iOS dev finds unimplemented one-handed keyboard in iOS code

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    iOS dev finds unimplemented one-handed keyboard in iOS code

    iOS Developer Steve Troughton-Smith has tweeted about a new discovery of a one-handed keyboard mode hidden within the iOS code. Troughton-Smith notes that the code has been in place going as far back as iOS 8, although Apple has chosen for whatever reason to not actually implement it yet. It appears the left/right one-handed keyboard mode is designed to be activated by swiping from either edge of the screen, compressing the spacing of the normal keyboard keys to make them easier to reach with a single thumb, while also bringing up cut, copy, paste, and undo buttons to the right or the left side. The presence of the feature as far back as the iOS 8 code base suggests that it was implemented for testing purposes with the original larger-screened iPhone models released that year, although Apple chose to never actually activate the feature. Troughton-Smith also posted a video to Twitter demonstrating the feature in the iOS Simulator; it would theoretically be possible to hack a jailbroken iPhone to enable the feature as well. [via 9to5Mac]

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    Jesse Hollington was a Senior Editor at iLounge. He's written about Apple technology for nearly a decade and had been covering the industry since the early days of iLounge. In his role at iLounge, he provided daily news coverage, wrote and edited features and reviews, and was responsible for the overall quality of the site's content.