It is not a secret that modern people spend much more time texting than actually talking. In the fast-changing world, most of us are trying to use every time-saving opportunity. Now it seems like there is no more space left for casual phone chitchat. Things tend to get easier, conversations shorter, and even convenient messaging gets even more efficient to help you save even more time.
What if we tell you that you can spend even less type on typing messages from your iOS device? This became possible thanks to Apple’s convenient shortcuts feature. In brief, this feature allows you to create simpler and shorter alternatives to some long phrases that you use quite often. Once you create such shortcuts, the system will recognize them automatically as you are typing and replace it with the expressions you’ve set.
Generally, people, who have already discovered this feature, are fond of typing shortcuts of certain phrases they find to be lengthy. This makes their messaging simpler and saves lots of time. Besides, it can help you avoid many confusing situations like typos or unclear texts when you are typing in a rush.
How To Create Custom iPhone Shortcuts?
Every iOS user can easily create such shortcuts and make the keyboard save them to match the phrase you are implying. This is quite simple and won’t take too much time; just follow this guide:
- Open Settings app on your device.
- Then go to the General tab and click on Keyboards.
- In the Keyboards menu, you will see a feature called Text Replacement, from it you can create and manage your shortcuts.
- In the new tab, press the + button to make a new shortcut – enter the phrase you want the system to suggest you and identify its meaning. For example, you can have an “iton” to mean the phrase “now leaving the office” or “em” to mean “email” or “omw” to mean “on my way.” Similarly, you can add any other phrases and make clear shortcuts for them with words, abbreviations or even emojis.
- Then tap Save. What the keyboard will know is that the shortcut for the phrase-“on my way” is “omw” for example.
Check out another useful messaging tip: Hide SMS & iMessage Previews
Once you create your shortcuts, you can easily use them as you type. But there is one more thing for you to keep in mind. People can create their own such shortcuts, and they ignore that not everyone is able to make up the phrases they are referring to. By doing this, they end up creating funny messages that are more confusing. With iPhone, when you type your shortcuts in a message, the phrase you’ve set will show up as an option for you to confirm and enter it. That saves you the time you needed sending messages and allowing you to send sensible messages as well. Below are the examples with more shortcuts where “bats” means “battery.” In some cases, one would end up texting more to clarify, which is more costly. iPhone saves you from all these struggles.