Here's a typing shortcut for the iPhone and iPod Touch when you need to add a punctuation mark, a number, or any of the other characters on the ".?123" keyboard. Normally to get one of these characters you need to push the ".?123", get the other keyboard, push on the character you want, and then push the button to go back to the letters keyboard. A lot of button presses for a single character.

The trick to doing this quickly is to not lift your finger off the screen. When you push the ".?123" button keep your finger on the keyboard. When the alternate keyboard is shown, slide your finger over to the character you want and then lift your finger off the screen. This will select the character you want and automatically bring you back to the normal keyboard. Once you get the hang of this it makes it a lot quicker to type numeric and punctuation symbols on your iPhone or iPod Touch.