What I found especially telling is that the author's defense (or lack thereof) of the idea that the 5th Amendment is not applicable here did not even involve an

What I found especially telling is that the author's defense (or lack thereof) of the idea that the 5th Amendment is not applicable here did not even involve any attempt to explain why it should not apply. Like you said, he just feebly pointed at carefully-selected case law. I think that's because any reasonable person can see that in today's society, it's completely obvious that if you force someone to turn over everything in their smartphone, that's likely to be about as incriminating as everything else you could possibly force them to say or turn over, put together. The idea that this is not the case doesn't pass the laugh test.