iTap is a predictive text

Predictive text

Predictive text is an input technology used where one key or button represents many letters, such as on mobile phones and in accessibility technologies. Each key press results in a prediction rather than repeatedly sequencing through the same group of "letters" it represents, in the same,...

 technology for mobile phones, developed by Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 as a competitor to T9

T9 (predictive text)

T9, which stands for Text on 9 keys, is a patented predictive text technology for mobile phones, originally developed by Tegic Communications, now part of Nuance Communications....

. It was designed as a replacement for the old letter mappings on phones to help with word entry. This makes some of the modern mobile phones features like text messaging

Text messaging

Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...

 and note-taking easier.

When entering three or more characters in a row, iTap guesses the rest of the word. For example, entering "prog" will suggest "program". If a different word is desired, such as "progress" or words formed with different letters but requiring the same keypresses like "prohibited" or "spoil", an arrow key can be pressed to highlight other words in a menu for selection, in order of descending commonality of their use.

Enter words

1. Press keypad keys (one press per letter) to begin entering a word. As the user types, the 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.

Comparison with T9

Similar to XT9

T9

The term T9 may refer to:* T9 , a predictive text input technology for mobile phones* LSWR T9 class, a British locomotive class* Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T9, a digital cameraand also:* Tech N9ne, a hip hop artist from Kansas City...

, (the most recent 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

User interface

The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...

(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.