Morgan Stanley expects LTE on all major bands

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty after a trip to Asia has claimed to have heard that Apple would get a truly world-capable LTE chipset for the iPhone. With quad-frequency support, it would support "all 3G and LTE network flavors," according to the copy obtained by AppleInsider. It might revolve around whether or not Apple gets a deal with China Mobile that might be contingent on TD-LTE.

Qualcomm has publicly outlined expectations that it would have a chipset this year that merges 4G with 3G in one part. Combined with a smaller manufacturing process, it would consume much less power and physical space than current designs, which have to dedicate a separate space for an LTE chipset and lead to bulky, battery-hungry phones like the HTC Thunderbolt.

On competition, Huberty expected that Apple's strong shipments would become even more of a contrast with the rest of the industry, where a tough economy and mis-timed computer update cycles were making poor performance common.

Windows 8 was generating early positive feedback and had a corpoaate edge, but Windows 8 and related products wouldn't start shipping until mid-summer, based on Huberty's discussions while in Asia. Ultrabooks wouldn't be a surefire cure, as they had steep prices and weren't necessarily going to come down in cost quickly.

Apple's deficit in smartphones was also closing, the analyst wrote. Apart from taking advantage of better-than-expected iPhone 4S demand, She was seeing other companies' demand tapering off in the past few weeks. HTC has often borne the brunt of the declines, dropping in profit and seeing shipments contract.

By Electronista Staff