How to Type Chinese on iPhone and iPad (Pinyin + Handwriting)
iOS ships with a full Chinese keyboard — you only have to enable it. Once added, Pinyin and Handwriting are available in every app that accepts text.
Enable the Chinese keyboard
Open Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard, then choose Chinese (Simplified).
Pick Pinyin for typing and Handwriting for drawing characters with your finger. You can add both.
Switching keyboards
The globe key at the bottom left cycles through your keyboards. Long-press it to jump straight to a specific one.
On iPad, the same key sits next to the space bar and behaves identically.
Handwriting mode
In the handwriting keyboard, draw the character with your finger; candidates appear along the top. Writing characters on top of each other is supported when “Overlap” is enabled in keyboard settings.
Practising pinyin on iOS
An iOS pinyin keyboard composes characters before the page sees your letters, so switch to the English keyboard when practising on TypingChinese.
Typing ü works the same way here too: press v.
Now practise it
Your keyboard is set up. Type pinyin, get graded letter by letter, and let spaced repetition bring back the words you miss. No account.