiring a valid Office 365 account to run the app.

What else have you got?

Others have recently called on Microsoft to focus less on Windows and more on other parts of its portfolio, including Office, in light of last week's 6 percent decline in Windows Division revenue, the $900 million Surface RT charge and the continued slide in PC shipments.

"Documents remain essential and ubiquitous to all of the world outside of Silicon Valley," noted Ben Thompson, until earlier this month a partner marketing manager in Microsoft's Windows app team. Thompson now writes on his Stratechery website. "An independent Office division should be delivering experiences on every meaningful platform. Office 365 is a great start that would be even better with a version for iPad."

In Microsoft's recent corporate reorganization, however, Office will not be an independent division—it is, more or less, in the current structure—but will instead be within the new Applications and Services Engineering Group, which will include Office, Microsoft's Bing search engine and Skype.

The company may well decide to continue resisting the potential of new Office revenue to keep Windows afloat. In the quarter that ended June 30, the Microsoft Business Division (MBD), whose biggest money maker is Office, recorded revenue of $6.43 billion, 1.7% more than the same period the year before, largely on sales to enterprises and in the face of a dismal quarter in PC shipments.

Microsoft may think the at-hand revenue is the smarter choice than more money accompanied by the risk of damaging Windows 8's tablet chances. But that would be a mistake.

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Posted at 04:41 |  by Unknown