Yes, a big part of the problem is that so so many words need editing.

I updated to ios17 excited about the new transformer model, and it still predicts absolute BS words I’ve never used in my life.

I definitely remember typing working better on my iPhone 5 which was 20% smaller so I don’t know what’s gone wrong, but it’s gone really wrong and the fixes also suck.

I agree although I have never used a Blackberry. I have used a dozen of smart phone models in the early 2000s, either with physical keyboards or resistive touch. And then the iphone came and everybody moved to capacitive touch. It might have some advantages, but precise working is not one of them. I still hate it 15 years later what shitty products we have to use despite of all engineering efforts buried in them.

Remember T9? I haven't much experience with it—I'm young. But it was a much more pleasant experience than the current experience with touch screen. Swiping works, but I feel it requires too much cognitive energy. As soon as a conversation is taking longer than this paragraph, I tend to call the person instead.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)

This. Ever since I lost the physical keyboard of the blackberry, I have had to accept to live with a significant and constant productivity hit when it comes to writing more than a couple of words on my touchscreen phones with the need to avoid typing errors. I failed to master the act of writing on a cellphone, contrary to typing on a physical keyboard.

I have seen people type blazingly fast on touchscreen phones though, albeit I didn't run error stats on their output. I accept that I may lack some skills needed to become better at this, but seeing others highlighting that this is a problem to them is not surprising to me, based on anecdotal evidence.

E.g., I knew someone who added to his email signature a permanent apology for typing errors giving the justification that he was typing on a touchscreen device.

All in all, I agree that the problem is real, and havging had experience with a working solution (physical keyboard) I wonder why there appears to be no business case today for such devices.

Sounds like a small, niche but very real market and product: A keyboard case with Bluetooth (but security!) or USB-C.

Bonus points for e-ink-based keys.

Edit: Realistically I’d be surprised if something like this doesn’t already exist.

The way cursor movement by touch was implemented on BB10 Wwas also the best I've ever used on mobile. Some kind of adaptive zoom and tap to move by one position.

For me it's the original Motorola Droid and Droid 2. The slide-out keyboards have been the best mobile text editing experience I've had.

It’s funny, as I was writing this comment I thought, “it’s almost like they need to make a blackberry for the smartphone era - oh wait…”

This is why I own a Titan Pocket. Physical keyboards are simply superior.