All of the talk about the Rabbit R1 is understandable because it is new and offers the promise of a new type of device to interact with.
Since the days of the early smartphones we have become used to screens and keyboards, physical then virtual, and I don't see that changing soon. The reason is not because of pessimism over a new type of product or an inability to see what could come next, but the ecosystem we currently use our phones for.
The following list is the tip of a very big iceberg-
Payments / wallet
Photos / video
Music / podcasts
Movies / TV
Gaming
Voice / text
Fitness tracking
Reading
Real-time data (weather etc)
And so the list could continue for a very long time. All of the above are important and form key areas of day to day living, and some absolutely require a screen and a keyboard. A lot of other things would need to change to allow for a more 'virtual' and natural system to become the predominant device we carry today, and I suspect that will take at least a decade.
It is possible that things could change sooner, but I just don't see it. Am I being a curmudgeon here?
I agree. Plus there are so many times when talking is not the way to interact. Either the Verge podcast or Connected had a very long discussion about this.