Furthermore, Apple's entire business plan goes out the door if this does indeed take place.

> I'm struggling to imagine how you think leaving out "in the near future" changes the meaning of that sentence in any way.

You're really struggling to understand how a prediction about the future is different than the state of affairs today?

Unless you can identify specific things that he thinks will be changing in the future, yes. It sure doesn't seem like smartphones are becoming any less valuable or more expendable.

Obviously that's not possible because Vice doesn't give any context. Your line of thinking has me worried-- finding context shouldn't be left as an exercise to the reader.

One reading would be "cell phones should be considered fundamentally throwaway items" vs "for the foreseeable future, people will consider them throwaway."