Patent ID: 7289044

Claim:
A method of providing an input into a handheld electronic device, the handheld electronic device including an input apparatus, an output apparatus, and a memory having a plurality of objects stored therein, the plurality of objects including a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, at least a portion of the language objects of the plurality of language objects being associated with an associated frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects, the input apparatus including a plurality of input members, each of at least a portion of the input members of the plurality of input members having a plurality of characters assigned thereto, the method comprising: providing a disambiguation function which, responsive to an ambiguous input of a number of input member actuations of a number of the input members of the plurality of input members, at least a portion of the number of the input members of the ambiguous input including a plurality of characters assigned thereto, is operable to: generate a number of prefix objects corresponding with the ambiguous input, each prefix object of the number of prefix objects including a number of the characters of the number of the input members of the ambiguous input; generate a result by, for each prefix object of at least a portion of the number of prefix objects, identifying a language object that corresponds with the prefix object, obtaining an associated frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects that corresponds with the identified language object, and outputting an output of at least a portion of the prefix objects of the result to provide a number of proposed disambiguated outputs that substantially each have a correspondence with the ambiguous input, substantially each proposed disambiguated output of the number of proposed disambiguated outputs having a quantity of characters that is substantially equal to the quantity of the input member actuations of the number of input member actuations of the ambiguous input; detecting the existence of a predetermined condition; responsive to said detecting the existence of a predetermined condition, disabling at least temporarily the disambiguation function; responsive to said disabling at least temporarily the disambiguation function, providing an alternate input interpretation function; detecting another input of another number of input member actuations of the input members of the plurality of input members, at least a portion of the number of the input members of the another input including a plurality of characters assigned thereto; and interpreting with the alternate input interpretation function the another input according to a predefined format related to the predetermined condition.