I never thought I’d see the day… I’ve been keeping my eye on DialKeys for a while and thought it was going to turn into vaporware, but finally there is a sequel to the on screen keyboard that shipped exclusively with certain UMPCs. DialKeys has released a beta version of its second on screen keyboard that it is appropriately calling “Gen 2″. Luckily this new version should work on any UMPC and isn’t locked to those that the original came pre-installed on. The beta is a free download (62MB) which will function until March 14th and can be downloaded from DialKeys.com.

The new software supports many different keyboard skins including a Tablet PC focused side screen keyboard to make it easy to gather survey answers. Another interesting one is the Hexapad skin which is designed for portrait oriented UMPCs or Tablet PCs. Check out the screenshots from jkkmobile then head over to the site and give it a try for yourself. Personally I still think on screen keyboards won’t be practical until we have capacitive/multi-touch on our devices.