as the on-screen keyboard. It’s true, boys and girls: the iPhone has no physical
keys. A virtual keyboard, therefore, is the only possible system for entering
text.
The keyboard appears automatically whenever you tap in a place where typing
is possible: in an outgoing email or text message, in the Notes program, in
the address bar of the Web browser, and so on.
Just tap the key you want. As your finger taps the glass, a “speech balloon”
appears above your finger, showing an enlarged version of the key you actually
hit (since your finger is now blocking your view of the keyboard).
In darker gray, surrounding the letters, you’ll find these special keys:
Shift (L). When you tap this key, it glows white, to indicate that it’s
in effect. The next letter you type appears as a capital. Then the L key
automatically returns to normal, meaning that the next letter will be
lowercase.
The iPhone has a Caps Lock feature, but you have to request it. in the Settings
program, turn on “enable caps lock” as described on page 252.
From now on, if you double-tap the L key, the key turns blue. You’re now in Caps
Lock mode, and you’ll now type in aLL CaPiTaLS until you tap the L key again. (if
you can’t seem to make Caps Lock work, try double-tapping the L key fast.)
Backspace (V). This key actually has three speeds.
Tap it once to delete the letter just before the blinking insertion point.
Hold it down to “walk” backward, deleting as you go.
If you hold down the key long enough, it starts deleting words rather
than letters, one whole chunk at a time.
„. Tap this button when you want to type numbers or punctuation.
The keyboard changes to offer a palette of numbers and symbols. Tap
the same key—which now says ABC—to return to the letters keyboard.
(Fortunately, there’s a much faster way to get a period; see page 24.)
Once you’re on the numbers/symbols pad, a new dark gray button appears,
labeled =. Tapping it summons a third keyboard layout, containing
the less frequently used symbols, like brackets, the # and % symbols,
bullets, and math symbols.
Return. Tapping this key moves to the next line, just as on a real
keyboard.
There’s no Tab key in iPhone land, and no enter key.
