Back when computers were super expensive (like millions of $) the owners (or lessors) would try to get them to do as many things as possible all the time so maximize the "value" of their investment. What was truly revolutionary about microprocessors was that they were inexpensive enough that you could dedicate them to doing just one thing.
But then the capabilities of microprocessors started to greatly exceed the level of computation you needed to do that "one thing" and so the age of "featuritis" was born where the "wasted" compute resource in the dedicated microprocessor could do something to differentiate or add value to a product. That could be as silly as adding more indicator lights, but usually it was a way of altering the thing the appliance did. Today, nobody things twice about a washing machine that has a combinatorial set of 20 different wash cycles, versus the simple "water level", "water temperature", "number of cycles" that was achievable with just simple mechanical switches and a few dumb sensors.
However, it seems we might inflect again, as even cheaper microprocessors make even less expensive appliances available. Further, the subsumption of dozens of devices into the "phone" (copier, camera, recorder, navigator, television, Etc.) has created its own "traffic jam" where you might be watching TV on your device, and suddenly there is something you want to take a picture of and call someone about it. Multiplexing the device kind of works but it can also become annoying.
It will be interesting to me to see how this more "computer os like" version of iOS will fare, and whether or not multi-functioning on a single devices develops into a negative feature vs the current economic win.