But the point is that you're going to have a hard time bootstrapping a new phone ecosystem in the current environment. If it's mission critical then they need to be throwing everything at it, not doing it as one option among many.
I think there’s a lot of space for device innovation right now. A quick survey of sci-fi ideas yields a lot of possibilities:
Lapel pins that talk to you
Earrings / Earcuffs that talk to you
Directed environmental audio that only you can hear
Drones that attach to you, fly around when you or they want, and then .. talk to you
Projection on arbitrary surfaces
Smart surfaces everywhere that show things
Anyway. We’re not done innovating data and compute connectivity in device form in my opinion. And, I think we would both do well to remember that how hard it is to sell me, or you, on a new phone, is massively different if you’re willing to give away your first 100mm phones.
That said I’m not convinced the next thing they’re putting out is a phone. But it might be a phone killer, or a baby thing that will one day be a phone killer.
That infrastructure and brand is extremely difficult to bootstrap.