How do I tap to select text mid-word?

So far I am only able to either 1) select and hold the cursor over text to activate a magnifying glass where I can place the cursor between characters, or 2) hold onto the space bar to navigate the cursor through the text. But I am unable to just tap on the exact location within a word that I want to edit. I'm a prolific typo-maker and spell check isn't great, so I like being able to quickly go back and edit what I've written. The tap/hold/scroll action as well as only being able to select between words feels slow, unintuitive and imprecise.

It can't be a touch screen accuracy issue, I'm able to do that on my 6 year old Android I have laying around. The iPhone 13 pro has to be a far more capable smart phone, so I’m hoping it’s a setting that I missed. I can’t find anything on google so far. Thanks for reading!