1. A method for operating an input apparatus for an electronic device in a motor vehicle, comprising: sensing with a sensing device, a character trace from a user while the user draws the character trace in order to input at least one character on an input surface of the sensing device, the sensing device outputting a sensed character trace; performing at a first handwriting recognition device, character recognition for the sensed character trace to thereby produce first recognition results; performing at a second handwriting recognition device, character recognition to recognize alphanumeric characters in the sensed character trace and produce second recognition results, each second recognition result being used for telephone number recognition, the second recognition results being different from the first recognition results; using a search device to search at least one database for at least one database entry for each of the first and second recognition results; and displaying with a display device, database entries that were retrieved by the search device, the display device displaying a new telephone number entry which is expanded with each new recognition result from the second handwriting recognition device, wherein the second handwriting recognition device is first configured in a first configuration to preferentially recognize a digit over a letter when the sensed character trace is ambiguous, the second handwriting recognition device is reconfigured when the second handwriting recognition device unambiguously recognizes a letter, the second handwriting recognition device being reconfigured to activate a second configuration which preferentially recognizes a letter over a digit in the sensed character trace when the sensed character trace is ambiguous.