Disable sliding text cursor feature iPadOS

Sliding two fingers across the OSK moves the text cursor in that direction. It's fine, but tapping two fingers highlights the previous word. QWERT keyboards are designed to slow typing speed for typewriters, but apple added an extra layer of slowness to it. If you press two keys at once according to the iPad, it will highlight the previous word and mess up the sentence. As far as I know, there's no way to disable this feature.

iPad, iPadOS 18

Posted on Mar 30, 2025 6:07 PM

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Posted on Mar 31, 2025 3:30 AM

To clarify, touch-and-hold of the on-screen keyboard Space Bar transforms the keyboard into a trackpad - and allows precise positioning of the text-cursor by sliding your finger. As you correctly observe, a tap with two-fingers will highlight the entire last word (and additional white-space) that you have typed on screen.


These gestures are elements of the iPad's touch UI (User Interface) - and cannot, to my knowledge, be disabled.


Apple invites submission of comments and feature requests via its Product Feedback portal. If you would like to be able to configure or disable this functionality in a future version of iPadOS, this would be the most appropriate channel through which to make a request:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 31, 2025 3:30 AM in response to Djangoop

To clarify, touch-and-hold of the on-screen keyboard Space Bar transforms the keyboard into a trackpad - and allows precise positioning of the text-cursor by sliding your finger. As you correctly observe, a tap with two-fingers will highlight the entire last word (and additional white-space) that you have typed on screen.


These gestures are elements of the iPad's touch UI (User Interface) - and cannot, to my knowledge, be disabled.


Apple invites submission of comments and feature requests via its Product Feedback portal. If you would like to be able to configure or disable this functionality in a future version of iPadOS, this would be the most appropriate channel through which to make a request:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

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Disable sliding text cursor feature iPadOS

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