Oct 7 2010
On the Verizon iPhone
The media loves this nonsense because it generates pageviews, so they've been reliably putting out the same crap every few months for the past three years.
A Verizon iPhone is unlikely now for the same reasons it's always been unlikely:
- Verizon's CDMA is a dying technology. It's GSM that is used far more widely internationally, so it's no surprise the iPhone launched with GSM. The market for CDMA is US-centric and far too small; I think it's much more likely the next iPhone will skip CDMA entirely and launch with LTE.
- On CDMA, you cannot place a voice call and use data simultaneously. Apple (and AT&T) ran a national advertising campaign explicitly calling out this weakness in CDMA.
- Apple tests many more products than they release. I'm sure there has been a CDMA iPhone, but that's no guarantee it will launch as a product.
- AT&T sucks in NYC and SF, where most of the tech press lives. A huge sample bias.
If Apple does a CDMA anything, I think it'll be an iPad.
(Update: I was wrong. :)
