@Simeon In @piinthesky comment above, you can get the blue selection background without the “lollipops” if the first thing you do after exiting a running program is to select some code with the keyboard not showing.
Ps. If you tap the blue area, the keyboard and “lollipops” will show.
@dave1707 - haven’t picked up on that. Will try it out. Another thing I noticed is that when you select code to the end, with keyboard present. The selection menu appears and rapidly disappears. Attempts to get it up by touching the blue selection area seems to scroll it back to the begining or select it. May be the difference between rap or touch. I like to see the bottom selection handle bottom left in a blank line to be confident that the text I want is going to be ct/copied or deleted.