<p>Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.</p><p>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.</p><p>RIM devices had keyboards even before they had email; the feature was part of the BlackBerry's predecessor, the RIM Inter@ctive Pager. Indeed, tactile feedback was so valued by the company that it tried to integrate it into the touchscreen with the BlackBerry Storm. In reviewing that phone for The New York Times, David Pogue noted, "A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel." Imagine such a thing.</p><p>Indeed, like the click wheel, the keyboard has faded quickly from that landscape. According to Mobile Phone Track, a consumer purchase-tracking service of The NPD Group, handsets with physical keyboards accounted for 61 percent of smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2010. That percentage had halved a year later and dropped to just 21 percent in the first quarter of 2012. In the first quarter of 2013, just 7 percent of smartphones had keyboards.</p><p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/02/blackberrys-depressing-keyboard-trends/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://blogs.cio.com/blackberry/18068/blackberry-playbook-tablet-hdmi-mlb-baseball">Why I Use My BlackBerry PlayBook More Than Any Other Tablet (Seriously)</a> (CIO (blog))</p><p><a href="http://mdjonline.com/bookmark/22762695-BlackBerry-aiming-for-new-markets-in-wake-of-iPhone">BlackBerry aiming for new markets in wake of iPhone</a> (Marietta Daily Journal)</p><p><a href="http://www.usdailyvoice.com/opinion-blackberry-needs-a-playbook-2-must-reverse-decision-5795/calvin-winters.html">Opinion: BlackBerry Needs a PlayBook 2, Must Reverse Decision</a> (USDailyVoice)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=daZRBW9Z39oQIvMWrYvZ3CJ1ozTVM&ned=us">5 additional articles.</a></p>