Only recently have Google's and Apple's TTS come close to matching it. Occasionally I still miss T9 like when in a movie theater where I can't speak to type and don't want to look at my screen.
I like being able to type while walking and without looking, and by far the best phone keyboard for that is 8pen [0]. A masterclass in innovative UX imo, and clearly a ton of work went into it. Unfortunately, they pulled it from the play store (and deleted all the tweets on their twitter) some years ago for reasons unknown to me.
Related is MessageEase [1], which is not as good but still passable. But it's incredibly ugly and takes up a ton of space on my screen, so I don't like to use it.
[0]: http://www.8pen.com/
Even if you aren't looking at the phone. You're still distracted as you're thinking about typing. As well has having your hand occupied.
Also, why would you want to be texting in a movie theater anyway?