Can you confirm that all text typed is sent to Google servers?
quite like the way it works, but it also reminds me of 'shapewriter' where
you can draw a connecting line between characters to create words...
available for all sorts of platforms I believe and I wish it was available as
the default keyboard on my iPT.
I mentioned a couple of reasons why I like the myTouch 3G predictive keyboard compared to the iPhone keyboard and contacted T-Mobile to try to find out a bit more about what is behind the technology. I met with T-Mobile representatives a couple of weeks ago and mentioned what I heard from them on MOTR podcast 179, but received a few more details that add a lot to the story and I think you will be quite impressed with what is going on here.
The predictive text technology used on the Google Android devices is Google technology. The prediction you see in the video below (coming soon) is the device sending each character entered up to Google’s servers and calculating the likeliest possible words you would be typing based on key mapping. I understand the algorithm also searches the onboard dictionary so you can get predictive text offline as well as online. This is much like what you see when you start entering words in the Google search box, applied to the mobile environment. The likeliest word appears in bold with the actual word you type always being in the left most box. As you move right you will see the less likely words appearing. If any words you see after enter letters is the one you intended then you can simply tap it and have it entered. Sometimes this happens after just two or three characters so you can save a considerable amount of time when entering lots of text.
There is also the ability to enter words manually into a custom on-device dictionary. I have added words like “palmsolo” to it and now as I enter text this appears just like other words as I enter text. So with the myTouch 3G you get the power of Google’s predictive technology along with the ability for customized dictionary entries.
Much like the iPhone took a bit of practice to get used to for maximum efficiency, the Google Android method takes a bit of practice too. So far I am finding it to be very accurate and enjoyable on the myTouch 3G.
