One-handed operation feature on larger screen devices makes it easier for users to use it comfortably in a single hand. Now a keyboard with similar capabilities has been found hidden inside the iOS code. Troughton-Smith, a developer, was the first who came across a hidden one-handed iPhone keyboard feature, which can be activated using iOS Simulator.
It is believed that Apple first added this one-handed iPhone keyboard feature with iOS 8, which was released in 2014. It is the same year when the fruit company launched its first even larger iPhone devices, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The feature, however, is yet to be activated, which means it cannot be accessed in beta and public releases.
The developer was able to access the feature through iOS Simulator for Mac, which clearly shows the feature is there. The one-handed iPhone keyboard is activated by swiping from the edge of the display when the keyboard is onscreen, and it shifts the keys on one side of the screen.
The keyboard side depends on whether you swipe from the left or the right. Once enabled, you can access the keys on the virtual keyboard using your one hand without stretching your fingers so far to reach all the keys as is the case with normal sized keyboard.
Watch the video embedded below and see for yourself how the keyboard shift towards one side and space left blank by the smaller keyboard is filled with handy shortcuts for cut, copy, and paste.
Video or it didn't happen: (very hard to engage in the Simulator with a mouse cursor) pic.twitter.com/vw2wpCgiLJ
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) October 19, 2016
Apple added a feature called Reachability to make it easier to use the larger iPhone devices. But this feature only shifts content down the screen without changing the typing experiencing. It remains unclear why Apple left this feature unused for over two years.
But the facts is, no one missed the one-handed keyboard feature on their iPhone, which could be the reason why Apple didn’t push it to masses. But no one can say for sure about the future updates.