On OS X keyboard stuff

In compiling my inaugural Florida vacation post, I realized something really cool about the macbook's (OS X, really) keyboard:  when you press alt+[1-0] you receive a series of useful characters: ¡ ™ £ ¢ ∞ § ¶ • ª º

How cool is that?  I've been a mac user at home for about 6 years now, and I'm just discovering this.  I that about this OS, there's always something new and useful to discover.

Surprisingly useful also is the virtual keyboard in iOS.  I thought, when I first tried an iPhone on display that there was no way my fat fingers would ever be able to use that keyboard, but it's incredibly intelligent, that keyboard of air and light.

My favorite feature of the iOS keyboard is the auto-correction and the auto punctuation, largely adding the apostrophe so "Im" is automatically "I'm" without my having to manually add it.  It's useful more often than it's not, so I'm wondering:  When will we get this in OS X?   NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org have a word auto-complete option that is a poorer implementation of the word-replacement in iOS.  I want to be a lazy typist.  I want to get more WPM and OS X filling in the apostrophes for me (never mind hitting space twice to add the period and auto-capitalize the next letter)  will make me a faster typist.  If nothing else, making iOS style typing a keyboard option in Settings on OS X would be a very welcome addition.
I just checked and I didn't see it as an option, but if it's buried somewhere, I'd love a revelatory comment.  I'd love any comments that aren't spammers.  I'm interested in your opinion.