There Will Never Be an iPhone Killer

David Pogue has been writing a personal-tech column for the New York Times for a whopping 10 years. As most of us give thanks today, he gives us a list—of the biggest tech lessons he's learned in the last decade.

• There's no such thing as the iPhone killer: "Listen, dudes: the history of consumer tech is branching, not replacing." Don't believe him? Has the TV killed the radio? Has the DVD squashed the movie theater? He sees a future that includes both printed books and e-books. "Things don’t replace things; they just add on."

• Given enough time, everything goes on-demand: It's all going digital, from music to TV to books. Our grandchildren won't be able to fathom the idea that we drove "to a 'building' to rent a plastic 'disc' that had to be 'returned.'"
  
• Some concepts just won't work: "The same 'breakthrough' ideas keep surfacing—and bombing, year after year." No one wants a videophone, or to surf the Web on their TV, or to buy a "kitchen Internet appliance."
• Nothing lasts forever ... or longer than a year. "Of the thousands of products I’ve reviewed in 10 years, only a handful are still on the market." BlackBerry and iPod descendants, yes; Palm organizers, MicroMV, PocketPC, no.

Click here for more lessons from Pogue.
(More David Pogue stories.)