Can't grab text selection handles.

Please make sure to move your fingers over the selection handles to grab them. Textastic currently expects a pan gesture to drag the handles. If you just do a long press on a selection handle the regular loupe appears instead.

Does this work for you?

Note: I just tried this out in regular text fields and you are right, Apple's edit controls accept a long press gesture on the selection handles. I will change this behaviour in an update.

That does work but I tested it in the Notes application and if you hiold onto the change selection handles you get the change selection magnifying glass not the move selection magnifying glass.

Exactly (see my comment above). I'm going to change the behavior of Textastic accordingly.