I call BS on this. It may be the authors view and I agree to a certain extent newer hardware and software does make a bit of a difference but saying that soon no one will care about their phones battery life I think is utter crap, I don't buy it for a second. Battery tech still needs to improve vastly and despite stories coming out daily about the next big thing in battery tech, it hasn't happened yet (at least not on a commercial scale) and newer and better hardware components and software will only make a slight difference.
Saying true all day battery life is is around the corner is nothing to brag about, getting it to last for a week or more on a single charge, that's something to crow about and it's never going to happen with current battery tech.
The bottom line is the battery will always be the weakest link in mobile devices and will remain so for a good while yet.