Finger tips: Take full advantage of iPhone “.?123″ shortcuts

by Vincent Nguyen on July 6, 2007





Vote This Post DownVote This Post Up
+3 rating, 7 votes)
Loading ... Loading ...


David Pogue discovered the awesome shortcut for entering the period, but why stop there? If you’ve used the primary keyboard on the iPhone for any length of time, you will surely notice that it’s missing all punctuation marks, including numbers. Taking Pogue’s discovery, I’ve been able to shortcut my way through all punctuation marks including numbers!

Finger tips: Take full advantage of iPhone “.?123” shortcuts

Instead of going through the following steps every single time you need to enter a period or any other punctuation marks:

(1) Tap the “.?123” key in the lower left to summon the punctuation layout. (2) Type the period. (3) Type the ABC key in the lower left to return to the alphabet layout.

Click over to watch demo video of the far easier way to access punctuation.

[MEDIA=44]

You can do it in one simple motion by tapping and hold the “.?123” key. Once the punctuation layout appears, slide your finger to any keys including numbers, and then release.

Amazingly, the ABC layout returns automatically. Thanks David!

  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
  • Furl
  • Live
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • SphereIt
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • TailRank
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • E-mail this story to a friend!

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 joey 07.06.07 at 10:06 pm

Yah this is a pretty nifty thing t have but i honestly dont think that doing it the other way is saving that much time. I love my phone either way.

2 Vincent Nguyen 07.07.07 at 9:03 am

It’s definitely a time saver for me.

3 davan 07.08.07 at 1:40 am

Yup me too!

4 Cleverboy 07.08.07 at 8:04 am

Works with the SHIFT key too.

~ CB

5 Michael 07.08.07 at 2:21 pm

It definatley seems like it would save time for users. Nice feature.

6 berto 07.11.07 at 1:03 am

You know, for periods, commas, etc. all you have to do is hit the spacebar and it takes you back to the alpha layout. I’m not trying to decrease the awesomeness of this shortcut, but sometimes this is as critical as it’s made out to be.

7 Vincent Nguyen 07.11.07 at 1:06 am

[quote comment="5360"]You know, for periods, commas, etc. all you have to do is hit the spacebar and it takes you back to the alpha layout. I’m not trying to decrease the awesomeness of this shortcut, but sometimes this is as critical as it’s made out to be.[/quote]

yep, I still find myself using the “long” method :).

Fill in the required fields below to leave a comment or login to your account. If you haven't signed up, you can do so free here. With iPhone Buzz account, you will be able to participate on iPhone Buzz Forums discussion.

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>