Placing cursor middle of word - iOS 13

I too was bugged by this but the new way to do it is to let the cursor know you want to edit mid word by placing your finger on the cursor and holding until you see the cursor grow to a larger size and then drag it to the mid word spot or wherever you want to place it and beging typing. It's not the same as it was before, a little more time involved and less intuitive but it can be quicker than retyping the whole word. One point, you can only change the cursor when it's a cursor. When it has become a whole word highlight you must tap somewhere else in your text to deactivate the highlight and return to a cursor.

UPDATE 13.3.1

Hello-

RIGHT?!! The cursor-challenge drove me crazy for a while. On the off chance your questions have not been answered, I offer a happenstance solution.

—Tap the cursor anywhere around the line of copy

—Depress the “SPACE” bar until a shadow descends upon the keyboard—do not lift up your finger, it only works when shaded

—Slide your finger to direct the cursor up or down, including anywhere within a word, sentence or paragraph

Stay safe, friends—LR

New method is to simply drag cursor:

Tap and hold cursor, then drag it anywhere. Drag a bit below text to better view the text.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Hold your finger on the CURSOR, not on a word, and drag it where you want it. I just did 3 edits on this post doing what I described.

Plus if you don't want to drag the cursor, once again just press and hold the space bar and when you see the rest of the keyboard grey out it as long as your finger is held down it is a trackpad allowing you to move the cursor wherever you like.

Same problem here - I found this video with a solution. You can hold the spacebar on the keyboard down and drag to move the cursor around the screen. Ridiculous fix to a problem we never had but hope it helps others.

https://youtu.be/uMevwmsbrTk

Goodhikers wrote:

The spacebar solution is awkward at best. Requires two fingers, one for space bar, the other for moving the cursor.

While I suppose you could do it that way, that's like holding down the space bar than having your next door neighbor come over to move the cursor.

While typing, hold your thumb or other finger on the space bar for half a second until they keyboard goes grey, and then move your thumb and the cursor moves as the keyboard area acts like a trackpad.

One finger.

Precisely why dragging the cursor itself works, but you will have much more luck holding the space bar and using the keyboard as a trackpad instead.

In my experience, dragging the cursor can be flaky, with it sometimes jumping to unexpected positions, but the trackpad method works perfectly and precisely, every time.

TechMoron1 wrote:

my critique is that it is a two handed thing to move the cursor and you get it positioned and lined up after moving it around the paragraph.

I don't need to use two hands. Press and hold the space bar. It turns into a track pad and the insertion point is easily moved anywhere I want it with one finger.

I too found this issue unbelievably frustrating and annoying. However I discovered if you simply long-hold and then move your thumb it moves the cursor around. Try it. It takes a day or two to get used to but it's really not that bad and it is a bit more precise. It's obviously an attempt to fix the issue of trying to get the cursor between two letters in the old platform which could be slightly tricky. For highlight select, place the cursor on the word you want ( yes, it will jump to the beginning or end of the word ) and then quick double tap. For highlight- select in the middle of a word (say you want to delete text from the middle of a word onward) select entire word as described before and then manually squeeze/elongate the selection box. this is another one where I cursed the Apple Gods and later found they were on point (unlike the perrenially stupid "live" and "burst" photo functions 😡)

Press and hold the space bar and you can use that like a track pad. It works quite well.

You may be being snarky, but holding down the space bar and using it as a trackpad to place the cursor does not cause the cursor to "pop" anywhere.

Hold your finger on the CURSOR, not on a word, and drag it where you want it. I just did 3 edits on this post doing what I described.

Put your finger on the cursor. It will get larger, then slide your finger down slightly to reveal the entire cursor. You can then drag it and place it where you want it.

Use the space bar as a trackpad.

No trying to see around your finger and it works perfectly, every time.

This photo is an iPad but it works the same for an iPhone.

Type and edit text on iPad - Apple Support

WAIT! I know how it works now:

1. Place your cursor at the beginning or end of your word.
2. Hold and drag it into the middle of the word.
3. Release
4. Edit