iPhone 4S propels Apple beats Android in Britain

As the phone market trends toward all smartphones, that trend will only accelerate.

In October Google's (GOOG.O) Android had 35 percent of the British smartphone market, often seen as the indicator for the rest of Europe. It isn’t that anyone is necessarily lying its just that most Android phones sold are low(er) end (cheap) ones, being sold as dumbphone replacements and being used as dumbphones by their owners.

For the 12 weeks to end-October Android was still ahead of Apple (AAPL.O), while Research In Motion Ltd (RIM.TO) held on to its 20 percent share. Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE) had 4 percent and Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Windows Phone platform 1 percent share.

In terms of spec compare, the 4S will play with the big boys for quite some time due to software optimization, not CPU speed, not RAM, not # of cores, but purely through software optimization. The software experience is what is driving IOS, not hardware.

Battery life also drives Apple forward. Apple can also do better on less battery because of things like less RAM, hardwired battery and hardwired storage (no SD slots) – all of which have less electrical drain associated with them. Other manu’s will not be able to beat Apple on battery until they make these concessions or somehow beat the laws of physics.

Lastly Apple is still going hard on gaming into 2012, its certainly helping them. With that said Apple still has the top GPU on the market right now. Its going to be at least early 2012 before any competitors touch that GPU.

So it comes down to a bandwidth race. So that’s what you have to make your 18 month cycle debate on. LTE will land on iPhone next year, if the market penetration and battery optimizations are decent.

So are they really lagging simply because of LTE right now? Considering its still being rolled out in major markets far into 2012, I think Apple made the right decision to hold back this year.