iPhone 7 Concept Features BlackBerry Priv Keyboard

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Apple fans, prepare yourself to be absolutely horrified (if the headline didn’t scare you enough already). Someone has performed what may be considered by many to be one of the tech community’s worst atrocities ever. They have envisioned an iPhone 7 with a keyboard similar to the one that’s on the BlackBerry Priv.

Can the Priv save BlackBerry?

BlackBerry is attempting to coax some of its past keyboard-loving fans back into the fold with the BlackBerry Priv, which features a physical keyboard that slides out. Now the folks at German publication Curved have apparently decided that the iPhone 7 could benefit from adopting the only hardware feature BlackBerry is praised for (note that this doesn’t include the company’s mobile security software).

Reddit users have praised the BlackBerry Priv and its physical keyboard, although it should be noted that a lot of Reddit users are also maligning it, calling the keyboard a cramped version of the original BlackBerry keyboard.

iPhone 7 slider?

Tech Times highlighted the artist renderings from Curved, which describes the phone as “not an iPhone 7, but an iPhone 6S with a k(eyboard) [sic].” The German website states that the concept has the exact same dimensions as the iPhone 6S and a “backlit keyboard inside the case” that slides out when the user pushes a button. Although Curved does not specifically mention BlackBerry and even states that the slide-out keyboard looks like the iOS keyboard, it seems like the BlackBerry Priv certainly must be the inspiration.

Curved mentions the Apple Pencil (which Apple executives say isn’t a stylus, but let’s be real here). Apple cofounder Steve Jobs basically said they would never make a tablet with a stylus, but how quickly that changed after they saw the stylus with Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet.

But would Apple really do the same with a physical keyboard? It certainly seems unlikely, although Microsoft was having problems selling the earliest versions of its Surface tablets, which was probably during the time the Apple Pencil was in development or at least in the design stages. But then again, people will buy products just because they have the Apple logo on them, whether or not the company was the first to do something (like add a stylus to their tablet).

Other iPhone 7 rumors

At any rate, this is just an artist rendering of an iPhone 7 concept idea, so Apple fans, you probably have nothing to worry about as it’s probably very far from what Apple is currently working on. We’ve heard plenty of rumors about next year’s iPhone (some credible, and others not so credible), like that Apple might opt for a slimmer design and dump the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack to accommodate the slim design.

And the debate about the display rages on and probably will until the iPhone 7 actually makes it to the stage at Apple’s unveiling even in 2016.

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