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Last week, Verizon Wireless sent invitations to an event in New York City. This announcement has been interpreted my many sources, including the Wall Street Journal, as the long-awaited announcement of the Verizon iPhone. Why else, the speculation continues, would Verizon Wireless be so flashy, and not announce this at the Consumer Electronics Show last week? It cannot possibly be anything less important than the iPhone.
However, this doesn't look to be a typical Apple announcement. There are several reasons to draw this conclusion.
- Apple has announced all their new technology over the last decade either on their own campus, in Cupertino, CA, or at their annual Developer's Conference. Lincoln Center in New York City is neither location.
- Apple makes their own product announcements. They didn't allow AT&T to announce the iPhone. They didn't allow Zynga to announce FarmVille for the iPhone. Sure, AT&T and Zynga were on stage and in attendance at their respective events, but it was Apple's show. This isn't.
- At CES, Verizon Wireless had a huge presence. Throughout the show, they introduced phone after phone after phone. Almost every phone they introduced was based on Google's Android Operating System. For Verizon to so quickly announce a product seen in the marketplace as a huge rival to the product line they spent the last week trumpeting seems counterintuitive.
- Verizon Wireless already has an Apple product in their stable - the iPad. However, their version of the iPad is the WiFi-only version. Currently, Verizon's network runs on a technology that does not require or utilize a SIM card. Apple's 3G products in the US all require SIM cards, which is great for the AT&T network. The next version of the Verizon Network, their 4G/LTE offering, does utilize SIM cards. It stands to reason that the first iPhone on Verizon will be an LTE phone. Those were all announced last week.
- More on the LTE front: Verizon Wireless is building their LTE network, but the coverage is still spotty, focused in some of the largest markets. If the iPhone is an LTE version of the device, its audience would be severly limited by this factor. On the other hand, if it were only a 3G device, the limitation would be the use of old technology that will be left behind by year's end. Either way, Apple loses here.
And it is possible that the speculation by the Wall Street Journal is right, and this speculation is incorrect. However, while the iPhone is imminent on the Verizon Wireless network, all signs point to that particular announcement coming well after tomorrow.
I look forward to your thoughts and comments on this subject!
Sorry but 99% of the evidence points to Verizon getting the iPhone tomorrow. You have some valid points but keep in mind that this is not new technology, just a new antenna on the iPhone 4 on a new carrier. No need for Apple to have a big announcement on this. All the big tech blogs were invited to the Verizon event tomorrow....except for Gizmodo who revealed the iPhone 4 before its release. Steve Jobs was not happy about that. Note that Gizmodo typically does get invited to Verizon events.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why they didn't announce this at CES. It is possible that Apple wants them to create their own event. Apple typically overshadows those big events with their own announcements.
The first iPhone on Verizon will not be an LTE phone. We will probably see this in 2012. Apple typically doesn't adopt new technology until the standards are worked out and there is broad availability.
3G still has a few years left. It is not near its end of life.
We shall see if you are correct soon enough!