The iPhone will be irrelevant one day. We already know how it will happen

• The iPhone has become a “nonsubstitutable infrastructure,” columnist Michael Gartenberg says.
• The device and its services seem too popular with users to ever be replaced.
• But a challenger will one day dethrone it, he says. Here’s how to see the signs of that change.

The iPhone — with iOS and the App Store — has maintained such a dominant position in the mobile industry for so long, it has achieved the status of what’s known as “nonsubstitutable infrastructure.”

Nonsubstitutable infrastructure is something that so strongly holds users, a competitor can’t get them to replace it. It has following characteristics:

• High switching costs for replacement.
• Total or nearly total standardization within an organization or market.
• Strong third-party and vendor support.
• Functions as a key underlying technology for other services and applications.