Mainly because manual is sometimes confused with the masculine, but I also like that simply the direction of the most-commonly dominant hand is linked in our la

Mainly because manual is sometimes confused with the masculine, but I also like that simply the direction of the most-commonly dominant hand is linked in our language with skilfulness. My basic proposition is that our devices make no use whatsoever of the incredible natural skill we have in our hands, therefore arguments along the lines that we can't use something because it's not a featureless slate, have a good chance of being wrong. That said, your original complaints about the device in question aren't necessarily wrong. After all, the edge controls could perhaps be a usability nightmare in their own right. The hand is a fascinating device - extremely limited in strength and above all capacity for repetitive work, but absolutely incredible for fine control and versatility. It's an interesting case: claims that hands naturally do this or that quite often don't take any account of just how versatile a tool it can be. But on the other hand (oops!) it is absolutely vital that any object intended for use in the hand has the utmost attention paid to the design: anything that causes discomfort becomes in an instant completely unusable.