“I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but a few months ago the pieces of a mobile industry puzzle started to fall into place,” James Holland writes for Electricpig. “They’re subtle, but if I’m right Apple is poised to deliver a hammer blow that the mobile industry never saw coming.”

“The first hint of a change in the air came with Apple’s unveiling of iOS5. Along with it came iMessage, and the networks were dumbfounded,” Holland writes. “Without warning, Apple had diverted iPhone owners’ messages away from the networks’ SMS systems, and routed them through its own servers.”

Holland writes, “iMessage would, assuming both the sender and recipient were online, handle text, photo and even video messages. Coupled with the earlier addition of FaceTime video calling, it’s clear Apple wants complete end-to-end control of iPhone owners’ communications. And why not? The result for customers is fantastic.”

Read more in the full article here.