Any way to close the edit box?

If you have an edit box open, place focus on the keyboard (I do this by touching the space key. I use direct touch typing so I touch it long enough for it not to be inputted). Then do the scrub gesture: take two fingers and go right, left, right in quick succession; it's called the two finger scrub and it does feel like you're doing a short, fast scrub on the screen. In my experience, this dismisses the keyboard (voiceover should say "keyboard hidden") and the text field disappears and you should remain on the same screen. I can't say if this works in every application, but it does work in iMessage and Facebook when I tried it there just now.

The scrub minimizes the keyboard. However, the textbox is still editable. There doesn’t seem to be a way to bring it back. Double tapping on the text/edit box just it changes the position of the cursor in the box. Anyway to bring the keyboard back up?

Simply flick left or right away from the edit area on to something else, then flick back to the edit field.

Be aware that if you have a bluetooth keyboard that is turned on, this has the effect of preventing the keyboard from appearing.

This actually might be a bug in iOS 17. There should be someway to bring back the keyboard once minimizing it.

Double tap annd hold, and flicking down actually closes the keyboard in apps like Messages and Safari. This has the bonus of being able to double tap in that field and reopening the keyboard if needed.

"Double tap annd hold, and flicking down actually closes the keyboard in apps like Messages and Safari."

I am confused. I brought up a new message, made the keyboard visible by editing the To field. Double tap and hold then swiping down did not make the keyboard go away. Can you elaborate please?

Double tap, hold, when you hear sound effect, move finger down without letting go of screen. Takes a tiny better practice but once you get it down, it works like a charm.

for the double tap and hold to work, focus has to be on the keyboard. I hope this helps!