If you are expecting user input, a polite app will check to see if there is a hardware keyboard and if one is not present, then automatically display one so the user does not have to click the edit box first in order to pop one up. This kind of behavior is especially nice if there is only one input box being presented. While there are a few methods available out on the net in various places, I wrote my own to be compatible with Android 1.5+ and works in all cases where a keyboard is not part of the physical device as well as does nothing if a physical device has a keyboard.

The source code provided is written from the perspective of a static utility class.

    /**
     * Show soft keyboard if device does not already have a hardware one available.
     * @param aView - the View that will receive the keyboard input
     */
    public static void popKeyboard(final View aView) {
        aView.post(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                ((InputMethodManager)aView.getContext().getSystemService(
                        Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE)).showSoftInput(aView,
                        InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);
            }
        });
    }