- published: 04 Nov 2014
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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, invariable order. Predictive text could allow for an entire word to be input by single keypress. Predictive text makes efficient use of fewer device keys to input writing into a text message, an e-mail, an address book, a calendar, and the like.
This article is about word completion on limited keyboards, such as mobile phone keyboards. For a similar article for general keyboards, see the article Autocomplete.
The most widely used, general, predictive text systems are T9, iTap, and LetterWise/WordWise. There are many unique ways to build a device that predicts text, but all predictive text systems have initial, linguistic settings that offer predictions that are re-prioritized to adapt to each user. This learning adapts, by way of the device memory, to a user's disambiguating feedback that results in corrective key presses, such as pressing a "next" key to get to the intention. Most predictive text systems have a user database to facilitate this process.