Do backlinks even matter anymore?

Backlinks have, and will be for the near distant future, one of the strongest parts of the search engine ranking algorithm. The web is created by links, its how the search engines crawl new data and help "connect" everything together.

As you can see with this keyword, iPhone 5, the number one result iphone5release.org has over 12,000 backlinks according to Yahoo Site Explorer. A good majority from high PR pages/domains, which is the real trick of ranking for competitive keywords. One thing that this goes to show, relevant backlinks don't mean shit.

First few links listed come from domains that are blatant link networks. One about BPDsecrets, MediumFormatCameras,VivaPalestina. Tell me how any of those relate to the domain, keyword and product in question?

Sorry for running off on a tangent, just read one to many "relevant links or bust" BS in the past 24 hours. Here's another example of how that doesn't mean crap.

Backlinks such dude. Its all about doing nothing. I hear it works wonders now adays!

This guys success did intrique me, so I put his URL into SEO spyglass to take a look at his backlink structure and noticed something interesting with the anchor text. He will vary his anchor text with lowercase and uppercase letters. Like Iphone 5, iPhone 5, IPhone 5.. etc. I'm wondering if this strategy of simply changing from upper to lowercase anchor text played into his high placement?