Thankfully some sanity has reigned in car interiors and the manufacturers have realised the benefits to tactile feedback. He might be right when screens can reconfigure themselves with raised sections. Or mind control I guess.
Many things worked fine 30 years ago and yet have been immeasurably improved since - it's a tempting argument to not fix that which isn't broken, but ultimately a weak one. Also, there is little point in comparing computers, phones and car interiors. Incorporating physical buttons on phones involves a significant trade-off that is not an issue with computers. Car interiors are a different matter entirely. A more appropriate comparison might be conventional TV remotes vs the Apple TV remote. I've found the latter to be much more user friendly and intuitive.
I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this one. Sure, it's an alright attitude to have towards non-essential parts of your life/consumer experience, but imagine if mission critical stuff (like, flight consoles) changed on a regular basis - that would be completely insane.
For phones and tablets I prefer the giant screen approach.
A lot of HN users seem only to write in English. I write in three languages, one of which is very different from the other two. Using one keyboard is possible on a PC, but would make for a lousy experience on a smartphone where the ideal layout for high speed typing in that latter language has nothing to do with the typical keyboard layout. To transplant this language's layout on to a shrunken down imitation of a full keyboard would be a productivity loss. This is a scenario where a physical keyboard on the phone would be a hinderance, not a help.
And that's not even considering many languages that are similar, use the same alphabet, or whatnot. They might be able to get away with the same physical layout, but now the manufacturers have to decide whether to print the legends on or near the keys with the standard US layout, UK layout, French AZERTY layout, and other layouts specific to each region, sometimes at great expense for relatively small markets.
That is if they can fit all the legends in. Some languages will still need a visible set of Roman characters, so not only will the local language's characters be printed on or near the letters, but so will the standard QWERTY layout, taking up valuable physical space, possibly necessitating a smaller phone.
I'm not mentioning what specific language I used that's quicker to type on a keyboard layout other than the standard PC one because it doesn't matter: it is within our capabilities to not have to manufacture a hundred different configurations of physical keyboard for smartphones and tablets for years, long before the arrival of the iPhone and iPad. Nobody needs to know what language it is because it doesn't matter: those who don't even vaguely consider the needs of international audiences as being first class, on the same level as the needs of US English users, don't have even the beginning of an understanding of designing products for international audiences.
The whole /world/ uses smartphones with touch screens. Not just business users, not just executives on meandering lunch breaks with their Blackberries; every day actual people who don't want to be bothered with which SKU to get in order to fully support their language, who don't touch type on regular keyboards let alone tiny ones, children, grandparents, and everything in between.