The Best Piece on the iPhone 4S Launch comes from Dean Bubley

Dean Bubley: “The real story of the iPhone 4S is under the hood. It’s all about Apple’s chipset strategy for the next few years.”

“To sum up - in my view, the iPhone 4S is all about the hardware platform shift. Stuff like Siri is window-dressing in comparison, to give the fans at least something visible…

This might be disappointing for some, and could possibly give Microsoft and Nokia an opportunity to profit from a temporary lull in external iPhone evolution, but it’s likely set the scene for continued growth and profitability from Apple’s mobile devices for a few more years.”

One big lesson I learned as I have become part of the Valley tech blogger scene is that, amongst the so-called mobile influencers , there are less than 30 (and yes, this ‘30’ is the result of a popular vote; folks who have a hard time to get on a record  aka Google/Apple execs were excluded )who frequently come up with an independent opinion that takes more than the user experience element of the mobile stack into the account. User experience, of course, is what most tech bloggers (and most startups and investors) concentrate on.

Source: Lars Kamp

In contrast, few of the 30 names which came up in my vote are widely heard. I learned, however, they are influential with people who want to get things done.

Back in 2009, as an advisor to my MobileBeat conference, Sprint’s VP of Strategy, Russ Mcguire, pointed me towards Dean as a source for key issues around the network, hardware and phone middleware.

Back at MWC in February I talked to my friends at ARM, Marvel, Nvidia, Qualcomm and asked them what innovation this year will be about, - in plain marketing ghibberish - “distribution to new low level consumer segments” aka the under $100 Android phone as good as an iPhone 3G that will be available by the end of year. The pricing seems familiar ? This is what Apple just announced and is just part of the industry trend. Still, at the same time our notion what we think we can do with superphones will continue to be pushed.

The bottom line for us, who professionally read tech blogs, is that we may have another year or even two of futile iPhone speculation ahead of us:

“It’s also possible that Apple sticks with another iteration of the current 4S platform for another year, before adding in a “perfect” LTE option in 2013. My prediction from June 2010 was that Apple support LTE was most likely in 2012 or 2013 (I’m glad I dodged the bullet on the 5% 2011 chance). An October 2012 launch would make sense - and would also fit in with future timelines of both Qualcomm and Intel (and possibly others like nVidia).”

I cringe at the thought of that.