Steve Jobs touted the iPhone’s lack of a physical keyboard as an advantage over their competitors’ phones. He said that the hardware keyboard limited what a person could do with his or her phone. In reality though, not all people are ready to accept a world with only onscreen keyboards.
Ask iPhone users around what they would like to have in the iPhone, and most of them would probably say haptic feedback. See, unlike a real keyboard, the iPhone’s software keys do not give any feedback at all, so unless the person typing is looking at the screen, there’s no way to know if the button has been pressed or not. Other manufacturers have tried experimenting with haptics before: Motorola uses localized tiny vibrations on its ModeShift phones (though not a “real” touchscreen, the keys are still touch activated), while Nokia uses tiny vibrations on its new 5800 phone. However, they still don’t provide enough tactile feedback for a lot of folks.
Some manufacturers give their users both a software and a physical keyboard, such as HTC with their Touch Pro. Others, like the also HTC-produced G1 only have a physical keyboard.
It seems likely that physical keyboards are here to stay for some more time, as there are still a lot of people who are averse to touchscreen typing. Whether more advances in haptics technology can actually change that remains to be seen.