Just to give some feedback...

Pros:

• The symbol virtual keyboard is left intact

Cons:

• Does not coexist with the system's default virtual keyboard
• No portrait mode support (unexpected, as there was a very nice T9 UI before)
• Does not work for browser textboxes (as documented)

Suggestions:

• Don't show the desktop background
• Display in a standard dialog (like the symbol keyboard)

Offtopic: I really hope we'll be able to input Chinese characters using the hardware keyboard without breaking anything (which mscim certainly does). Is it possible to make a hildon-input-plugin like that?