Verizon iPhone release date? Signs point to January.
A disclosure: This blog has covered a whole lot of Verizon iPhone rumors. (See here, here, and here. And here.) And this particular blogger, to paraphrase Dan Costa of PC Magazine, is beginning to suspect that every Verizon iPhone release date rumor is just a cynical ploy to churn the blogosphere into a foaming, frothing frenzy.
But then what kind of blog would we be if we didn't report on the latest Verizon iPhone reports? (Especially if it turns out to be true.)
So here goes: The Wall Street Journal is assuring readers that a Verizon iPhone is absolutely and totally a done deal. The Journal reports that not only has Apple developed a CDMA-capable iPhone (Verizon uses CDMA tech for its data network), but that CDMA iPhone will hit shelves in the US as early as January, thus ending AT&T's exclusive partnership with Apple.
So does the Journal have it right?
Maybe. After all, the facts in the Journal article match the facts laid out in a previous piece published in August from another often accurate source. In that piece, TechCrunch blogger Steve Cheney said he had conclusive proof that a Verizon iPhone was forthcoming.
"Sources with knowledge of this entire situation have assured me that Apple has submitted orders for millions of units of Qualcomm CDMA chipsets for a Verizon iPhone run due in December," Cheney wrote. "This production run would likely be for a January launch, and I’d bet the phone is nearly 100 percent consistent with the current iPhone 4 (with a fixed internal insulator on the antenna)."
On the other hand, Verizon brass has been doing its best to crack down on Verizon iPhone gossip.
"We would love to carry [the iPhone] when we get there, but we have to earn it," Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said at a September conference in NYC. "I think 4G will accelerate the process, and any other decisions Apple makes would be fine with us. Hopefully, at some point Apple will get with the program." At that conference, Seidenberg said that Apple had not yet developed a CDMA-capable iPhone.
A Verizon iPhone: to be or not to be? Do you believe the hype? Drop us a line in the comments section.
