The Nillabyte Perspective: Technology
iPhone To Come To T-Mobile and Sprint Before Verizon?
by
, December 2nd, 2009 at 12:41 PM
The AT&T iPhone exclusivity in the U.S. is expected to end next year, and many consumers are anticipating the popular iPhone to become available on other U.S carriers. Although there has been much demand for a Verizon enabled iPhone, analyst Shaw Wu believes a 2010 Verizon iPhone deal is unlikely.
Apple would have much to gain by teaming with Verizon and its 90 million customers, but Wu believes that both Verizon and Apple will be unable to agree on one key area: "customer control." He points out that "Apple controls the media experience with iTunes and VZ with its V CAST service." Although Verizon will want to enable potential Verizon enabled iPhones with V Cast, Apple will never allow this. Much of the iPhones success comes from its overall user experience and Apple controlling this experience is what makes the iPhone the iPhone. Verizon controlling the features would mar some of the appeal of the iPhone.
Wu goes on to say that Sprint and T-Mobile would be more viable options for Apple since they would be more likely to allow Apple's customer control. T-Mobile would be the easiest to partner with as it shares a similar 3G network as AT&T, meaning that little technology would need to be changed to enable the iPhone to work on the T-Mobile network.
Although Wu believes a Verizon Apple deal is unlikely in 2010, he does feel that a deal will be more possible when Verizon transitions its networks to 4G.
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