From the course: iOS 13 and iPadOS: iPhone and iPad Essential Training

Predictive text and QuickPath typing

From the course: iOS 13 and iPadOS: iPhone and iPad Essential Training

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Predictive text and QuickPath typing

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- Now let's take a look at working with text and the onscreen keyboard in iOS13. I'm going to use the Notes app for this example. And I'll create a new note with the button here in the lower right hand corner, and I'll start by typing a note of things to do today. (typing sounds) I'll tap return a couple of times. So you'll notice that as you type the iPhone offers suggestions here above the keyboard. This is called the predictive text bar. So let's say I wanted to type the phrase "in no particular order". So in this case I've typed enough of the word "particular" that the iPhone is guessing what I mean to type here. If one of these suggestions is correct I just tap it and the word is completed for me. If that wasn't the word I wanted I could have just continued typing and ignored the suggestion. Now I can just continue typing again. So the iPhone is constantly watching me type and will offer suggestions so I don't have to type out complete words. The iPhone's suggestions and corrections are one of the key factors in being a fast and efficient typist on its keyboard. Even if you've misspelled a word, the iPhone can usually figure out what word you meant based on the letters near the ones you typed. So if I wanted to type the phrase "pick up laundry" (typing sounds) but I misspell the word "laundry" notice it immediately suggests the correct spelling of "laundry". Now when a misspelled word is highlighted like this I can just tap Space and the change is instantly made. It's important to remember that pressing Space is telling the iPhone that its suggestion is correct. If the suggestion is not correct I can tap the current spelling which appears on the left side of the predictive text bar to leave it as is. Also iOS has a universal spell checker so in many apps misspelled words will be underlined with red dotted lines like you see in many word processors. So for example if I delete and deliberately misspell the word "laundry" again (typing sounds) and I choose the one on the left here notice that word gets underlined. So when I tap a red underlined word the properly spelled version appears and I can tap that to correct my spelling. Keep in mind that your device will remember which suggestions you've ignored and it will also learn the words you use most often that it doesn't recognize and add them to its internal dictionary so after time it'll stop trying to correct words that you've told it are not typos. Okay so that's pretty much how typing and auto correction have worked in iOS for a long time. But iOS13 and iPadOS also include a new typing feature called Quick Path. This is a typing feature that's been available through third party apps for many years but it's now an official feature of iOS. So the idea is that in addition to typing by tapping letters one at a time, (typing sounds) you can now also swipe your finger over the letters in one continuous motion without lifting your finger from the screen. So if I wanted to type the word "oranges" for example I would start by placing my finger on the letter "O" and then glide to every letter to spell "oranges". (typing sounds) So for some people this is a much faster and more accurate way to enter text, especially if you're entering text with one hand. And iOS is very good at figuring out what word you meant to type based on the order and proximity of the letters you're touching. For example, I'll go down to the next slide here. (typing sounds) So that was a lot faster than typing out all those letters. And notice you don't have to type a space between words. Simply lifting your finger off the screen tells iOS that you're done typing a word. And the predictive text bar above the keyboard is also useful here in case it doesn't guess the word you mean. (typing sounds) So in case I wanted the plural word here I can tap that version and it's corrected for me. It definitely takes some practice but the nice thing is you don't have to switch keyboards or enable anything special to use Quick Path typing. You can type some words letter by letter as you've always done (typing sounds) and then use Quick Path to type others.

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