Confession time – I love my Apple products. The smooth integration of data across devices, and the consistency of the user interface offsets the small number of negatives for me, such as the fixed memory size, yet I still miss my BlackBerry’s hard keyboard.  Even today, with all the capabilities available, I tend to use my phone for messaging and transactions, while my tablet is for content creation and consumption.

The success of BlackBerry in the early 2000s demonstrated the appeal of a mobile phone with a hard keyboard. At that time, BlackBerry dominated the business and professional markets, not to mention the U.S. Congress, partly because its physical keyboard provided users with unparalleled accuracy, along with its encrypted messaging via dedicated servers. 

There was a time when I used two BlackBerrys, one on each hip, a personal unit and a client phone sitting in their hard shell holsters, and I truly miss the feel of the keys rocking under my thumbs, so I wonder whether it’s time to bring a physical keyboard back? 

Like many iPhone users, I have not really been impressed with yearly upgrades in the cameras, or a slightly faster CPU, although I do welcome the USB type C connector. I have seen the new ‘Clicks’ protection cases with integrated hard keyboard, selling for around $150, and I have yet to meet anyone who is using them. I feel the Clicks design, while a novel concept, makes the phone too long and unbalanced.

With BlackBerry long gone from the smartphone market, and I don’t count the current Indian knock offs as they only support 3G, Apple has an opportunity to fill this void by introducing an iPhone with a hard keyboard in 2025.

Such a move would not only appeal to former BlackBerry users, who value the productivity benefits of a physical keyboard, but also to professionals, older users, and those with accessibility needs. Apple’s design expertise could transform the concept while enhancing its functionality. By tapping into this market, Apple could differentiate itself from its competitors and offer a product that caters to an underserved client base.

I, for one, will be putting my hand into my pocket for a future hard keyboard iPhone!