

Verizon to finally get iPhone - strandev
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576068170230339348.html?mod=e2tw

======
TheCoreh
This carrier exclusivity thing on the US amuses me.

In the end, consumers are the ones hurt, 'cause it limits the available
choices.

Here in Brazil we have regulatory agencies that set up rules against that kind
of thing. SIM locking by carriers is also illegal here. (Not actually
_illegal_ , but they're _legally required_ to unlock the phones for you
without additional cost)

I'm pretty sure a lot of other countries have similar rules, or am I wrong?

~~~
gaiusparx
Hong Kong and Singapore has similar rules by their authorities. In one way you
can say US prefers to practice free market. Or you can say US government does
not care about their citizens. Or US government treats their corporations
better than people.

------
blinkingled
Hopefully this time it is real - not because I am going to buy one but because
the "analysts" can finally shut up and end their endless hype/crusade of
Verizon iPhone.

~~~
rscott
Out of curiosity, does anyone seriously know who these "analysts" are and what
their job actually entails?

~~~
blinkingled
I've wondered about the same. Here is the public info about one such analyst
Gene Munster -
[http://www.piperjaffray.com/1col.aspx?id=7&analystid=131](http://www.piperjaffray.com/1col.aspx?id=7&analystid=131)
. Some choice bits - "specializing in Internet" , "holds a bachelor's degree
in financial management and new venture strategies from the University of St.
Thomas" "coverage includes Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Baidu, and MercadoLibre" .
Sounds like a good gig to me!

Someone should compile information about these tech analysts, their
educational qualifications, their official job details (organizations they
work for, job duties they perform over a typical year, their goals and
objectives etc.), the data they work off of, their predictions from 2008
onwards, hit/miss ratio, stock price fluctuations attributable to their
predictions and any other interesting tidbits.

May be something sinister will come out of it or may be not - but it will
still be interesting to look at.

~~~
tdfx
Small world. I specialize in internet, too.

------
T_S_
Too little too late.

I just got off a call with my wife (SV to the Bay Bridge, iPhone to iPhone)
and it only dropped 4 times.

I just relocated to my number to SV a couple of months ago and I only had to
call 4 times to get all the features back to what they were. Plus I got over
being mad about having no message at all for callers to my old number.

Also, I really don't mind calling AT&T every couple of months to find out why
_that_ charge was on my freakishly high bill. I love the way all the call
center people are trained to take an extra 15-30 seconds per call expressing
AT&T's caring attitude. That script doesn't need to be shortened at all.

I never wonder if an unemployed poor person on a pay-as-you-go plan has lower
costs and fewer customer service problems. And I got over the shock of the
difference between the high margin Apple experience and the high margin AT&T
experience. Really, I have.

Nope. AT&T has nothing to worry about.

~~~
loire280
AT&T's reception problems seem to be mostly concentrated in a few large cities
-- most notably NY and SV/San Fransisco.

I'm a longtime AT&T customer and recent iPhone owner. I've lived in Milwaukee
and Phoenix, and their reception is on par with the other carriers in those
cities. NY and SV are, in my opinion, the last places you'd want poor service
(because it will be discussed nationwide), but I don't think that their
reception is so terrible generally nationwide.

I agree that their customer service is pretty lackluster -- then again, I've
heard plenty of Verizon customer service horror stories.

(Please chime if you're in another city and have unusual reception woes, my
limited experience is not necessarily representative)

~~~
jonhohle
North Scottsdale was spotty when I lived their two years ago. Anything near
the McDowell's is likely to drop calls or have no reception at all on AT&T,
while Verizon was fine. I actually had no problem with AT&T (Cingular at the
time), many years before, but it seems as data phones became more popular,
AT&T's network quality dropped.

I've since moved to Seattle, and AT&T is atrocious. There is hardly a day
where calls don't drop and I find myself on Edge in the middle of the city far
too often.

------
ellyagg
Looks like all the "groundless" speculation was dead on. A Verizon iPhone has
been predicted for a long time, and we knew that there was an exclusivity
contract with ATT whose term had to be met, but the claims of vapor have gone
up in a puff of smoke.

I know of several people who wanted iPhones but refused to give up Verizon's
cell network for ATT. The biggest gap in cell network satisfaction--based on
the word of mouth in my circles--is between those two. Now that this is
happening, iPhone is sure to maintain a permanently substantial market share
down the line; not as high unit sales as Android devices, but more than enough
to finance continued development of what I consider to be the best value for a
phone on the market, which is all I care about.

~~~
callahad
> _the claims of vapor have gone up in a puff of smoke._

Really? Sure, it's finally happened, but people have been predicting a Verizon
iPhone "next week / month / quarter" for, literally, years. It was practically
inevitable, seeing as Apple has no ideological qualms with multiple
distributers in other countries.

~~~
eli
If I recall correctly, Verizon was Apple's first choice for US carrier, but
refused to play ball with Apple's (admittedly unprecedented) demands.

------
jamesaguilar
If it doesn't actually happen on Tuesday, I will refuse to get my hopes up
ever again.

~~~
bane
There are times when I seriously get confused, did I buy an iPod Touch or an
iPhone?

Calls between me and other iPhoners just end up in a sometimes hilarious
tennis match of dropped calls and callbacks.

------
runjake
No LTE, the infamous metal strip will be almost complete flush with glass top
& bottom, metal strip will only be segmented once, instead of 3 times, mostly
resembles an iPhone 4 otherwise. Talk & data simultaneously. No Vzw bloat on
board. iOS 4.3.x (just changes for cdma).

If you're considering downvoting this, wait until Tuesday to do so :)

~~~
lusis
Talk and data at the same time isn't technologically possible on cdma. How do
you figure they'll pull it off?

~~~
InclinedPlane
[http://pocketnow.com/tech-news/simultaneous-voice-data-
comin...](http://pocketnow.com/tech-news/simultaneous-voice-data-coming-to-
cdma)

~~~
lusis
Ahhhh. I had missed that article last year. Thanks!

------
joshu
I am absurdly excited about this, mostly because I am in hate with my Droid.

However, the gmail and contacts integration on Droid is top notch. Am I going
to be less happy on iphone?

~~~
dantheman
gmail on iphone sucks - because of apple

~~~
jawee
Well, considering most of the cloud integration goodness on iPhone is only
possible with Google products, I don't think you can complain too much. iPhone
is just as Google-dependent for the full experience as is Android. I will say
that Google needs to develop a G-Mail app on par with its Android equivalent
for iOS, but using the default mail client with IMAP works just fine in
reality; it is the same basic experience as any other third party client.

~~~
dantheman
Apple doesn't allow 3rd party mail clients.

------
mikecarlucci
It will be interesting to see what this does to Verizon's Droid pricing. If
Verizon adopts similar plans to AT&T with a cheap, limited, data add-on, a
Verizon iPhone could be just as big a boost to Android.

------
jcr
Device specs for the Verizon iPhone 4 can be found here:

[http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=2548&c=verizon...](http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=2548&c=verizon_iphone_4_apple_iphone_3,2)

EDIT: Just so I can understand what I've done wrong, would one of the down-
voters please explain why the specs leaked in March/April last year are not
relevant? Thanks!

~~~
ajg1977
Since it claims the phone will be running 4.0.2, I'd say these are a little
more speculation than fact.

~~~
jcr
Heck, you always need take leaked specs with a grain of salt, if not a whole
shaker of salt, a lime, and a shot of tequila. I think your down-vote was a
bit reactionary.

Those leaked specs have been on the pdadb for at least 9 months even though
the device was only just officially announced during CES this week. I _think_
the verizon iphone specs have been up there since shortly before (March 2010)
the release of the iPhone 4 (June 2010), hence the iOS version it was claimed
to be running (during the end of development/prototyping). The first "preview"
of iOS 4.x was in April 2010.

Similar was true for Droid2 and Droid2-Global specs being available 9-12
months _prior_ to device releases/announcements. In both those cases, the
leaked specs matched up very well with the eventually released products.

Even when a device is "finished" (hardware engineering-wise) the lead times
for manufacturing ramp-up and marketing build-up can be many months.

EDIT: Added rough dates to leak and iOS releases

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history>

------
brown9-2
I'm currently inside the 30 day window return as a brand new iPhone/AT&T
customer; I wonder if any minor differences in this phone or in Verizon's
service (I really haven't had any problems with AT&T so far in the NYC area, I
make very few voice calls) would be impetus enough to switch.

Anyone care to speculate where the smart money might be on choosing AT&T or
Verizon for service?

~~~
CoffeeDregs
re: getting the Verizon iPhone:

    
    
      Reminder: date of product announcement != ship date

~~~
larrywright
Ship date is likely very soon, Apple didn't tell their retail employees they
couldn't take vacations this month for nothing.

------
melvinram
Fingers crossed that T-mobile won't be too far behind. I really love my
T-mobile plan.

~~~
wtn
I assure you that your T-Mobile plan will not be available for use with a
T-Mobile iPhone.

~~~
melvinram
Whatever it ends up being, I'm sure it'll be a better deal than ATT/V.

~~~
wtn
Pricing game theory suggests that T-Mobile should undercut AT&T by a small
margin at most.

------
mlinsey
The WSJ has had a particularly good record on Apple announcements shortly
before they happen (the iPad announcement, the case program in response to
antennagate), so I think we can be pretty confident about this.

------
ambirex
This is total speculation; back in Sept. I was thinking about the white iPhone
4 and how it was delayed. I can see it only being available on Verizon (for a
limited time) followed by specific colors for different carries, much like
KitchenAid does for their blenders.

I would be surprised if Sprint and T-Mobile didn't have the iPhone within the
year (if Verizon does indeed get it soon)

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'm crossing my fingers on T-Mobile. I gave my mom a jailbroken iPhone 3G a
few months ago, after she returned her third consecutive T-Mobile feature
phone in as many weeks.

She's never been happier with a phone ('so easy to use,' 'doesn't make me feel
like an idiot,' 'so many capabilities'), and I'd love to get her onto an up-
to-date one with 3G data capabilities.

I'd just tell her to move onto AT&T but, in my experience, their network in
the Twin Cities is even worse than San Francisco's.

~~~
cmelbye
Really? I've never once had an issue with my iPhone 4 and AT&T anywhere in the
Twin Cities. I have perfect 3G coverage pretty much everywhere I go.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I've had spotty reception trouble around Minneapolis, but Uptown has always
been the worst. For instance, I usually can only get a single bar of reception
inside Spyhouse on 25th and Hennepin on my iPhone 4, and 2 outside if I'm
lucky.

Also, I should mention that this experience was from Summer 2010. Maybe there
were some issues with ATT's network in July, or maybe they've been bringing a
lot more capacity online over the past few months.

~~~
protomyth
T-Mobile in the Twin Cities seems to have been going down hill (brother has
it). The company is cool, but their service is poor. His wife's iPhone is
doing great (Woodbury / St. Paul area). Also, one or more cell companies had
towers on the old 35w bridge before it fell down and I seem to remember an
article talking about problems arfterwords. T-mobile used to work fine down
I94, but now much west of St. cloud is dead.

// sorry about above, deleted comment because I saw this thread

------
jawee
This is certainly going to increase some iPhone marketshare in my area where
AT&T has essentially no service. I know some people already that have iPhones
and an additional cheap phone from Verizon or somebody to be able to reliably
communicate.

------
there
is this why at&t dropped the iphone 3gs to $50 today?

[http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/atandt-selling-
iphone-3gs...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/atandt-selling-iphone-3gs-
for-50-starting-tomorrow/)

~~~
Bud
I'd say no, totally unrelated, since:

a) it wasn't today b) that phone is now dated and was only $99 before; $50
less isn't a big deal considering that the real price includes a 2-yr contract

~~~
RyanGWU82
Yes, but smart phone buyers are going to enter a contract regardless. The
iPhone contract is no more expensive than competing smart phones' contracts.
When carriers compete on price, they're almost always competing on the price
of the device itself.

I mean, really, did anyone expect the iPhone to drop from $499 to $49 in three
years?!

------
jpcx01
And now the wait begins for iPhone to come to Sprint. I think I'm safe buying
a Galaxy S next month as I doubt it'll happen within the next 2 years.

------
Tyrant505
Why would anyone stay with at&t after this. I see this as a perfect pair
trade. Hey, use the profits to pay for phone/data bill :)

------
eddieplan9
It might be time to buy more Qualcomm stocks as it will be the provider for
the CDMA chip.

