Monday, April 20, 2009

Verizon? Getting the iPhone?


Hmm, I guess the Voyager and the Blackberry storm didn't please Verizon at all with it's results that they would have probably wanted the iPhone. Yet, every phone company wants to distribute the iPhone!
A leading Apple blog posted a rumor Sunday that the iPhone — which is currently available in the United States only through AT&T Wireless — could be coming to Verizon, perhaps as early as January 2009.
Cleve Nettles, writing in 9 to 5 Mac, says “negotiations between Apple and Verizon are ongoing but they expect to hammer out agreements by the end of the year.”
According to a “tipster” whom Nettles says “seems to know way too much about Verizon-Apple politics,” an announcement that a deal has been struck could be made at Macworld 2009.
That would be big news for millions of would-be buyers who are either locked into their Verizon accounts or reluctant to switch to AT&T (formerly Cingular), believing that AT&T’s wireless network is less mature.
But beyond the word of this unnamed tipster, Nettles’ argument rests on some pretty slender evidence.
He cites Apple job postings for engineers with experience in EVDO and CDMA, the wireless standards used by Verizon (and, for that matter, many foreign carriers). But he acknowledges that these skills overlap with those needed to work with AT&T’s GSM-based technologies and “could mean absolutely nothing.”
He also quotes Apple COO Tim Cook’s remarks that Apple “wasn’t married to the one carrier/country model.” But Cook wasn’t necessarily talking about the U.S. market; in fact, Apple has already abandoned that model in several foreign countries.

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