Thirteen years after Apple launched the iPhone, smartphones have thoroughly disrupted the computer market, superseding our use of desktop and laptop devices. Among internet users aged 18-44 years old, the number of people who access the web from smartphones exceeds PC connections (Statista Global Consumer Survey, Sept 2018). For an array of functions from messaging, to navigation, and playing music, smartphones dominate desktop use. The App Store’s open architecture has allowed everyone from private individuals to public corporations to expand the iPhone’s functionality, allowing it to tackle an endless number of tasks from the trivial to the technical. But the explosive era of growth and innovation that the iPhone unleashed is undoubtedly slowing.... [...]

Is there such a thing as high-end disruption? It’s a reasonable question. There are many cool companies making expensive things that have in fact disrupted industries in the sense of having unsettled or shaken them up. But those companies do not necessarily meet the stricter definition that we hold. Here, Forum researcher Shaye Roseman explains why the threat of disruption lurks in the basement, not on the roof. [...]