Well-known Apple developer Steve Troughton-Smith posted last night that he has discovered a hidden one-handed mode for the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Troughton-Smith hacked the iOS Simulator to enable and demo the previously unnoticed feature.
… The code has apparently been in the system since iOS 8 but is yet to be released as a public-facing feature.
The mode is activated by an edge swipe on the keys, as shown in the video below. The swipe shrinks the regular keyboard, and reveals a sidebar of cut/copy/paste controls, making it easier for user to stretch their thumb over all of the alphabet keys, making one handed use on larger iPhone much more feasible for many users.
Users can swipe from either side of the screen to reveal the sidebar and shrink the alpha-numeric keyboard, making it of use to either right-handed or left-handed users. (As for ambidextrous users, well, the mind boggles! – Ed.)
Troughton-Smith’s discovery that the code has been present since iOS 8 implies Apple was testing the feature for release alongside the first release of its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, with their larger screen sizes of 4.7-inches and 5.5-inches, respectively.
For some unknown reason, Apple hasn’t seen fit to enable the feature, and it may never enable it. However, this isn’t an unusual occurrence, as Apple researches and develops plenty of features for its devices that it never enables or releases. We will keep our collective fingers crossed however, that it makes an appearance in some future iOS update.
