With iOS 18, iPhone’s dialer will lastly get essentially the most fundamental smartphone function

Apple’s WWDC bulletins about iOS 18 primarily revolved round Apple Intelligence and the corporate’s implementation of AI in its core merchandise. The function that received me essentially the most excited was that iOS 18 is lastly bringing T9 dialing to iPhones. Is that this an indication that I’m getting previous? Possibly. However am I nonetheless thrilled about it? Completely.

What’s T9 dialing?

T9, brief for “Textual content on 9 keys,” is a predictive textual content expertise that revolutionized typing within the pre-smartphone period. With T9, customers may kind in English phrases utilizing a numeric keypad by urgent a single key for every letter (as a substitute of getting to multi-tap numbers to register letters), and the software program would intelligently predict the phrase.

Because the early days of Android, T9 dialing has been a staple function on its dialer apps. Customers can begin typing the identify of a contact utilizing the quantity pad, and the cellphone will instantly counsel matching contacts.

For instance, to dial a contact named John in my cellphone, all I’ve to kind is ‘5646’, and the dialer app will record all contacts with the phrase John in them. This makes dialing a contact a swift and seamless course of, usually achievable inside simply a few seconds.

As seen from the video shared by journalist Varun Mirchandani (@beingmirchi on X/Twitter), Apple is lastly embracing the ability of T9 dialing in iOS 18. Now, it’s best to be capable to begin typing the letters similar to a desired contact’s identify, and the app will begin suggesting contacts primarily based on the important thing inputs.

Till now, iPhone customers had been conspicuously disadvantaged of this handy function. The iPhone dialer remained stubbornly conventional, requiring customers to both manually enter a cellphone quantity or navigate to the contacts web page to seek for a contact after which provoke a name. To me, this strategy felt cumbersome and outdated even ten years in the past, and it looks like many individuals share this opinion.

For what it’s price, iOS does provide various strategies for fast dialing. One such technique is utilizing Highlight Search. Customers can swipe down on the Lock Display or Dwelling Display to entry the Highlight search bar, kind the primary few letters of a contact’s identify, and faucet the cellphone icon to name them instantly.

Whereas some would say that Apple’s omission of T9 dialing was justified, arguing that customers who began with QWERTY keypads won’t discover it helpful, the addition continues to be a optimistic change. iOS 18 beta is already out there to obtain, and the broader public rollout is anticipated later this 12 months.