Look, I don't mean to go all John Gruber here, but a good portion of iPhone users wouldn't want anything changed...until it's actually changed at which point it

Look, I don't mean to go all John Gruber here, but a good portion of iPhone users wouldn't want anything changed...until it's actually changed at which point it's the most obvious, most important thing in the world. If Apple came out with a slider version of the iPhone tomorrow, I suspect there would be a rapid, but remarkably quiet, appreciation of hardware keyboards among many iPhone faithful. Mileage will definitely vary. I know people who absolutely love their onscreen keyboard. They do tend to be people who actually type very little though, so it's perfect for them. It's interesting that you mentioned onscreen keyboards giving you a increase in screen space -- yeah, when you don't need to type anything. When you do, suddenly 80% of your screen is all keyboard.