Mobile devices are tiny and stupid.

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None of which have FUCK ALL to do with USABILITY or ACTUAL FUNCTION.

That's been the general trend in electronics forever. There's a "because we can" mentality in electronic engineering that pushes them to make everything smaller and smaller. Never mind that it's too small for humans to conveniently interact with.

Before touch screens, they started doing multifunction controls. Instead of a suitably sized and positioned knob or button for each function, you had to use one knob to wade through a menu to perform the operation you wanted. So yeah, it was going to shit well before smart phones came along.