Everone forgets that the reason Steve wanted a touch screen was so that the interface could better adjust itself to what as needed at the time. A few apps gets this right, and funny enough when you need to type a phone number into an <input> that is correctly labelled as such it is pretty fast, and your browser can do intelligent things like making it trivial to scroll through your contact lists.
While typing text is easier on a keyboard phone, the cost is that it cannot adjust as easily.
Sadly I don't know of any app that takes advantage of this and tries to create an entirely new interface for email (Apples builtin sure does not) and so we are stuck with this situation you have described so well.
I do wonder if the ideal email inteface for the iPhone is just a connection to ChatGPT? Maybe a couple yes/no buttons and then it gives you a draft to send?
I'm not saying that touchscreens are an altogether downgrade from physical keyboard devices. I totally get why Steve Jobs did what he did. An iPhone is not an altogether downgrade from a Blackberry. And likewise an iPad is not an altogether downgrade from a laptop. But, both are downgrades in terms of ability to write text quickly. And, it turns out, when you can't write text quickly, day-to-day computing fundamentally changes. It changes to be more consumer-oriented, rather than creator-oriented. That's why I said "two steps forward, one step back."
ChatGPT has a particular default way to write, that is true.
But you can so easily get it to write in a different style - it could learn the normal style of your email in a few minutes.
I had it write a PR commit in the style of Trump and it was both hillariously on point and had not a trace of how AI typically write.
Anyway, that was just an example. The truth is I don't know what the best interface for email on the iPhone is, and I don't suspect Apple cares enough to find out.
While typing text is easier on a keyboard phone, the cost is that it cannot adjust as easily.
Sadly I don't know of any app that takes advantage of this and tries to create an entirely new interface for email (Apples builtin sure does not) and so we are stuck with this situation you have described so well.
I do wonder if the ideal email inteface for the iPhone is just a connection to ChatGPT? Maybe a couple yes/no buttons and then it gives you a draft to send?