Ogurisama posted...
What will they be replaced with?
Sure tech is moving fast, but smartphones are still by the best of being small tech and keeping people connected.
Pretty much this. Even recognizing that us not being able to conceive of a paradigm shift doesn't mean one isn't possible (see Ford's "faster horses" quote) and therefore not putting too much stock in the fact that we can't think of a replacement, all of the primary functions of smart phones (phone, text, camera, location, internet connectivity, and apps that capitalize on these features) are still very much in demand and will be for the foreseeable future. Any hypothetical replacement would need to fulfill that demand in addition to whatever new features it offered in order to actually become a replacement and render smartphones obsolete, except any device that offers all of those features is best described as a smart phone.
This feels a lot like EA et al's periodic insistence that single-player games are dead, despite there being no actual evidence of a reduction in demand for them. It's just billionaires with a vested interest in selling us the Next Big Thing trying to convince us that we're unhappy with the Current Big Thing to make us want whatever's coming next more. My money's on pushing some sort of AI personal assistant sort of deal that uses context clues to predict what smartphone feature it should offer you at any given moment.