Argue it's obsolete if you want, but it isn't progress to require me to use a touchscreen with my giant fat fingers
It's way, way better.
On my old Blackberry, I could type as fast as I could write by hand. (The Blackberry didn't even do any form of auto-correction or text-prediction).
I don't even have very large fingers, but there's a huge benefit to having the tactile feedback when typing quickly. Similarly, I'm dramatically slower on a full-size touchscreen "keyboard" than on a physical keyboard.
Of course, this effect is more noticeable the faster you type. I notice it a lot, because on a physical keyboard, I can theoretically type ~100 wpm[0]. In practice, this means I end up typing as fast as I think (which is obviously slower than 100wpm).
On a touchscreen "keyboard", I can't type as fast as I can think, and it's incredibly frustrating to keep halting my train of thought so what's on the screen can catch up.
[0] for a typing test, where I don't have to stop and think about what I'm typing.
I type pretty fast and I've never noticed it, so this seems like a very subjective thing to me. I'm just trying to understand that point of view.
I would have to go back to the n900 and use it for a while to get a handle on why I really never missed its keyboard much at all. It has been a while. The only thing I remember missing is the ease of using modal keys versus the android (Samsung, I suppose) touch keyboard app, where you have to shift to a completely different keyboard to use symbols and then switch back when you're done. I find that distracting.
They're no less tiny than the keys on the screen, plus they're tactile.
In other words, yes, absolutely.
So often for real progress to be made, those who swear by the old system have to be ignored and abandoned because the only feedback they can provide is "leave everything the same".
We also still use cups to hold water and plates to eat food off of. What is your point? Some things don't progress? You're right. I don't see how that relates though.
In theory, I love the magic trackpad. Now I just need one that works as advertised.