Touch Screen Keyboards for Portable Electronic Devices

1 . A method, comprising:

displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in the plurality of icons corresponds to at least one symbol;

detecting an actual contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display;

determining an estimated contact that corresponds to the respective icon and at least the one symbol in accordance with the actual contact and a pre-determined offset, wherein a magnitude of the pre-determined offset corresponds to a difference between the actual contact and the estimated contact;

receiving one or more corrections for one or more errors in one or more selected symbols; and

modifying the offset for at least the respective icon in accordance with the one or more received corrections.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the received corrections include a use of a delete icon.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the displaying, the detecting, the determining, receiving and the modifying occur during normal operation of a portable electronic device containing the touch sensitive display.

4 . A computer program product for use in conjunction with a device, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and a computer program mechanism embedded therein, the computer program mechanism comprising instructions for:

displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in the plurality of icons corresponds to at least one symbol;

detecting an actual contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display;

determining an estimated contact that corresponds to the respective icon and at least the one symbol in accordance with the actual contact and a pre-determined offset, wherein a magnitude of the pre-determined offset corresponds to a difference between the actual contact and the estimated contact;

receiving one or more corrections for one or more errors in one or more selected symbols; and

modifying the offset for at least the respective icon in accordance with the one or more received corrections.

5 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

a touch-sensitive display;

one or more processors;

memory; and

a program, wherein the program is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the program including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in the plurality of icons corresponds to at least one symbol;

instructions for detecting an actual contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display;

instructions for determining an estimated contact that corresponds to the respective icon and at least the one symbol in accordance with the actual contact and a pre-determined offset, wherein a magnitude of the pre-determined offset corresponds to a difference between the actual contact and the estimated contact;

instructions for receiving one or more corrections for one or more errors in one or more selected symbols; and

instructions for modifying the offset for at least the respective icon in accordance with the one or more received corrections.

6 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

touch-sensitive display means;

one or more processor means;

memory means; and

program mechanism, wherein the program mechanism is stored in the memory means and configured to be executed by the one or more processors means, the program mechanism including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in the plurality of icons corresponds to at least one symbol;

instructions for detecting an actual contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display;

instructions for determining an estimated contact that corresponds to the respective icon and at least the one symbol in accordance with the actual contact and a pre-determined offset, wherein a magnitude of the pre-determined offset corresponds to a difference between the actual contact and the estimated contact;

instructions for receiving one or more corrections for one or more errors in one or more selected symbols; and

instructions for modifying the offset for at least the respective icon in accordance with the one or more received corrections.

7 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

a touch-sensitive display;

one or more processors;

memory; and

a program, wherein the program is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the program including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein the plurality of icons are arranged in rows in a first dimension of the touch-sensitive display, a first guard band in the first dimension between adjacent icons in a first subset of the icons is less than a pre-determined value and a second guard band in the first dimension between adjacent icons in a second subset of the icons is greater than a pre-determined value, and wherein the first subset is approximately in a central region of the two or more rows and the second subset is approximately at one or more edges of the two or more rows;

instructions for detecting a contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display that corresponds to a respective icon; and

instructions for displaying a symbol corresponding to the respective icon.

8 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

a touch-sensitive display;

one or more processors;

memory; and

a program, wherein the program is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the program including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a first icon and a second icon in the plurality of icons each correspond to two or more symbols;

instructions for detecting a contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display that corresponds to at least the first icon and the second icon;

instructions for determining a respective symbol in the two or more symbols to which the contact further corresponds in accordance with the first icon and the second icon; and

instructions for displaying a visual indicator corresponding to the respective symbol.

9 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

a touch-sensitive display;

one or more processors;

memory; and

a program, wherein the program is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the program including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in at least a subset of the plurality of icons corresponds to two or more symbols, a first symbol in the two or more symbols belongs to a first subset of symbols and a second symbol in the two or more symbols belongs to a second subset of symbols, and wherein the second symbol has a probability of occurrence immediately following the first symbol that is less than a first pre-determined value;

instructions for detecting a contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display that corresponds to a selection of the respective icon, wherein the contact includes a respective gesture; and

instructions for determining a respective symbol in the two or more symbols for the respective icon to which the contact further corresponds.

10 . A portable electronic device, comprising:

a touch-sensitive display;

one or more processors;

memory; and

a program, wherein the program is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the program including:

instructions for displaying a plurality of icons on a touch-sensitive display, wherein a respective icon in the plurality of icons corresponds to at least one symbol;

instructions for detecting a contact by a user with the touch-sensitive display;

instructions for determining positions of the contact corresponding to a sequence of icons; and

instructions for selecting at least the one symbol when a respective position of the contact corresponds to the respective icon for a time interval exceeding a pre-determined value.