The speed you can input data into a smartphone just isn't conducive to creating anything. It isn't a grand conspiracy. On my computer I've never created something with the same screen size as the intended viewer.
I think this is the key problem, no more no less. If I had a decent keyboard I would be much more inclined to write software on my phone. Come on, there isn’t even a shift key, led along the other modifiers.
I think people assume that Emacs is a modal editor like Vim but I'm not totally sure why that is.
Otherwise I agree that the mobile input methods are simply too limiting to work with.
Moving around the cursor is pretty difficult and accessing non-alphanumeric symbols sometimes requires clicking the "modifier" thing once or twice.
The on-screen touch-driven keyboard also takes up at least half of the screen, and shrinking it makes hitting a specific key much more difficult.
There is also the difficulty in holding the phone while doing all of this!
On Android you can connect a regular keyboard to the device and use that, then I think working on stuff could be viable!
This is true by default, but many people do use Spacemacs or Emacs with doom mode enabled which does allow vi keybindings, so I think some people associate it with modal editing.
in another way, it is possible to connect a keyboard to cellphone.