[slacka]

T9 was amazing. Any upcoming human interface industrial engineer ought to study it. When driving or in class, I used to regularly send SMS messages without looking at my phone’s screen. It was THE biggest thing I missed when I got my first iPhone 3G.

Only recently have Google's and Apple's TTS come close to matching it. Occasionally I still miss T9 like when in a movie theater where I can't speak to type and don't want to look at my screen.

[anchpop]

I'm a bit of a keyboard maniac. I don't know why I am this way, but I am. On my computer I have a lovely split mechanical keyboard which I've remapped to Colemak, but I've always wished I could get a good typing experience on my phone.

I like being able to type while walking and without looking, and by far the best phone keyboard for that is 8pen [0]. A masterclass in innovative UX imo, and clearly a ton of work went into it. Unfortunately, they pulled it from the play store (and deleted all the tweets on their twitter) some years ago for reasons unknown to me.

Related is MessageEase [1], which is not as good but still passable. But it's incredibly ugly and takes up a ton of space on my screen, so I don't like to use it.

[0]: http://www.8pen.com/

[1]: https://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php

[transfire]

8pen was definitely the most interesting/promising alternative input methods I've ever seen.

[ClikeX]

> When driving

Even if you aren't looking at the phone. You're still distracted as you're thinking about typing. As well has having your hand occupied.

Also, why would you want to be texting in a movie theater anyway?

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Fwiw, I've had decent luck blind typing with Minuum on Android. Very different solution, but it works.