Those of you that saw my first Nexus One questions and requests video know that the old HTC Sense keyboard – designed for displays at 320 x 480 – didn’t work correctly on the N1. It was pixelated and jagged looking in portrait mode and didn’t fill the whole screen in landscape. Today, just before hearing that the Desire ROM with Sense is running on N1s and likely about to blow up, Carlos gave me a link to a hi-rez version of the HTC IME. I link to that with a warning: Using hacked software is risky. It is possible for a kb replacement app to collect your keystrokes and send them back to the coder. It’s also possible that the keyboard will be perfectly safe and purr like a kitten. Anything you do, you do at your own risk. I just thought you might want to know it’s out there.

As you’ll find in the post, three files need to be transferred to your phone: HTC_IME.apk and Clicker.apk should go wherever you put apps for installation. For me, it’s SD Card/Apps. Keep in mind that you have to enable the installation of apps from unknown sources: Settings > Applications > Unknown sources. A hidden file called .htcime needs to go in the root of your SD Card. I think that one’s just for selecting different languages – it does not need to be modified for English use. Just fire up your package manager, install, and select the kb in Settings > Language & Keyboard. Then long-press a text field and select Touch input. Notice the mic button? I’ve found my new kb!

UPDATE: Using the voice input is resulting in network connection errors for myself and many others. Anyone have it working correctly?