Gather round, children, and let Grandpa Beasley tell you a story about the olden days. Long before these newfangled iPhones and Androids existed, most people didn’t have full keyboards on their cell phones, unless they were using a BlackBerry (but that’s a story for another time). In order to type out our text messages, we had to use “T9” keyboards that required you to press the numbers on the dialpad a few times to select each letter individually.
And now, youngin’s, you, too, can experience all of the fun and frustration of ye olde keyboards right on your iPhone. All you have to do is log into the App Store and download one of those fancy “app” things you’re all so keen on. It’s called Type Nine, and it puts a good ol’ fashioned T9 keyboard right on your screen so you can learn to type the way your forefathers did.
Of course, since you kids seem to love your “predictive text” so much, the Type Nine keyboard includes that function, too, meaning you won’t have to wear your fingers out tapping the same key over and over to get the right letter. All of the punctuation marks get their own special page as well, rather than requiring you to mash the 1 key until you accidentally pass the one you’re after and have to go all the way around again.
If you youngsters really want to see what typing on a phone was like back in my day, you’ll need to track down a Moto RAZR. If that’s not an option, you can take the Type Nine keyboard for a try on your iPhone running iOS 8. It’s available on the App Store for $.99. Now scram. Grandpa Beasley needs a nap.
