Remove 3 pixels in iOS/WebKit textarea

Okay... Sorry... Here we go... The officially unofficial answer is...

You can't get rid of it.

Apparently this is a "bug" with mobile safari on inputs. See:

• <input type="submit"> padding bug on Safari mobile?
• iPhone <button> padding unchangeable?

You can, however, knowing the indent do this

textarea {
  text-indent:-3px;
}

It's not a pretty solution, but it does what you need.

Edit Forgot to mention, tested with iOS Simulator. You might try on your phone itself.

Another point: This also assumes that you're serving up css solely for mobile safari, specifically for the iPhone. An older way of doing this is:

/* Main CSS here */

/* iPhone CSS */
@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px){
  /* iPhone only CSS here */
  textarea {
    text-indent: -3px;
  }
}

Edit Again I'm having way too much fun with this... You can also use separate stylesheets with these declarations:

<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (max-device-width: 480px)" href="iphone.css"> 
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (min-device-width: 481px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) and (orientation:portrait)" href="ipad-portrait.css"> 
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (min-device-width: 481px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) and (orientation:landscape)" href="ipad-landscape.css"> 
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (min-device-width: 1025px)" href="ipad-landscape.css"> 

Edit Because apparently somebody bought an Android ;)

<script type="text/javascript">
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPhone') != -1) {
  document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="iphone.css" type="text/css" />');
} else if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Android') != -1) {
  document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="android.css" type="text/css" />');
} else {
  document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="desktop.css" type="text/css" />');
}
</script>

Personally, I don't really have a problem with text-entries having some internal indentation. It clears it from the area's edge and makes it more readable. I do, however, believe that a browser should support the spec. So here's an update for differentiating between android and iPhone. Have fun!

Here's a quick JavaScript solution (based on stslavik's approach) that saves some code lines and tests for iPad and iPod as well.

If you use jQuery:

if(/iPhone|iPad|iPod/i.test(navigator.userAgent)){
  $('textarea').css('text-indent', '-3px');
}

If you want to use standard JS:

if(/iPhone|iPad|iPod/i.test(navigator.userAgent)){
  textareas = document.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
  for(i = 0; i < textareas.length; i++){
    textareas[i].style['text-indent'] = '-3px';
  }
}