Arrow keys anyone???

Where are the arrow keys on the IPAD keyboard?

iPad, iOS 4

Posted on Jan 17, 2011 6:30 PM

Reply
269 replies

May 30, 2015 6:09 AM in response to justb48

I have been happy to have the arrow keys as they are also on the iPhone 6 as well. At least in the horizontal position...


I was bummed to see after recently purchasing my iPad mini 2 running iOS 8.2 that the keyboard does NOT have arrow keys. I thought it would be included with the operating system for sure but maybe none of the iPads running iOS 8 have 'em?


I will be looking in to a keyboard app to remedy this for sure. Hopefully there is one to suit.

Feb 26, 2016 11:44 AM in response to J.Neechie

The third-party onscreen keyboard TSwipe Pro has arrow keys, Pgup Pgdn, Home, End, and delete next character keys on its SYM keyboard.

It costs a whole $0.99, but I think it's worth it. It also has swipe capability, and has versions available for a zillion languages.


The arrow keys are program-dependent. No every text box allows the same input, but where the arrow keys don't work, the delete next character key does, which helps a lot when you've positioned the cursor one or two characters to the left of where you need to make a change.

Mar 26, 2016 6:55 PM in response to bradcheng

I Know this is an old thread, but it is also the #1 result on google when searching the topic of arrow keys on the ipad, so I think it's the perfect place to espress my opinion on the topic.

incidentally, I am writing this on my iPhone 6+. This phone, when in landscape orientation has the very left and right arrow keys that some people would love to have on their iPad and other people love to make them feel foolish for it. If the arrow keys are such a stupid idea, then why are they standard on the iPhone (landscape) screen?

tthe answer is: because they are convenient.

Yes, I know that all I need to do is to press down anywhere near my correction point, hold and then slide the magnified view. that too is convenient and easy, no doubt about it. But even writing this short post I have used the arrows at least twice to make quick corrections without having to change the way I hold my phone when typing and just hitting the left arrow a couple of times to make the change I needed to make.

WHile le I am at it, let me also praise the presence, again in landscape mode, of the ! ? . , keys. They and the arrows make typing on a phone faster and more intuitive, allowing me to write while concentrating on what I have to say rather than hitting extra keys to get the punctuation I want. In fact, I would love to have a few more keys I could assign to frequently used (by me) characters such as (parenthesis), "quotes", -dashes- and others.


For those that are horrified at the idea of people using arrow keys or other shortcuts or alternative typing methods, what is it to you? Really! Take my idea of having customizable keys for certain punctuation. If I were Apple I would implement it so that those that don't need them, those that abhor the very idea of somebody using a different technique than theirs, would be able to trade the extra space those keys would take for slightly larger keys.

I Can see how that could be an issue on an iPhone screen, but on the iPad? There would be plenty of space there to add a couple of column of custom keys that users could turn into arrows or frequently used punctuation.

Already some apps rearrange the keyboard for some specialized uses, such as displaying the @ sign when entering emails. Would it be that hard to let us pick our own?

Mar 27, 2016 8:33 AM in response to conticreative

conticreative wrote:

Take my idea of having customizable keys for certain punctuation. If I were Apple I would implement it so that those that don't need them, those that abhor the very idea of somebody using a different technique than theirs, would be able to trade the extra space those keys would take for slightly larger keys.

The people reading this either whole heartedly agree with you or could not care less about arrow keys (I fall into the latter. I hardly every use them on my computer.) Either way, neither group can do anything to change the status quo. Submit your feedback to Apple:


http://www.apple.com/feedback

Apr 14, 2016 5:02 AM in response to J.Neechie

THe lack of cursor keys is a crazy ommision. Apple themselves even indicate their usefulness by putting them on the hard keyboard.


Trying to get to a single letter in a word is almost impossible (I don't have a nine-year-old's fingers) and if an entry in a text box is longer than the text box length, there is no way to edit what's out of site.


Not all programs allow 'zoom in' so that's not a good work-around.


I"m finding data entry on the iPad to be so very much slower than it should be and having cursor keys to make quick, incisive, corrections would fix much of that.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Arrow keys anyone???

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.