The physical keyboard's days are numbered.

[Dmac77]

When that day comes I will purchase a typewriter after my last keyboard goes kaput.

+1

The idea of no more physical keyboards actually makes me feel sick. If cheap and retarded gimmicks are "the future" then I don't want to go to the future. Touch screens are good for mobile devices like phones, where you aren't going to type pages upon pages; but they are not appropriate for someone's main computing device. You can't type by feel. If apple wants to make the screens on the MBPs touch sensitive, go ahead, but leave the physical keyboard alone. Apple would really piss a lot of users off if they did this.

Don

 

[jpyc7]

I type faster than I talk. What's more efficient again ?

Even more efficient would be a phonetic keyboard, instead of alphabetic. Of course, the computer has to be smart enough to convert to correct spelling.

The ideogramatic (sp?) languages like Chinese have this, but put too much effort on the reader to know/read all the characters. I'm sure it's fine if you're a native reader, but for foreigners it is a lot of effort to learn all the characters even though they can probably remember the phonetic sounds. Speaking/hearing is much easier than reading/writing. It's true in alphabetic languages too, but the closer correlation between the alphabet and phonetics makes reading/writing easier.

 

[DontMacTheGyver]

I type faster than I talk. What's more efficient again ?

+1

I don't see a crucial change in nowadays keyboards soon...
I mean... iPad is a nice toy, but if you really type or work with apps (->shortcuts)
Maybe we just skip that virtual keyboard and switch directly to a thought-controlled interface The possibility already exists (researches for disabled oersons) but it's going into a dangerous direction (reading thoughts) so the inventions are not yet published.

 

[Tomorrow]

Even more efficient would be a phonetic keyboard, instead of alphabetic

That's only more efficient if people are typing words and sentences exclusively.

Keyboard shortcuts, abbreviations, etc. still pretty much require discrete letters and numbers.

 

[miles01110]

Keyboard shortcuts, abbreviations, etc. still pretty much require discrete letters and numbers.

And programming! Phonetic programming would be... interesting.

 

[maflynn]

Ok Talest Skill

Who???

You'll still have a keyboard and a mouse. The keyboard will just be different. You probably won't have a choice, either- based on your recent disillusionment with Apple, you should understand that. It's happened on every keyboard revision in recent memory.

Maybe, but paradigm shifts occur when the new way is better at doing something then the old way. For keyboards, a physical keyboard is still superior to entering data then using a touchscreen.

the physical keyboard provides too many benefits over some sort of touchscreen interface.

As for my disillusionment with apple, that's more directed to the company's direction. I still like my MBP, in fact I just bought ( month or so ago) a mini for my kids and a 24" ACD for me. Not to hijack this thread but apple's rumored move to approve OSX applications in 10.6, their fight with flash, closing off the iPhone's sdk, etc all point to a company that is trying to control more and more. Over all, OSX is still way ahead of any other OS out there and I prefer that over windows.

 

[0098386]

The moment this happens is the moment I stop buying Apple computers. A multitouch trackpad is brilliant, I could never go back to a regular one because it's an improvement over older tech.
Touchscreen keyboards aren't. They're a compromise, not an improvement.