Is there a way to select text directly in Android? I would like to edit some text on my way home, however I found that in Android there is no way to simply select some text to delete or change it. You have to first locate the cursor or long press the screen to enable selection, then drag the cursor for selection. This is quite inconvenient.

I tried Jota Text Editor, 920 Editor, Note Everything and Evernote - no one offers a simple method to select text directly.

Is there any way to do this?
The feature of selection of text is a topping added by phone manufacturers. For an instance, in my LG Optimus One (P500) which was running 2.2.2 did not have any text selection feature. As you had said, I have to manually move the caret to a favourable position to erase a text.  However during an update to 2.3.3, the manufacturer had enabled me to select a text by double tap (and in some places, a single tap or long press is required).

When I was discussing this with my friend who had Samsung Galaxy Ace running 2.2.2, I was surprised to know that the feature I got in 2.3.3 was already available in his phone.

I guess with Android 3.0 onwards, this has been baked in as standard feature.