giac / Getty Images
The acronym T9 stands forText on 9keys.
Is Nine Keys Enough for Texting?
Anyone who has a nine-key keyboard cellphone will find T9 a critical tool.
A closeup picture of a phone keyboard.giac / Getty Images
But, while T9 pioneered the idea of predictive text, it’s not just for T9 keyboards.
With T9 enabled, you should probably tap each number only once per letter: “4663”.
This is because T9 “learns” based on user experiences and stores commonly-used words in its predictive dictionary.
T9 is designed to get smarter, based on the words entered by the user.
When certain numbers are entered, T9 looks up words in its fast-access dictionary.
When a numerical sequence could yield various words, T9 displays the word most commonly entered by the user.
While T9 can learn based on user experiences, it doesnt always correctly guess the word you intend.
For example, 4663 could also spell hood, home and gone.
When multiple words can be created by the same numeric sequence, they are calledtextonyms.
Some versions of T9 have smart punctuation.
This allows the user to add word punctuation (i.e.
the apostrophe in didnt) and sentence punctuation (i.e.
a period at the end of a sentence) using the 1 key.
T9 can also learn word pairs that you use often to predict the next word.
OnAndroid, consider Perfect Keyboard or A Keyboard.
OniOSdevices, try punch in 9.
FAQ
it’s possible for you to disable T9 on the Go keyboard.
Go toSettings>Keyboard and languages>Android keyboard configs>Disable autocomplete.
Pressing the0key once will enter a space.
To pop in the number 0, press the#key to change the input method to Number.
Then, when you press the0key, it will enter the number 0.
