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Team, All,
After doing some research, I came across a PKB called the "Typo" that attached onto the bottom of the iPhone. It was "good enough" that BlackBerry took them to courts over the product.
My take, why couldn't BlackBerry license a fancy version that took care of app launch hotkeys, capacitive swipe, and other shortcuts, and then sell it?
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Maybe they are afraid of cannibalizing their sales?
It might also be an item that would wind up over-priced and not likely to sell.
TYPO was already having issues, before BlackBerry shut them down... and that was at a point where there were still a number of PKB users left. I think BlackBerry is open to licensing anything they can, it's a matter of someone believing there is a market for that product.
You look at the Galaxy S8 Keyboard cover. Seven months after the phones launch you can buy a Keyboard cover for $38.00 US on Amazon. I doubt that covers the design/engineering, production or distribution, and sure isn't enough to add some licensing on top of. It's a niche product that Samsung still makes to help them sell phones.... expect they know they'll loose money on each one that is made.
Now that Apple is getting rid of their large upper and lower bezels and adopting gestures that start from the bottom, there's no room for a physical keyboard unless you want to make the iPhone X about 7 inches long and hold it from the bottom. Also, the cache of the vaunted BlackBerry physical keyboard is fading fast as those classic devices with square screens fade into a distant memory.
Could be a snap on case, with a slider...
Posted via CB10
I don't think BlackBerry would say no to a licensing deal but Apple had and still has no desire for a PKB. That would be too much work for not much $$$ for Apple I would say.
Posted via CB10
It should also be remembered that when the Typo was released, there was a SINGLE form factor for modern iPhones. Today, there are 4, which fragments an already small market into much smaller markets, and most of those form factors are too large to add a Typo-style keyboard case onto.
And the Typo wasn't a market success even when they had a single form factor to market to (and this was BEFORE BB shut them down).
The Typo essentially proved that the concept wasn't profitable, and making a profit on the idea is much harder today (due to the size and form factor fragmentation) than it was then.