How to use the HTC Touch XT9 Predictive Keyboard

After a failed first attempt at using the XT9 predictive 'soft' keyboard that comes with the Touch, I decided to give it another try after learning more about how predictive keyboards work. It turns out it actually works quite well. The pictures below are slightly larger than actual size.

In this picture, you can see where I am starting to type the word 'technology'.

I have typed the first two characters 'te', but it has already guessed and displayed the word 'ye' (which is actually a word in the English language).

This is what threw me off when I first tried it as I thought it was a lousy guesser - it's not anything like the word I'm trying to type.

The trick is to ignore what happens at first, and you'll find that after one or two more characters, it really starts to get things right.

So watch what happens in the next picture below, when I type the third character 'c' ...

Yep, after I entered the 3rd character 'c', it gets closer to what I want, and even moves ahead and guesses the next character 'h' correctly.

The line directly above the keyboard is the pick list, and you can press any of the words at any time (if they are correct) to automatically place them in the document you are typing.

Note how the guessed character 'h' is underlined, whereas the 'tec' is not. This is how you can tell what you have typed so far, and what it has guessed at.

So I proceed to continue typing the 'h' and the next character 'n' and, as in the next picture, it guessed my word correctly as soon as I typed the 'n'.

At this point, it displays the word I want and I just press the 'space' key to accept the word into the document and continue with the next word.

It only required me to type 5 of the 10 characters to guess correctly, which actually saved me a lot of key strokes.

Often, the correct word will appear in the pick list and you can select it, using even fewer keystrokes.

You can even activate a feature that allows it to guess what the next word will be, based on the context.

Even better, it learns as you use it, and the guesses get better as time goes by.

When you are having trouble, you also have the option of switching from 'XT9' mode to 'abc' mode so that you can type a word exactly. This is when the double tap for the second key character comes into play.

You do this by pressing the function button to the right of the left hand 'shift' key (marked as XT9 above); the button label changes to reflect the mode of operation. There are also numerical and symbol keyboard modes. If you want any of the characters shown in gray at the upper right hand of each key, just press the key and hold it down for a moment more.

You can also add your own words directly into the database by pressing the + plus sign in the circle, on the right side of the suggestion line.

It's not perfect - sometimes you have to fiddle with it, and sometimes in extreme cases you have to switch to the full qwerty keyboard/stylus system. But, most of the time it works well, and it gets better as you use it.

In my opinion, it's a very clever piece of software technology that will only get better with time.

NEXT: Using the HTC TouchFLO gesture based navigation system