Maybe "It's Hard To Build A Smartphone In 2013" would be a better title. But to suggest people will be using iPhones and Androids in the year 2050...Yikes. I pray that future doesn't come to pass.
So, I would really expect the next big thing to be not a be an iPhone but something utterly different. Neural implants, anyone?
Maybe Amazon will debut them on 60 Minutes prior to cyber monday 2014!
At it's core ,boredom might be manipulated neurologically, so maybe you won't feel bored and just feel content with whatever. If we're going to aggressive means as neural implants ,this seems a more interesting option.
Another options(without opening skuls) is something that offers far better experiences.
Maybe more immersive (up to a point we can't differentiate from real life).maybe something that enriches our daily interactions without interfering with them. Maybe something that help us manage emotions and brain states optimally. Maybe something that augments fluidly our cognitive capabilities without interfering with what we do.
Google Glass seems like a good candidate.
His point is that you can't be successful building something that is essentially the same thing as a smartphone. You can build something that disrupts the current smartphone market, but it would likely need to be something more than a smartphone (a la Google Glass.)
The network effects you mention are exactly the point: network effects are especially powerful in things like mobile app stores because they create a tipping point market. That means if an early entrant or set of entrants into the market can capture enough market share, they create extremely high barriers to entry. The more market share they have, the more powerful the network effects are and the less likely a new entrant is to have success.
If you're a smartphone developer, chances are you develop for iOS and Android. It would take tens of millions of users adopting a new platform for you to start developing for this new platform. But you're not likely to get tens of millions of users without a large app library.
Don't take any title literally. He is obviously not talking about 2050 or 2525 (if people are still alive, still alive).
He's talking about the market as is -- and an obvious timeline of around 10 years comes naturally from what we know of the tech industry and the pace of change.