Apple’s iOS 18 finally brings T9 calling to your iPhone

Apple released iOS 18 to the general public in September, a week after the company announced its new product iPhone 16 lineup, Apple Watch Series 10 And more during the “Glowtime” event. The update brought many new features to your iPhone, such as more ways to customize your iPhone home screen, lock screen And Control center. The update also brought T9 calling to your iPhone – finally.

T9 calling allows you to call someone by simply typing their name into your iPhone. That means that with iOS 18, you don’t have to search for a person’s name in your contacts to call them, or call them from Messages.

Read more: iOS 18 brings these features to your iPhone

Here’s everything you need to know about T9 calling and how to use it on your iPhone.

What is T9 calling?

T9 stands for text on nine keys. Before cell phones had a full keyboard, many phones had twelve keys. These were for the numbers zero to nine, the star and the pound sign or the hashtag. I felt old just writing that. To text someone, you usually used the nine number keys.

Each numbered key had three or four corresponding letters attached to it, with the zero key being the space bar and the one key being blank. If you go to your Phone app and tap Keyboard at the bottom of your screen, you can see the corresponding numbers and letters.

If you wanted to type “Hello” first, you had to press 44(H)-33(E)-555(L)-555(L)-666(0). That’s a lot of typing for one fairly short word.

T9 texting was introduced later and it is an early form of predictive typing. This allows you to press fewer keys and send messages faster. So for ‘Hello’ you type 4-3-5-5-6. Much easier.

How to use T9 calling on iPhone

With iOS 18, you can now use T9 calling to make calls. Here’s how.

1. Open your Call app.
2. Crane Keyboard at the bottom of your screen.

From here, start typing the name of the person you want to call, following the principles of T9. So if you want to call your dad, you type 3-2-3 into your keyboard, and for your mother you type 6-6-6 – nothing to worry about, I promise. Their name should appear at the top of the screen. As you type, a backspace button will appear below the pound sign/hashtag if you make a mistake. Press that as often as necessary. Note that there is no space button.

Once you find the right person, tap their name and their phone number will be entered automatically. Then press the green call button and you’re done.

If there is more than one person in your Contacts with a certain name, as you type you will see an option below the top result that says ‘3 more…’. Tap on that to open a new menu with all associated contacts. Tap the call button next to the appropriate contact and your call will start immediately. Be prepared to explain why you are calling the other person and not just texting.

For more information about iOS 18, here my review of iOS 18how remove your flashlight from your lock screen and our iOS 18 cheat sheet. You can also watch what iOS 18.1 could bring to your iPhone.

Check this out: 11 hidden features in iOS 18

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