How to turn iPhone 6s keyboard into a trackpad with 3D Touch

BY Osas Obaizamomwan

Published 26 Sep 2015

Selecting and moving around text has always been a little cumbersome on iOS devices. Finally, in iOS 9, Apple introduced a cool new feature to improve text selection and editing

You can place two fingers on the screen and move them to direct the cursor to the word or letter you want to edit. You then can tap on the text to select it and use the keyboard controls to edit or move it. Unfortunately, the trackpad mode is only available on the iPad.

Apple has added support for the feature in the new iPhones. On the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, you can use the feature using 3D Touch.

You can turn the keyboard into a trackpad by pressing firmly on the keyboard. This will switch out the text for a letter-less trackpad.

How to turn your keyboard into a trackpad with 3D Touch on your iPhone 6s

  • Launch any app where you can use the keyboard.
  • Press firmly on the keyboard. This will switch your keyboard into a trackpad.

iPhone 6s - 3D Touch - Turn Keyboard into Trackpad

  • You can now swipe your finger around to move the cursor to easily select and manipulate text, similar to the movement on your computer’s trackpad. You can move your finger around anywhere on the screen, and not just the keyboard area.
  • You can select text by pressing a littler deeper, and move the cursor around if you want to select more text for cutting and copying.

Check out our hands-on video to get a better idea how to enable and use your iPhone 6s keyboard as a trackpad with 3D Touch:

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This feature will make editing so much easier for me and my clumsy fingers. Let us know what you think of the new trackpad feature in the comment section.

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