A steering wheel is not the optimal steering device since we have cars with power steering, but changing that would make necessary for everyone to adapt to their vehicles again and would result in many accidents and many deaths.

Evolution is good, but the right pace is not always the fastest one. It can of course be faster for phone UIs than car UIs, but every change is still a potential hassle for all your users and should be carefully considered even if it is, objectively speaking, an improvement.