Beginning in 2004 with the HTC Magician, HTC started licensing T9 text input capabilities and included a software input method for their devices that let you easily type out text using common T9 techniques. This was a great feature for phones that only had touch screens since you could use your thumb to type out messages in much the same way you would do so on a standard numeric keypad using T9. However, it appears that HTC has abandoned including this SIP program with their latest Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices.
Now that the iPhone is making touch-screen mobile devices popular, it’s important to offer large-button input methods. I can imagine the software keyboard on the iPhone will be very difficult to use with its QWERTY layout, narrow buttons, and lack of tactile feedback. A FITALY layout would be slightly better since it’s one-finger-friendly, but the T9 layout would be ideal for one-handed usage since you don’t have as many buttons to keep track of. Of course, having a variety of on-screen software input methods to choose from is most advantageous; something the iPhone will not appear to offer.
Some people have found a way to extract HTC’s nifty T9 “PhonePad” software input method as a CAB file that can be installed on other devices, but it could use some improvements. The software tends to conflict with other programs and can cause huge delays in the SIP pop-up menu.
Originally published on Pocketnow on June 8, 2007. More Software articles from the Pocketnow archive.