One of the most annoying things about typing on a smartphone is inserting punctuation. Toggling back and forth between the alphabet and punctuation layouts is a time-waster that can easily be avoided. Here are three tricks that allow you to punctuate your messages without switching from one keyboard to another:
1. Spacebar double-tap. When you’re ready to insert a period, double-tap on the spacebar. A period is automatically inserted at the end of the sentence. And there’s an added bonus: The first letter of the next word you type is automatically capitalized. This works on both iOS and Android.
2. Drag-and-release. For commas, question marks, and other punctuation that’s not a period, all you have to do on the iPhone is press and hold the keyboard’s “123” button and drag your finger to the punctuation you want to insert, then release. After iOS inserts that character, it then automatically switches back to the main alphabet layout. On Android, just tap the “123” then the desired punctuation button; Android then inserts that punctuation and switches back to the main keyboard when you press the space button.
3. Don’t bother with apostrophes. Your smartphone actually knows when an apostrophe is needed, so don’t bother inserting it yourself. “Werent” will automatically be changed to “weren’t.”
