The author means universal in the sense of a universal remote control, not universal adoption. Also, a big chunk of that 40 million is iPod Touch owners, who ar

The author means universal in the sense of a universal remote control, not universal adoption. Also, a big chunk of that 40 million is iPod Touch owners, who are not subject to carrier lock-in. The point is that it is a sufficiently generic and popular platform that many companies that might once have rolled their own hardware have diminished need to. If the platform supports what they need and they can make do in a market of 40 million (and growing), why not? For consumers it is the same way; why buy a device when you can just download that functionality? It raises the threshold of utility. The market doesn't have to be universal, it just has to be big and and consistent. Right now the iPhone is the only platform that can claim to have both of those qualities.