I don't know what trends you are referring to regarding what you quoted, so I can't really answer. I believe more in making things happen than following some trend.

But consider Motorola (mobile). A US company that sells phones for the US market. It is zero outside the US, and the main reason for that is banality itself. They never learned how to translate their menu systems to other languages in a way that didn't make you laugh or scratch your head. Consequently they have no international experience business wise regarding end user experience, and this was the reason they went down. The phones themselves, good quality devices that can compete with the best. In the last 3-4 months they are getting some traction outside the US/UK, thanks to Android/Google, but nothing to write home about, too little - too late. Now, with the Google purchase of Motorola, this scares the living sh*t out of Samsung, SE, HTC and LG. From one day to the next, Motorola has gone from being a dead end domestic supplier with no knowledge of the world, to become an international heavy weight regarding international business know how. Obviously Motorola will sky rocket on the charts and eat large chunks out of the others, not because they make better devices than before, but because they finally have the one vital thing they have lacked before - international know how (tons of cash doesn't harm either).

The point is, technology, trends, whatever has nothing to do with this, it is a pure business opportunity that Google just had to have, and they paid whatever it took to get. Motorola + Google is dynamite.

Nokia + Microsoft is similar but different in many ways. They are creating an ecosystem, an open ecosystem for everyone to participate any way they chose, but with some basic premises at the bottom. This is also dynamite, and much more far reaching than Google+Motorola. That you people cannot see this, is quite funny actually. They may still fail, but so far, every day has been one day closer to success.

The N9 will be successful because it is too cool to miss; superb design - beautiful, superb choice of materials, dead simple UI - yet more powerful and versatile than anything. It will be sold in markets with much higher than average turn around (markets where the iPhone is out of fashion and the Galaxys already are passè or considered over-geeky toys). The N9 is marketed as the best out of the box experience ever (best UI, best camera, best browser, best navigation, best twitter-facebook-whatever, best music), and it's all true, dead true. And as I said, swipe will live on, the N9 is not the end (it may be the end for open source zealots though).