Since I’ve been using the Qtek 8500 Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone, I’ve been trying to get good at T9 text entry. I’ve been impressed at how some of my friends can write out long text messages quickly and one-handed while driving. But sometimes T9 makes mistakes and usually I don’t notice it right away because I’m looking at the number pad trying to find the letters I want to use.
Now, I can forgive it when I type words like “me” or “of” because those letters share the same buttons and sequence. But what happens when I try to type “was”? It offers the word “wap” as it’s first suggestion! Since when do I use “wap” in a sentence? “Was” was it’s second choice. I can understand that if I was in Internet Explorer’s address bar and it suggested “wap” instead of “was” because that’s sometimes used in URLs. I’m pretty sure I didn’t add it as a custom word either (why would I?)
The next T9 mistake makes no sense what so ever. I try to type the word “are” with T9 and what do I get? That’s right, “apd” is the word that shows up in many of my text messages or emails. Is “apd” a word? Does it ever belong in a sentence? I’m sure I wouldn’t specifically add this “word” to my T9 custom dictionary. If I did, there appears to be no way to delete it. APD are the first letters in the 273 numeric set that I typed, but can’t it recognize that its second suggestion is the more likely letter combination that I wish to use? APD isn’t even a popular acronym like WAP is. I guess it stands for Avalance Photodiode.
Is it just me or is my Smartphone still not smart enough?
Originally published on Pocketnow on October 5, 2006. More Smartphone News articles from the Pocketnow archive.