The Windows Phone Keyboard Was Brilliant

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Windows Phone was one of the best operating systems that died too early, falling to the likes of iOS and Android. Indeed, the graveyard of operating systems that have come and gone has many headstones, but one part about Windows Phone that really landed was the virtual keyboard.

The iPhone keyboard has major flaws, and while there’s no shortage of Android keyboard alternatives, the Windows keyboard experience still reigns supreme — and the reason has been under our noses this entire time. Back in 2012, Microsoft published a blog explaining why its keyboard was so good, and Microsoft developer Laura Bulter followed that up with a video (below) in 2019 describing how it worked. It’s so simple, it’s absolutely brilliant.

According to Butler, the keyboard worked by predicting the next letters a person might type and then making them easier to type. It did this via what Butler called “a probability-based real-time engine for guessing.” She explained, “If you type ‘T,’ then ‘H’ in the English language, the probability of the next letter being an ‘E’, an ‘R’, an ‘A’, and ‘I’ are high, and the probability being an ‘X’ … wasn’t very high.” The keyboard would then use this info to increase the hit zones underneath the most likely upcoming letter(s), making them easier to type. The keys on the keyboard stayed the same size, mind you; it’s only the underlying logic that changed.