There’s an app for that
iPhone apps blew a hole in the sky, completely democratizing the concept of application innovation. Those little apps have done more for raw software innovation than anything in the past 20 years.  

Cross-marketing - the new innovation
The art of the deal.  Who would have thought embedding a Netflix engine was the best way to sell Blu-Ray disc players?  Clearly not Sony.  Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, you name it, and it got integrated into an otherwise conventional furniture-top gizmo in 2009.

Gadgets for the people
Prices fell faster than Tiger Woods at Vegas showgirl convention. Top-shelf gizmos selling for next to nothing. Every kind of technology from beautiful flat-screen TVs, laptops, Blu-Ray players, and anything else you can name not made by Apple is basiclly free. The most sophisticated technology on the planet will come home with you for few hundred bucks. DLP projectors for < $200.  Makes you wonder what’s left for next year’s top shelf? Margins, who needs margins?

No stinking storage problem
From 64GB flash chips to 2+ TB hard disks to DRAM, storage density is mind blowing.  As product designers our options are greatly expanded due to cheap and almost limitless storage. Storage density is changing the world.

Design ubiquity
Design has been oozing its way into all things software, finally! Certainly the majority is still stylistic design, but that's a first step towards deeper product design that balances technology, art, and the human (anthropology). It's an exciting time to be in the software Design business.
 

Cloud in the sky
When the entire industry is bent on distorting reality, people will eventualy think the distortion is the truth.  When big firms bet the farm on cloud computing then clouds will be hot, regardless of whether anyone needs, wants, or buys them. Cloud computing = outsourcing. Duh!

Blogs out, Tweets in, whatever
In 2009 it became “uncool” to be a blogger and cool to Tweet. Fickle bunch aren’t they?

Kindle the fire
OMG! An e-reader that people actually buy!  These things are frigg’n everywhere.  Who saw that coming? So many companies offer e-readers, where will it end? Nook over there, it's another one.

Android OS and green lasers
Some also-rans.  So many little innovations that were really hard for people to make but don’t have a large-scale culture-defining impact. At least not yet.  Soon though!  Expect droid to be a 2010 phenomena.