Developer discovers hidden iOS keyboard for one-handed use

There’s a hidden keyboard in iOS code that makes it easier to type with one hand. The keyboard is not active, but when it is activated it works by swiping in from the side of the keyboard.

After swiping in, the entire keyboard slides to the side and next to it are buttons for copy, cut and paste, according to the screenshots from Irish developer Steve Throughton-Smith. Then users should be able to type better with one hand, or so Apple thinks.

The hidden keyboard is in the emulator’s code in Xcode, the developer says. It’s been there since iOS 8. It seems that Apple developed the feature for the iPhone 6 Plus from 2014, because the code contains references to ReachableKeyboard, a reference to the Reachability. That is the name of the function to bring down the entire interface a lot to be able to reach everything on iPhones.

It is currently not possible to activate the hidden keyboard on iPhones, but that should be easily possible via a jailbreak, says the developer. Currently, such a trick does not yet exist.