Mobile users at a loss of words over predictive text

When Kashkar Ali bought a new mobile telephone, he imagined it would end the woes with his previous phone and the lack of technology which came with it. But instead his troubles grew even bigger - and he was furious when he realised that the reason for them was technology itself.

Kashkar's delight was short lived as he switched on the new phone and went straight into the messages feature. He tried to write a short message but could not type the required words. He kept trying and in the end he decided that it was sophisticated but also perplexing.

"I tried to type the word come and it gave me can. I typed hello and I got hide. When I wanted to type today, all I got was tone," the Pakistani taxi driver said.

"I went back to the shop to return the handset but they explained to me that this is a new technique for easy and quick messaging. I could not understand anything and told them I want the old technique if they still have it."

Mobile phone dealers said they believed more than 80 per cent of GSM users in the UAE do not know about the T-9, known as the predictive text, in messaging. Some phones simply replace this word with a feature called 'dictionary' but many users still have no idea what to do with the dictionary.

Predictive text was introduced to mobile phones just three years ago to simplify message writing and save time for those who use messaging quite often.

The technique has been integrated into most new mobile phone handsets and it was prompted by a surge in messages around the world. Industry sources estimate 30 billion short text messages were sent over mobile phones last year.

T-9 allows messagers to type a word or a sentence by simply pressing the button once and moving to the other buttons for the required letters.

As they start typing a word, mobile phone users will notice that the spelling is completely different but when they finish, they will see the required word taking shape on the screen before their eyes.

The name of the new technique is indicative of its meaning as T-9 predicts the word which users want to type. In case the word is not found in the phone's memory, messagers can store it in for future use.

"To be honest, I only learned about this technique a few months ago but I still can not use it properly. I think I need training although I sometimes try to teach customers about it," said Mohammed Al Gaddah, a dealer at the Abu Dhabi-based Al Asalah mobile phone shop.

"I believe that out of every five or six customers, only one knows about this sophisticated feature. Some want to learn it but others simply do not bother. They just want to stick to the old technique." Messaging via mobile phones has become a popular practice in the UAE and a large number of subscribers use it.

Dubbed SMS (short messaging service), the feature itself has been revolutionised by mobile phone makers, with some of them introducing picture and sound messaging to develop into what is called Multi-Media Messaging.

Some handset makers, including such giants as Nokia and Siemens, have also expanded the range of the message context to much more than the standard 160 letter message. Some of them are now as much as 1,600 characters.

"I have bought a new mobile phone and noticed there is a dictionary feature in it. I thought it was a normal dictionary but I was told it is for messaging as you can store unknown words in it," Ayman Ayash said.

"When I tried the new feature a few times, I became an addict. Messaging is now a breeze as you do not bother about typing each letter you want while it also helps you in spelling the word correctly."

Dealers said besides the sophisticated message feature, the latest mobile phones contain highly advanced facilities including GPRS, UMTS, E-mail, Internet and MMS.

But they said mobile phone users in the UAE and other Arab states utilise only around 10 per cent of the phone's sophisticated features and capabilities as most of them either cannot use such features, are unaware of their presence or simply do not need them.

The UAE has one of the world's highest mobile telephone ratios to the population in the world with the number of mobile users peaking at around 2.6 million last month, according to Etisalat statistics. This means nearly 70 mobile lines for every 100 people.