I predict keyborded phones will become an extinct species within around 5 years.

4 years ago I predicted the death of PDAs (as we knew them then), I was right: what do we have nowadays? true PDAs like my trusty Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 don’t exist anymore. And its siblings like the Toshiba e8xx or the HP hx4700 don’t exist anymore.

Nowadays we have only smartphones with tiny screens, a bastard WinOS that has evolved into a pure smartphone OS plus touch screen: (hint: one handed operation, those two warts that correspond to those cellphones hardware keys and 99% of todays WinMo apps don’t support the standard menu/icon bar à la WM03)

Hardware and software-wise they are smartphones and not PDAs: small screens, cellphone size, even cellphone memory cards like those sh!tty microSD substandard/sub-everything cards, etc.

Anyways, in around 5 years, keyboarded phones will be as rare as today’s that have a monochrome screen!!

iPhone aside, I still don’t want/need a phone with a touchscreen. I do too much one handed texting (thumb keyboard below the screen) for it to be a practical solution for me whether it is from Nokia, HTC, Apple or whoever.

I tend to find phones like the Dash to be a better fit for me.

Well, Nokia did have at least one touchscreen phone, the 7710 – I got it at a Nokia event and used it for a month or two. The Symbian S80 or something on that device was quite buggy, but the screen was great!

Yep, Apple’s entrance in the phone arena puts major pressure on Nokia. Apple has no phone experience, but they have plenty of computer experience, while the opposite is true for Nokia. Sounds like an edge for Nokia, except that phones are growing more and more like computers every day. Every innovation pushes the field further into Apple’s area of expertise. That’s not good for Nokia, but I’m sure they’ll step up to meet the challenge. How they step up is the big question.