Everything You Need To Know About The Verizon iPhone 4

  • Share
  • Read Later

Intangibles

What does this mean for AT&T?

It’ll probably lose some people right away, but I’d guess that not as many people will defect as it seems. Many of us are still locked into some sort of contract (the early termination fee starts at $325 and decreases by $10 per month for each month you’ve served in your contract), some will still need the ability to use their iPhones worldwide, and some won’t want to give up AT&T’s higher theoretical data speeds and the ability to use the web and voice features at the same time.

AT&T’s network woes won’t magically disappear overnight, either. Once enough people either leave AT&T for Verizon or join Verizon instead of AT&T, we’ll hopefully start to see congestion decrease. But it could take months for things to level out.

What does this mean for Verizon?

Aside from the fact that Verizon will probably sell a ton of iPhones, there are other factors to consider. For starters, iPhone sales will eat into Verizon’s sales of every other smartphone it stocks. Android phones will probably take the biggest hit, but existing BlackBerry phones and the Windows Phone 7 devices that’ll be available on Verizon this year will suffer as well.

(More on Time.com: Apple’s Hits and Misses So Far)

Verizon’s network, on the other hand, will probably be fine. The brilliance of offering a 3G iPhone instead of pushing a 4G iPhone is that many of the other smartphones that Verizon’s selling this year—Android phones especially—will be 4G phones. The more handsets that use Verizon’s new, fat-pipe 4G network, the more open its 3G network will be for iPhone use.

What does this mean for the iPhone 5?

This is, in my opinion, the most interesting question. Apple historically brings out a new iPhone around June. Assuming the company will roll out the iPhone 5 in a few short months, will it only be available on AT&T or will it be available on Verizon as well?

It’d be good for AT&T to have the exclusive on the iPhone 5, and almost negative for Verizon to have the iPhone 5 at the same time, given that people who rushed out to purchase the first Verizon iPhone wouldn’t be able to get the iPhone 5 without paying dearly for the upgrade. That’s probably the least of Verizon’s worries, though.

Now if the iPhone 5 is a 4G phone, on the other hand, it could be positioned as a different type of product class by both AT&T and Verizon. Something tells me Apple may sit this round of 4G out, though, given its track record of waiting for certain technologies to mature. We may not see a 4G iPhone on any network until next year.

What does this mean for other carriers?

When asked if the CDMA iPhone was exclusive to Verizon, Apple COO Tim Cook responded that it’s a “multi-year, non-exclusive deal.” Keep that in your back pocket, as Sprint also runs a CDMA network.

Check Verizon’s iPhone 4 frequently asked questions page for more.

More on Time.com:

Consumer Electronics Show: 11 Tech Trends for 2011

See the ALL-TIME 100 gadgets list

10 Mac Store Apps To Get You Started

 

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next