> The wourld used to be full of sliding phones with dedicated keyboards, but for some reason every manufacturer is content making the same glass rectangle. "[S

> The wourld used to be full of sliding phones with dedicated keyboards, but for some reason every manufacturer is content making the same glass rectangle. "[S]ome reason" is actually a lot of reasons, all of which are pretty easy to understand. In no particular order: - Physical keyboards of any kind, stowable or not, add ~100 new mechanical points of failure which make the device harder to "life-proof" and more vulnerable to damage from debris, liquid, or physical impact. - Sliding, folding, etc. mechanisms add even more points of failure. - Keyboards and their stowing mechanisms if applicable take up space which could otherwise be used for screen or battery, or just removed to make the device slimmer which is a constant. - A keyboard attached to a "widescreen" phone is going to be on the wrong side some of the time. A Blackberry-style fixed orientation works better but people don't want that. For most users the worse typing experience just isn't enough of a problem to be worth the downsides. At least the Android world had plenty of options with keyboards in the beginning, but they just didn't sell as well as the all-glass bricks. If you really type a lot on your phone you could just grab a Bluetooth portable keyboard and velcro it to the back of the phone. I think someone made a case with a BT keyboard built in for iPhones at one point but I've never seen one in the wild. I personally used to have one of those tri-fold "pocket keyboard" units that physically plugged in to the dock port on my Palmpilot, now that Apple's finally on the USB-C train it'd be possible to make one of those universal to all modern phones. Maybe that idea needs a comeback. I wonder if the modern "low profile" mechanical keyswitches would be workable in something like that.