I agree with this. Apple could have settled for being a stepping stone that helped Motorola keep it's head above water a little longer. Instead, they formed yet another mutual partnership with an "also ran" cell carrier and got that industry moving again. Moving as in being the "carriers of human communication," not the overlords getting fat off that most human quality.
Our network for communication has come a long way in forty years, but it is not done. The fact that Internet communication is still discreetly separated between separate copper, cable, fiber and wireless providers. All with separate membership and billing rules for each country on this planet tell me we are still provincially minded.
Most of the real innovation in personal communication has lead to much gnashing of teeth on the part of established players. The fact is, if they don't own it, control it and stand to make a conventional profit, it must be bad. Never mind an innovation like email, or the public Internet that grew to markets sizes unforeseen by every corporation that stood in the way.
But people don't really inherently about corporations any more than corporations inherently care about people. Last week, a fourteen year old posted a key observation regarding technology purchases. The key entry that caught my eye was, "she told me her iPad does more out of the box than other computers." And that's it, specs don't matter to real purchases. What matters is how the purchase serves the purchaser. We have moved on from a time when just having a phone, computer, pager, cell phone, Internet, laptop, smart phone was enough. That stoking "social status" was satisfaction enough.
The cell carriers that understand the difference between, supporting their customers vs have their customers supporting them, will gain market profits. Believe anything you choose, but the rest of the world is moving on.