What You Should Know About T9 Dialing on Your iPhone Before iOS 26
Apple announced on June 9 at its global conference for developers that the next version of the iPhone operating system is called iOS 26. The technology giant said that the update would provide a transparent glass design to icons and menus and much more to your iPhone this fall. But when Apple released iOS 18 in 2024, the technology giant brought T9 numbering to all iPhones.
With T9 numbering, you can call someone just by typing your name in the telephone application of your iPhone. This means that with iOS 18, you don’t have to look for a person’s name in your contacts or use messages to call them.
Find out more: Everything that Apple announced on wwdc
Here is everything you need to know about the T9 numbering and how to use it on your iPhone.
What exactly is T9 numbering?
T9 represents the text on nine keys. Before mobile phones had comprehensive keyboards, many phones had 12 keys. It was for zero to nine, stars and book sign or hashtag. I felt old writing that. And to send an SMS to someone, you mainly used the numbered nine keys. Each numbered key had three or four corresponding letters attached to it, the zero key being the space bar and the only empty key.
If you access your telephone application and press the keyboard at the bottom of your screen, you can see the corresponding numbers and letters. At the beginning, if you wanted to type “hello”, you had to press 44 (h) -33 (e) -555 (l) -555 (l) -666 (0). It’s a lot of typing for a fairly short word. T9 texts have been introduced as an early form of predictive typing. It allows you to press less keys and send messages faster. So, for “Hello”, you type 4-3-5-6-6. Much easier.
How to use T9 dialing on iPhone
With iOS 18, you can now use the T9 numbering to make calls. Here’s how.
1 and 1 Open your call application on your iPhone.
2 Faucet Keyboard At the bottom of the screen.
From here, start to type the name of the person you want to call using the principles of T9. So, if you want to call dad, you would type 3-2-3 in your keyboard, and for mom, you would type 6-6-6, but nothing to do to be panicked. Their name must appear at the top of the screen. As you type, a rear button will appear under the book / hashtag sign if you make a mistake. Press this as many times as necessary. Note that there is no space button. Once you have found the person, press their name and phone number will be automatically entered. Then press the green call button and you are ready.
This is not its real number.
If there is more than one person in your contact application by a first name, because you type, you will see an option under the higher result which says something like “3 more …” Press this to open a new menu with all the corresponding contacts. Then press the call button next to the right contact and your call will start immediately. Be ready to explain why you call the other person and not only by sending them SMS.
To find out more about iOS 18, here is what you need to know about iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4, as well as our iOS 18 cheat sheet. You can also consult what you need to know about iOS 26.
Look at this: The small but powerful characteristics of iOS 26
