The first thing most people learn in schools when they are young is still writing...with a pencil or pen. Ergo, it is quite a natural format for involved input. What if your taking notes or writing poetry? My Treo650 just died because the qwerty mechanical keyboard failed. Chicklets and membrane keyboards, same potential. What about something like TEALSCRIPT from the Palm world? They have a 'write anywhere' capability and were not necessarily confined to a specific 'field' for input. The slide out qwerty keyboard at this stage, to me, is just copy-cat stuff. Its already been done numerous time and it is anything, but, efficient for high speed or spontaneous writing input. Sorry, qwerty was originally invented to specifically slow down input on old manual typewriters in order to avoid jams. How ironic is that? So more time and money and methods are toyed with around those themes that are not in the best interests of people effectively recording thoughts or notes or programming. As Karel has many times lamented about the Newton, it seems the whole industry has been stumbling blindly for well over a decade since. Palm was really the spin off of the orphans from the Newton team and it was certainly good in many areas but alas they have run out of gas at 2008.

I really don't think at this stage of computing that one has to pick an either/or scenario. OS2007 showed fairly well 'sensing and switching' between finger or stylus in regards to the interface. Why does everyone keep trying to make it one way only? Its like the PIM premise I have heard. I think it is all excuses. Finger is fine, and the ground has ALREADY been well paved a long time back for good stylus use. Each has great value, period. There is no competition, lets just get to effective application of them for the real end result. If your 'brain mapping' or practicing 'stream of consciousness' writing, I'm sorry tapping on a keyboard or using the screen with a finger is not really the choice for that flow to work well. To me this is core stuff for the consideration of the next evolution of a tablet to N900. How to input effectively and with fluidity in different requirements.