How to unlock special keys for the virtual QWERTY on your iOS or Android device

Let's say that your sending an iMessage to someone and need to type out a price in Yen. Now you certainly could write out the word Yen in the text and send it. For example, you might write, "That Pokemon card you want to buy from me will cost you 58,000 Yen."

But if you prefer to include the symbol for the Yen in your message, you won't find one on the iPhone keyboard unless you use a code to unlock hidden keys on the iPhone's QWERTY keyboard. You might already know this trick, but if not you simply need to follow the directions as laid out by The Sun.

First, if you need to type a letter with an accent, a tilde (mostly used over letters in Spanish), or an umlaut (the two dots placed on top of a vowel in German or Hungarian) this can be done quite easily. From the iPhone's virtual QWERTY, long-press on the upper-case or lower-case version of the letter, and options will appear on the display. Tap on the letter with the accent you need.

Now let's return to the Yen example. If you want to use the Yen sign, open the virtual QWERTY and tap on the "123" key on the lower left side of the display. Long-Press on the Dollar symbol ("$") found in the second row and you'll see options to use various currency symbols for the Yen, the Euro, Cents, British Pound, and more. Tap on the one you want.

Other QWERTY tricks allow you to long-press on a hyphen to see options for longer hyphens. And if you need to type the degree symbol for temperatures or angles, long-press on the number "0" (Zero).

Android users with a virtual Gboard QWERTY keyboard can also get special accents by long-pressing on a vowel (make sure you are using a lower-case or upper-case letter based on your needs). Tapping the "?123" button on the lower-left of the keyboard and then long pressing on the $ key will call up options for the Yen, Euro, Cents, British Pound, and other currencies.

Just passing along some information that might be useful to iOS and Android users on a lazy Saturday morning.