Apples spin wasn't ditching the keyboard as so many people think, it was designing the user interface around finger-based touch, making the interface easy enough for normal people to use, and finally to ship a decent performing browser at a time when most other phones were a nightmare to use when browsing the web (try a N95, also released in 2007, to see what I mean)
I forgot about the communicator because I didn't consider it a smart-enough phone to use. I kept using my Palm Pilot Pro becuse it gave me the productivity I needed. The communicator definitely had a keyboard and apps though, I just didn't find them usable at the time.
By far it is still one of the most bad ass looking phones, with that folding out.
On a side note, the Handspring Visor Phone addon is also worthy of a shoutout, since it was out before the Treo..
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Handspring_Releases_V...
but it was a niche product that probably didn't appear in the u.s. much.
as a psion user i lusted after these devices. but price of mobile data put them out of my reach.
i used a psion 5 as my main computer till 99 when i wanted to start ripping cds for an mp3 player amongst other things.
The Treo was the original smartphone. The orignal smart phone that Blackberry copied was the Treo.
Apple's spin was ditching the keyboard, but by then even the sony ericcson P800 had a full screen phone with a touch keyboard years before apple.
http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800