Switched On: BlackBerry's depressing keyboard trends

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In a March interview, Google chairman Eric Schmidt, whose company's smartphone ambitions led to his vacating a board seat at Apple, claimed that he didn't use either an Android phone or iPhone. Rather, he uses a Blackberry, citing his affinity for its keyboard despite a number of Android models released over the years integrating physical thumb keyboards. RIM devices had keyboards even before they had email; the fe...