If you?re one of the many who can't stand the Pre's physical QWERTY keyboard ? ahem, Noah ? this news might interest you. A third-party developer is attempting to fill in the gap with an onscreen keyboard.
Actually, the smartphone does have virtual keys, albeit only for a few special characters. But the limited keyboard can flip orientation and make itself available across applications. That capability gave the brainiacs at WebOS Internals an idea: Why not tap into this, and build on it to flesh out the available inputs? So they got to work, adding letters and numbers to the display.
[Insert video montage of these third-party developers working endless, time-lapsed hours, set to a hard-driving 80s hair band soundtrack] The result is... well, maybe not jaw-dropping, but definitely a nice start. 
The goal was to deliver a patch that offers the standard QWERTY keyboard in both landscape and portrait modes, without having to slide open the phone. For the most part, it seems they?re getting that right. It works most of the time in both orientations, but this pre-alpha patch isn't quite ready for broad consumer yet. It's still pretty buggy and not quite stable, so you may not want to rush to download this puppy to your phone. But if you?re the adventurous type, use it at your own risk.
[via PhoneArena, MobileCrunch, Brighthand]
