Normally, one small feature of a new version of Android wouldn’t deserve a post of its own, but this has been a huge issue that many people have had with AOSP for a long time. In fact, while there are other benefits to custom ROMs, the lack of a T9 dialler in AOSP builds is the single factor, for me, that necessitates the use of CyanogenMod (or equivalent).
The only Android phones that don’t ship with a T9 predictive dialler are Google’s Nexus devices. As custom and OEM ROMs have had this ability since the dawn of time, I honestly don’t know why it’s taken Google so long to implement the feature, but I was probably a little bit too excited when I found this out. Like zooming in Gmail was for a long time, T9 prediction is disabled by default in Android 4.3, so will require you to enable it in settings, but it will be so worthwhile.
Android 4.3 is expected to be revealed in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, along with the new Nexus 7
This is very possibly the only reason I like touchwiz, it was the most noticeable feature that made me stick with TW.
So looking forward to having this feature available in stock. Toyed with the idea of using a dialer/contacts app that supported T9, but just lived without it.
Interestingly, i thought that screenshot originated from a pocketnow video… unless there are some deep crossovers occuring, never thought the interwebz could be so tangled.
why leave it off by default? who wouldn’t use this, apart from the people who don’t know the option is there?
I assume this will also suggest autocompleting numbers as well like CM does?
I guess so that Google can test it on people who know about it, to make sure it works properly before it’s deployed to everyone. But still, it’s T9 – what is there to test?