iTap

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iTap is a predictive text technology for mobile phones, developed by Motorola as a competitor to T9. It was designed as a replacement for the old letter mappings on phones to help in word entry on mobile phones. This allows an easier use of messaging and note-taking features. When one enters three or more characters in a row, one's phone may guess the rest of the word. For example, if one enters prog, one might see: program. If one desires a different word formed with the same combination of keys(such as "progress" or words formed with different letters but requiring the same keypresses, such as "prohibited" or "spoil"), you can press the arrow key to the right-hand side to select from different words formed with the same combination of keys, in order of descending commonality of their use.

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[edit] Enter words

  1. Press keypad keys (one press per letter) to begin entering a word. As one types, one's phone automatically shows additional letters that form a suggested combination.
  2. Scroll right to view other possible combinations, and highlight the combination one wants.
  3. Press direction key "up" to enter the highlighted combination when it spells a word. A space is automatically inserted after the word.

If the phone does not recognize a word it then stores the word as an optional choice. When the memory space is filled the phone deletes the oldest word to make space for the new word.

[edit] Comparison with T9

Similar to XT9, (the newest version of T9,) iTap is also able to complete words and phrases. iTap will guess the best match based upon a built in dictionary, including words sharing the typed prefix. This dictionary also contains phrases and commonly used sentences. This way the predictive guesses iTap offers are enhanced based upon context of the word that is being typed.

iTap typically uses a different user interface (UI) than T9 does. However, T9 provides an API that can be used to create a similar UI if phone manufacturers decide to do so. iTap provides suggestions for word completions after only one key press in all cases. However, T9 completes custom words after one key press and on most phones other words that users have entered previously can be retrieved after three key presses. T9 enables these UI decisions to be largely up to the phone manufacturer and so far none of them have chosen to mimic the UI of iTap with T9.

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