Hold and slide (the 90% method)
Hold a → à á â ä æ ã å ā. Hold n → . Hold 0 → °, $ → ¢ £ ¥ €, ? → ¿, ! → ¡, - → – — •. Slide without lifting, or tap the popup then the character. Works in every app — it’s the keyboard, not the app.
Text Replacement for repeats
Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement → + : phrase “José”, shortcut “jose”. Now typing “jose” offers José with one tap. Build a dozen for names and towns you write weekly — this is the highest-leverage iPhone typing trick that exists.
Add the actual language keyboard
Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add → Español/Français/Deutsch. The globe key switches; Spanish puts ñ on the first screen and ¿ ¡ on the symbols page. Autocorrect and predictions follow the active keyboard — half of “autocorrect ruins Spanish” complaints are just the English keyboard guessing.
Capitals and edge cases
Shift first, then hold: ⇧ + hold E → È É Ê Ë. ß has no iOS long-press — copy from its page or save it as a Text Replacement.