Special Character Smartphone Keyboard Shortcuts

Pretty much all of my passwords have numbers in them, and a great many of them also have special symbols. Typing it on a regular keyboard is just fine and dandy, but using a smartphone to access the same pages and accounts is more than painful–it’s frustrating. I have a decent amount of Spanish vocabulary that I use with certain people, and getting those little accents on the letters (which, for those of you who don’t speak Spanish, can really change the meaning of the word) is annoying. Well, suffer no longer! Today, I’m going to teach you the magic shortcut to make typing this sort of thing a little easier. This shortcut is called: the long press. Yep, it’s that simple. I tested both an Android and iPhone (I unfortunately couldn’t get my hands on a Windows phone today to check it as well) and if you press and hold pretty much any vowel, you’ll be presented with a slew of options for accents suitable for any language. If you’re looking for actual symbols instead of letters then pres the “?123” button and try long-pressing different symbols. You can get the Spanish ¿ through the normal ? button, and access other money symbols by pressing the $. My Android phone even had quick shortcuts for musical notes, the symbols from a suit of cards and other miscellaneous symbols like:  ± ? „ ‰ or  ? to name a few. Of course, that will still require a few extra key presses, but it’s still a little simpler. It’s worth noting that there are various custom keyboards available for download on both iTunes and Google Play that might be a good option for some customers, and I believe that some iPhone models allow you to save a secondary keyboard as well. I lament that Android doesn’t allow you to customize your keyboard, but I guess you can’t have everything. Anyway, now you know the secret! Happy texting!]]>