Blocks are inadvertently deleted when pressing Delete while the cursor is placed after punctuation and space on iOS devices

[dcalhoun]

Description

On iOS devices, if the cursor is placed after certain punctuation followed by a space, pressing the Delete (backspace) key inadvertently deletes the entire text block rather than deleting the last character (space).

This only occurs when a subset of punctuation is used—e.g., period, exclamation—where other punctuation does not exhibit the issue—e.g., comma, apostrophe. It also only occurs on a physical iOS device, I was unable to reproduce it using iOS simulators.

It appears this regression was introduced in #68164.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Open the editor on an iOS device.
2. In a Paragraph block, type a word, followed by a period, followed by a space.
3. Press the Delete key (backspace).
4. Note the entire block is deleted, not just the last text character.

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

ScreenRecording_02-10-2025.11-43-02_1.mov

Environment info

• Wordpress 6.7.1
• Gutenberg 20.2.0
• Theme: Twenty Twenty-Five
• Mobile Safari on an iPhone 15 running iOS 18.3

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

• Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

• Yes

Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.

• Block
• Classic
• Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
• Not sure

[dcalhoun]

From my testing, this regression was introduced in #68164.