Palm Pre's 'secret' keyboard revealed

Palm Pre gets an on-screen keyboard
Palm Pre gets an on-screen keyboard

Users of the Palm Pre will be happy to learn that they no longer have to slide out the keyboard to type stuff in - there's a secret virtual keyboard.

The team at webOS Internals has modified a pop up menu (accessed when pressing the 'sym' key) to now include letters and symbols and an animation of a puppy playing with a leaf... OK, one of those was possibly made up.)

However, this isn't a complete re-skin, more unlocking the secrets of the Pre. The team says: "The Palm Pre already COMES with an on-screen keyboard. It works in portrait and landscape, in all apps, in all fields. This on screen keyboard provides a path to produce a fully functional on screen keyboard for the Pre."

Earlier than A

This is a pre-alpha build though, so it could contain more bugs than an ant farm after mating season, but hey, we wouldn't get all the fun stuff if we didn't have those prepared to break their prized possessions all for the sake of being able to write things via a screen.

It also seems like the team is looking at integrating some predictive text-style auto correction in future builds, much like that seen on the HTC and Apple iPhone range.

Check out the site yourself if you fancy a crack at modding your Pre, but if you don't have one in the UK, it seems like you won't have that long to wait thankfully.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.