Samsung (005930.KS) only entered the smartphone market in earnest last year, but its sales have skyrocketed thanks to a sleek production system that rapidly brings new products to market. Apple (AAPL.O) introduced its first iPhone in 2007.

"In the handset division, Samsung has no real rival models to challenge its products except for the iPhone 4S. Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the market in the fourth quarter," said Kim Hyun-joong, a fund manager at Midas Asset Management, which owns Samsung shares.

I'm always fascinated to face yet another example that I'm utterly average. The competition has come down to a Samsung Galaxy S or an iPhone 4s for me now, particularly since CSpire claims the iPhone 4s is coming.

Why would I *not* get an iPhone? Me? Such an Apple dude?

The only reasons I'm coming up with are (a.) price and (b.) screen size.

I'm probably getting the iPhone, although I don't yet know the dates, data plans, etc. for rollout. But if I can keep my cheap smartphone plan and get an iPhone for $200 at the most (maybe even less with a phone trade-in credit?) then I'm there.

But the Galaxy S remains tempting... it does seem to be a well designed phone, good screen size, maybe more comfortable for typing...

We'll see.

Citing two people with knowledge of the matter, the global news agency said its heard that Apple's Asian supplies have begun building "a lower-priced version of its hot-selling iPhone 4 with a smaller 8 gigabyte flash drive" that's "expected to launch within weeks."

Not only do I hope this is true, but I hope (on a wing and a prayer) that this could possibly mean Apple is ready to open up to regional carriers like Cellular South, which offers great coverage down here in MS, no roaming charges in the U.S. and happens to have a nice, cheap data plan for it's Android phones*.

It seems to me that regional carriers and specialty carriers (Credo, Virgin, Boost) are an area dominated by Blackberry and Android and certainly one place where Apple could win huge converts -- often young folks -- if they have the CDMA chipset ready and they're willing to flood the market with lower-end versions of their already widely successful (if slightly dated) previous model.

(* Full disclosure: CS has advertised with the JFP in the past and I'd love them to do so again the future, but I'm not specifically sucking up here. They're also my current mobile carrier and I'm ready to trade up my Hero and/or throw it out the window of a moving vehicle.)

Update: Business Insider has this chart showing what a mere *report* of the iPhone 5 for Sprint is doing to their stock; just think what reports of iPhones for regional carriers would do for their bottom lines (and for Apple in the War Against Robots):

We believe the likelihood of the iPhone 5 launch in September including LTE [Long-Term Evolution] is now remote,” Misek said in a note to clients. “According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and will include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support.

Interesting that the iPhone 5 might be the iPhone 4s (which would be cool for me since I'm *still* seriously contemplating an iPhone 4 from Verizon and I'd hate to not be the cool kid). The iPhone 4 still looks great, still has the bestest or second-bestest screen out there and has tons of tech life left in it.

In other news... Sprint? Could Sprint feed the iPhone to Credo and other affiliates? How fab would that be?

Here's what I'm curious about -- how much marketshare could Apple get against Android by putting an iPhone on *all* the major carriers... and even open things up to regional carriers like CellularSouth, where I have the majority of my office phones. They're reliable, high-speed and local-ish (also an occasional JFP advertiser, full disclosure) but stuck with Android phones that I find less than overwhelming. (Sure, the phones are nice, but they run Android and are like PeeCees! Ew!)

Maybe having multiple handsets is less important than having as many carriers (and even some variety in the voice/data plans) as possible?