Age and Technology

With predictive text do you mean T9?

Yep.

How can something that puts up constantly changing (and wrong) words, be simpler than the user typing in the correct thing in the first place?

Thank you Robbie, we don't use that term over here I believe at least never heard it.

Do you look at the suggestions during typing?
You should pay no attention to that at first and fully press the buttons that are needed for the word and then look at the suggestions.
This was my problem with using it for the first time.

This is the problem. People worrying about what words are showing before they've finished entering all the letters. If they just used it as intended and waited until they'd entered the whole word, then there wouldn't be a problem

Take the word "Hello". In standard texting this requires the following keystrokes:

4,4,3,3,5,5,5,wait,5,5,5,6,6,6

In predictive it requires:

4,3,5,5,6

Tell me which of the above is simpler.

Spot on.

Not on an iPhone or any other phone with some sort of QWERTY keyboard.

Hence my use of the term standard texting, which I believe is what this part of the discussion is about, the comparison of standard and predictive texting.

A QWERTY keyboard renders the matter irrelevant, but as we're talking about Age and Technology I would imagine that many people who find predictive text daunting would be even more intimidated by a QWERTY toting smartphone.

Quite, John.

I had a mobile before the T9 protocol was established (lets remember that SMS was a by-product of the GSM standard and T9 was some time behind that) and had to spell messages for myself. Since then I've made a point of turning off the predictor on every handset I've had.

Now I have a BlackBerry with a QWERTY keypad which will correct typos as I go, but won't try and second guess what I'm trying to say.

The real concern with T9 is that it removes the need for the youngsters to have to know how to spell correctly - a close approximation will do for the T9 to offer the right result. Children write less and less, so every chance they get they should be spelling in full, by themselves, IMO.

I think the bigger concern is that so many kids own a mobile phone.

Or the fact that people think mobile phones, not mediocre parenting or an education system which stops teachers from teaching, are the reason that kids turn out the way they do...

T9, at least the original T9 systems, wouldn't second guess what you were trying to say. They would offer the most common word for the keystrokes you had made. They have developed slightly however, to allow you to shortcut to the word by scrolling down a list.

Second guessing (i.e. you've typed in gss but I think you meant gas) has come about with the "intelligent" interfaces of phones like the iPhone and Android devices (and more than likely earlier devices too, but I'm just going on what I've owned), and is not T9.

Correcting spelling mistakes as you go (as you mentioned on your Blackberry) I think makes us all just as lazy as the "second guessing" you talk about.

In fact, the more I think about it, the T9 system won't give you the word you require unless you've entered the right letters, therefore surely it promotes spelling, at least more than a Blackberry with auto-correct does.

Sadly that isn't my experience.
Most phones only show a number of suggestions and when you do make a typo a lot off other possibilities besides the word you want might be possible or are a closer approximation to the word you want.

Robbie already explained it better.

Isn't it just so. We start off with 'age' and technology and slip quickly into 'youth' and technology.

I have not a clue what you posters are on about.

Is T9 an offspring of K9? Is this an up and coming robot? Which tele programme is this on, please? Can I grow a blackberry bush with auto correct? Does this make it bug resistant?

I kinda get the feeling that there are only the Doc and myself past the sell by date.

regards thoramay

T9 is brilliant. It's like learning to ride a bike. You got to trust it. I'm writing in T9 now, and its as easy as typing. And it makes you type the correct spelling or it doesn't recognise the word. Get it wrong, and you have to back up and start again. This is why text-speak is dying out.

Perhaps people with bad experiences of T9 just can't spell very well!