[cdstamper]

Toward the end I was using PalmOS almost exclusively with fingertip input rather than a stylus.

The 5-way navigator on newer devices is still arguably better than anything we have on modern smartphones; you could page through Launcher categories using the hardware button, select an app using up/down left/right and open it with the center button. You could even navigate the menus without touching the screen at all. Much of the UI could be interacted with this way.

There was even a third-party keyboard which was somewhat usable without a stylus (although best in landscape mode).

But the iPhone brought capacitive multitouch to the table and changed everything. Even discounting the multitouch (eg pinch-to-zoom) features, it was lightyears ahead in terms of sensitivity and precision. There was just no comparison!