Verizon iPhone around the corner?
(Credit:
Matt Hickey)
Correction 11:56 a.m. PST: We messed up. The 9 to 5 Mac blog we cited below is in fact from September 2008, so it turns out this is an old rumor. Because it showed up in our RSS feed Saturday, we, like a number of other publications, took it as a recent post and went from there. Apologies for the confusion.
There have been rumors buzzing around the Internet for some time Apple is secretly preparing a CDMA version of the iPhone, probably headed to Verizon Wireless, and probably by the end of this year. It's no secret Apple has been advertising jobs that require experience in the CDMA wireless standard, which Verizon Wireless and Sprint both use, and is the competing standard to GSM, which AT&T and T-Mobile use, as well as the standard the current iPhone uses.
What's unknown are the exact terms of Apple's deal with AT&T. Neither company will confirm rumors that AT&T's exclusivity ends this year or other rumors that the original deal has been extended to sometime in 2010.
The Web site 9 to 5 Mac offers a few compelling reasons why a non-AT&T iPhone in the near future might be likely, including Apple COO Tim Cook mentioning that the iPhone maker wasn't "married to the one carrier/country model."
In addition, it's known that Verizon was the original preferred carrier for Apple but wouldn't give up the control AT&T eventually did to Steve Jobs.
With Sprint having exclusive rights to the Palm Pre for the year, and T-Mobile's commitment to the G1 and Android, it would make sense that Verizon would push for the iPhone, including giving up distribution to Apple, as AT&T did.
This would give Apple a much larger user base than it currently has, as many people are tied to carriers other than AT&T due to contract restrictions. Eventually it's likely that every major carrier will have the iPhone.
With more than 15 years experience testing hardware (and being obsessed with it), Crave freelance writer Matt Hickey can tell the good gadgets from the great. He also has a keen eye for future technology trends. Matt has blogged for publications including TechCrunch, CrunchGear, and most recently, Gizmodo. E-mail Matt. 
I actually misplaced my iPhone today and had to rely exclusively on the Touch.... no comparison, I nearly went insane without my iPhone.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2007-05-21-at&t-iphone_N.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9742441-7.html
More recently, the talk is a lot more nebulous:
http://www.smartphonetoday.com/articles/2008/8/2008-8-5-Apple-Extends-iPhone.html
it says 2-5 years but then goes on to say that the agreement has been extended through 2010. That is corroborated by: http://www.intomobile.com/2008/08/04/att-secures-iphone-exclusivity-through-2010.html
If the latest rumors are to be believed, Apple can't sell any iPhone until 2011.
With an iPhone on VZW, I'll be up for an upgrade about October, and I'll ditch the Centro for a Pre and the iPhone for an iPhone, and put a GoPhone in my rig that's hooked up to my GrandCentral number when I'm out of CDMA coverage. I want a work phone that I can leave in a drawer but has the power of Palm's contact management and an iPhone with voice quality that doesn't blow chunks most of the time and on network that doesn't go down once every week or two. I've been with ATTWS/Cingular since 1997, but it's time to move on.
Seriously though, it makes a lot of sense for Verizon and Apple, although I'm sure AT&T would hate this. Apple needs a splashy announcement and a new audience to sell to. In order to not cheese off AT&T completely, I'd suggest they give AT&T an exclusive with an upgraded capacity iPhone while Verizon gets the 8 or 16 gigger.
Knowing Big V though, they'll prolly demand Apple rip out the Wi-Fi and GPS though.
The iPhone definitely makes the "want" list of phone on Verizon's network, right behind the Touch Pro 2.
GPS was adopted for UMTS (European 3G that AT&T uses) only after kicking & screaming and unable to come up w/ anything as accurate as GPS....
Note to Verizon: this would be a great opportunity to reward your loyal customers who stuck it out despite every other carrier having better phones (without crippled features). In other words, I want this at a price I can afford when my New-Every-2 kicks in later this year -- finally perhaps, a Verizon phone I'll actually be excited about buying.
Hurry up!!!!
You know apple has enough money to buy HP, the largest oem of windows computers, in cash and shut it down, and still have a ****load of money left over. I dont think they are going out of buisness for a while.
Also, I think I'll still wait for some basic phone features that the iPhone is still missing, like OBEX transfers and voice dialing (I know there are some apps for the latter, but it should be a basic feature of the device).
I think the iPhone is an overhyped POS, but if it doesn't have the restrictions of other verizon devices, even I might consider getting one.
- by kboateng February 23, 2009 4:15 PM PST
- I know there are a whole host of people who would love to get this phone but I'd rather opt for the Pre coming to Verizon than the iPhone...I don't want the next razr phone all over the NETWORK...it'll probably bog it down and crash it just like AT&T and their outages :)
- Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (45 Comments)