So, after giving my phone's QWERTY keyboard (when oriented vertically) a chance for a few months, I decided to switch it back to T9 layout. Yeah, I'm stubborn like that, but I'm REALLY glad that my phone offers the T9 layout (iPhones don't offer that key layout readily). Aside from the touch buttons being a better size for my fat thumbs, I was one of those people that lived through the pre-iPhone text communication era using T9. Despite that most people I knew also used T9, I also knew people that didn't understand it. It's these people that make me think that's why T9 didn't have time to shine before mini QWERTY keyboards became the popular standard.
But, my question is...WHY did it become so popular? Here's what I don't get...I looked around the internet for a bit to find out why people prefer QWERTY over T9, and I found that a lot of people felt that QWERTY was more intuitive to use because it's like how a full-size keyboard is set up. Not to sound like a touch-typing elitist, but seriously....how do you equate typing with your two thumbs with typing with all ten fingers? I feel that this issue goes beyond a matter of preference....we live in the year 2013, where most modern households have at least one full-sized computer. We've used keyboards for work, play, and most importantly for this case, communication. Furthermore, even when I was going to high school in the 90's, taking a typing class was almost unavoidable...it's probably much more unavoidable these days. I don't see how people can possibly think that they can type faster with their two thumbs if they've learned how to type using home row.
How about convenience? With T9, I can type on the phone with one hand, and have been for years. Typing a message with one hand allowed me to do something else with the other hand. To be of a competent speed with QWERTY on your phone, you need to use two hands. That certainly doesn't work well when you need to send a message while holding the pole or an umbrella on a subway train. Even if you could type with one hand, having all those buttons, especially on a touch screen, makes it difficult to type accurately with one fat thumb, provided that your thumb can reach all of the buttons without cramping in the first place.
In the defense of non-T9 users, perhaps it was a matter of confusion. Before T9 was ABC...remember that? It used the same 12-key phone layout, but to pick a letter, you would have to repeatedly press the designated number to cycle through the letters until you got the letter you wanted (i.e. to get 'O', you would have to press the 6 key three times). Admittedly, when I transitioned from ABC to T9, I was confused myself; before I realized T9 was predictive, I had no idea how to control it. But, with a little patience and a little research, I got the hang of it really easily; however, not everyone is so patient with technology. That's probably why T9 didn't take off.
While you can't type the same on a full-size keyboard as you would on a phone keyboard, QWERTY is more identifiable with typing than a number keypad. To be completely honest, the QWERTY keypad (especially those on Android phones) does have its advantages, especially when you consider finding punctuation marks (just hold the letter key marked with the desired punctuation mark for around a second to select the mark). When you hold the phone horizontally, using the QWERTY keyboard is perfectly fine, but since you hold the phone vertically more often than not, I choose T9 over QWERTY.
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