For regular people, it seems that voice is a somewhat important interface these days. "Ok google remind me to buy toilet paper" and so on. And honestly… isn't that already better than implanted magic in some ways? People (who can) naturally communicate with other people using voice, not telepathy.
Sometimes “obviously” inferior solutions are actually local maximums, and finding the global maximum is extremely difficult.
Why in the world would these supposed Gatekeepers gatekeep away a technology that would provide a massive competitive advantage? Wouldn't they instead do exactly what they've been doing for decades and just buy up this hypothetical new technology? That sure seems to be what Apple is doing; there's an entire wiki page dedicated to Apple acquisitions and what Apple products were derived from it. Why would they suddenly flip into suppressing something better rather than just repeating their standard practice?
Perhaps the more plausible answer is that nobody has come up with an interface that beats the smart phone for the general population?
What competition? The disabled are lucky to get a single workable solution.