It's a good thing (tm) that no matter which app I open up, the date picker looks the same, and works the same. This is the nice thing about native apps. So I wish we would stop reinventing wheels like this (once again, no offence intended to the author – this is a more of general critique).
I'd love it if there were also some + and - buttons so I could easily add one month, one year etc.
Plus, I'm a big fan of reinventing the wheel. The final chapter of date pickers has not been written, IMHO, and am grateful for these types of experiments. I can easily imagine a "cover flow" inspired picker being great for certain use cases, like buying tickets.
Per @yoz-y down thread, I agree with need for text input. I like Fantastical's approach. Had hoped it'd become more common.
Point was that nobody has considered it perfect from day one.
My portfolio is filled with regrets where I chose something interesting over something obvious.
Also, in the calendar app, when creating an event, i carefully select the date and time, and then i scroll down to set an alarm - and about half the time, the date picker takes my scroll so i lose the date i just entered. So annoying.