"On February 3rd our existing customers will have an opportunity to pre-order... on February 10th, everyone will be able to order online, in stores, or in Apple stores."
For once, a telecommunications company gives perks to existing customers. For far too long have cell phone and broadband companies pampered new customers with deals rather than existing customers (and rightly so but still frustrating).
In the UK O2, the original iPhone network, have in the past held off letting any new customers buy the new iPhones for the first month to make sure their existing customers can upgrade first.
The CDMA Development Group announced provisions for SVDO, or Simultaneous 1x Voice and EV-DO Data in 2009, but there hasn't been much news on it since.
My guess is that Verizon will just continue upgrading its network for LTE instead of making this interim upgrade.
Could someone please explain how this hotspot feature usually works for smartphones? I'm having a discussion with a friend about this, but we're going nowhere since I don't own a smartphone and thus I'm not really sure what's the default here and how this iPhone does things differently.
[edit] what I expect is this: if I'm connected to a wifi hotspot to browse the Internet and I receive a telephone call, I should not drop the connection to the hotspot (am I wrong in understanding that this is NOT what this iPhone does?).
"You can use it as a WiFi Hotspot" means that you can use the phone to broadcast a WiFi signal for nearby computers/devices to use to access the Internet.
The phone acts as a WiFi access point, using the cellular network to relay the devices connected to it to the Internet.
Yeah, this is ok, but how does this iPhone behave differently than the usual here? Do the other phones (when acting as hotspot) keep broadcasting the WiFi signal when receiving data over the cellular network?
It's a limitation to CDMA, so if the same feature were allowed by AT&T you wouldn't have a service interruption due to voice usage (GSM can do voice and data simultaneously).
This is basically what is called "tethering", using the 3G internet connection of the phone for other devices (such as your laptop), except that the "tether" is no a physical connection but just a wifi connection. In other words, you put your phone into this mode and you can connect to it through wifi and have wireless internet anywhere you have 3G coverage. AT&T does not offer the same service.
Of course, it's worth noting that tethering isn't a "service" that carriers have to build or support. It's an inherent capability of a sufficiently advanced computing device that has access to two networks simultaneously. But in a textbook case of non-neutrality, AT&T (and others) prevent you from using that capability unless you pay them to remove the entirely artificial restriction.
Quite so. AT&T restricts your ability to tether, because there are still unlimited data plans and they don't want people to fully take advantage of those plans.
The hotspot feature turns the phone into a wireless router where the connection to the internet is provided through the phone's data connection. I don't think an incoming phone call would cause the wifi network to disassociate from any devices, but connected devices wouldn't be able to access the internet. This would be akin to disconnecting your modem from your home wireless router. Devices can still access the network but can't reach the internet.
I don't see why people make a big deal out of this. How often do you really need to talk AND use data at the same time? I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever had to or even had the inclination that I wished I could. I think it's one of those features that sounds cool, but in reality no one really uses.
I use it all the time. I'll often be on the phone (using a headset) and pull up information online, or send out an e-mail to someone on the con-call, or pull up a new document in DropBox, or.....
Add in using it a Wifi hotspot, and getting your VPN connection/download/SSH session/whatever interrupted every time your phone rings would be REALLY annoying.
I've often gone through the steps of saying "hold on" while on a call and launching Safari, Mail or some other app to check something that was being discussed (e.g. "Did you get my email?" "Not yet, I'll check now").
It'd be worse if you're using it as a hotspot and you're sharing the hotspot with other people.
Actually it's one limitation about CDMA that I hate. I would love to use one of the reverse lookup apps to get details about unknown callers but I can't because the operation of receiving the call means it can't simultaneously do the lookup.
I also hate having some sync operation get stopped because I get a call.
It's more annoying than you think but not a total deal breaker.
I work out of coffeeshops occasionally and use my Nexus One as a wifi hotspot to avoid unencrypted public networks (which is free for me on T-Mobile by the way). Its awfully nice to be able to take a phone call and hold on to the data connection so that I can continue working while on the call if need be.
I needed it recently--I was driving around downtown LA while talking to a friend and trying to use Google Maps (he was trying to guide me somewhere and I was having trouble finding it). In that case I happened to have spotty coverage and my phone switched to edge and so I couldn't do it and that was adding to my frustration.
Also talking on the phone and needing to look up a reference happens surprisingly often. It's really nice to have data available while talking.
For myself quite often. My boss calls me and lets me know that 'x' server is having 'y' issue. I'm on my phone's wifi hotspot so I'll log into the server and answer questions while we talk over what is going on.
For those who are locked in on contract, sure, but I wonder how AT&T's tethering terms versus Verizon's are going to affect AT&T's ability to attract new customers.
Is Verizon's CDMA network technically compatible with anywhere else in the world? (e.g. so that you can us the same phone in U.S and elsewhere, provided it is not locked)
Specifically, which frequency band does U.S. CDMA use?
"Locking" doesn't mean the same thing it does for GSM phones; CDMA phones have a builtin ID which is registered with the network, and there's no SIM card or equivalent to swap out to change that ID.
Sprint and Verizon both use the same CDMA frequencies in the US, and Sprint and Verizon phones roam on each other's networks. But there's no button on your Sprint phone to push to make it a Verizon phone, or vice versa. Sometimes you can get the carrier to do it for you -- the new carrier can choose to activate your existing phone on their network. At least I remember stories of people doing that; I never tried it so can't speak from personal experience.
No I don't think so. Everwhere else on the world is GSM. That confused me when I first read about USA mobile phones, I wondered what this CDMA thing was.
It's on a different frequency and uses a different communication protocol.
There are a few Verizon phones that are "world phones" meaning they can operate on CDMA and GSM, so you can take them out of the country with you.
I've brought my CDMA phone with me a few times and more or less got by on wifi for data needs (I wasn't going to pay the ridiculous international call fees anyway, last time I did that with my iPhone a 20 minutes of calltime and a few emails cost me over $150!)
While it seems not technically right, e.g. CDMA seems to be used here and there around the world, I am reassured in my opinion that if you intend to use your cell phone/modem not exclusively on your home operator's network, you'd better stick to GSM.
Thanks for your links, retroafroman and dboyd! That's exactly what I needed.
Looking at their map, it's highly misleading, implying there's CDMA 3G coverage in a bunch of places where there is no, or minimal coverage. (They're a trade body promoting CDMA -- what would you do in their shoes?)
CDMA2000 aka EV-DO isn't compatible with W-CDMA, aka UMTS -- the 3G standard used just about everywhere -- and has about 10% of the market worldwide:
If you're American and don't have a passport, then by all means get a Verizon iPhone 4. But if you expect to travel widely it'd be much more sensible to get a GSM/UMTS iPhone 4, even if it means putting up with AT&T at home. (More sensibly, buy an unlocked one from Apple on a trip to, say, the UK or Ireland: claim back the VAT and buy a micro-SIM on the network of your choice and you're golden.)
Very misleading. It highlights Ireland as a CDMA country (there's a trial apparently) However if you had a CDMA mobile phone, it won't work in Ireland.
And how does that work with the switch to LTE? It seems that AT&T eventually wants to invest in LTE infrastructure, too (but HSDPA can offer at least nearly the speed Verizon’s LTE has to offer at the moment so I don’t think they need to hurry). Will the US converge on one standard? (At least in the sense that building a phone that works both with AT&T and Verizon gets easier?)
It also seems like Verizon really needs to hurry up with LTE (I don’t even know whether you should call it 4G if HSDPA can be nearly as fast) because CDMA doesn’t go very fast. AT&T doesn’t have that same speed gap because they are using UTMS which can go much faster. (The current iPhone is limited to 7.2 Mbps, though.)
I'm not sure exactly how it works, but Verizon does offer international roaming in a few places (Mexico, etc.). It's nowhere near as good as AT&T's international roaming, but, as other commenters have posted, GSM is far more prevalent outside the US than CDMA.
Independently of the inability to roam in GSM 2G, you may still be able to roam on foreign 3G networks. For 3G, CDMA seems to be ubiquitous, it's mainly a question of at least one of the frequency bands supported by the phone being used in the destination country.
I've been thinking of dropping my AT&T iPhone 4 for a Droid Bionic on Verizon later this year. Given that, I'm really hoping they'll be charging extra for the wifi hotspot feature like they do with Android, or if they're not, making it free for Android users as well.
(edit: To be clear, the liveblogs I've glanced at haven't specifically said if it will be free or not, and Verizon apparently won't talk about plan pricing...)
I don’t really understand why you hope that they will charge iPhone users for the hotspot feature. That seems wholly unrelated to your purchasing decision.
> I'm really hoping they'll be charging extra for the wifi hotspot feature like they do with Android, or if they're not, making it free for Android users as well.
Meh, root your phone like every other hacker and you can get free tethering on Android as well. I use it all the time with my Droid.
I wonder how much they'll charge for the mobile hotspot feature? Earlier last year, when they were desperately trying to unload Palm Pres, they were throwing that capability in for free... but I somehow doubt that that will be the case with the iPhone. But I'd love to be proven wrong, as it's been an incredibly useful feature.
Curious, how big do people think this will be? Will Apple double its US userbase or will it be an incremental bump? I tend to think incremental.
The people in the US today who really want an iPhone have moved to ATT. The holdouts are those that:
1) Hate AT&T.
2) Are on a business plan who is tied to Verizon.
3) Those on a family plan, but aren't calling the shots.
For most of the people in 1-3, they already have a Verizon smartphone, and likely a relatively new one. So they'll trickle over the next year to 18 months.
Completely new accounts will go to the store and look at the phones. The iPhone looks less good, side by side, compared to the Droid X. With that said, there's no brand like the iPhone brand.
In any case, I think the sales on Verizon will be telling. Did people move to ATT to get the iPhone, or is there still tons of demand on the other carriers for the iPhone (obviously there's demand, but is it proportionate to the amount of demand that exists on ATT).
4.) Not having an AT&T carrier in the area.
Being from a state where AT&T is not an available phone service (South Dakota), this is a big deal. I'm not sure how many other states have this issue. We have been waiting for this since the iPhone was released. It will be great to finally have another smart phone option from a big player. Though I'll probably stick to my Android phone.
AT&T is converting Alltel's network in the Dakotas to UMTS. You can see the coverage at http://www.att.com/network/ (just click on the coverage tab at the bottom). Alltel had served rural western markets well for many years and the network will likely be stronger than Verizon's once it's launched (likely later this month).
Because of the way cellular licensing was done (two licenses in each market and 700ish markets in the country), it meant that many carriers were left with large holes in their networks over the years. Sure, later on a bunch of other license were made available, but something like a 1900MHz license isn't useful for rural coverage because the signals don't travel as far as lower frequency signals. So, in most rural communities you got the choice between two carriers. Now, some rural communities only have one real option due to mergers and the relaxation of the rule that no company can control both cellular licenses in a market.
Suffice it to say, Alltel's network in your area will soon be running UMTS/HSPA under AT&T's ownership. AT&T really couldn't enter the market without buying their way into the 850MHz licenses in the area. Alltel and Verizon owned them. Now Verizon and AT&T own them.
If you really want to see the state of rural wireless improve, write to the FCC or your state utilities commission and tell them that you want to make sure that one or two companies can't control all of the low-frequency spectrum required for rural coverage. Right now, AT&T and Verizon have merged their way into becoming the only two companies with the licences needed to provide rural coverage. Even looking at the 700MHz auction, it's clear that the situation won't change much. AT&T and Verizon took the majority of the licenses with smaller bidders getting some scraps. So, the far-penetrating spectrum is being concentrated in the hands of two carriers. If you'd like that situation to change, demand that new low-frequency spectrum go to carriers other than the big two. It's one thing for Verizon and AT&T to say that they need more spectrum in major metro areas because they have more customers. It's another thing to say that they want to have an oligopoly on the spectrum that can serve rural areas.
Where I live, It's rural and all the GSM and CMDA are in the kinda sorta 1 bar on a good day category. The only one that works everywhere around the island is Sprint's IDEN network (which they got from Nextel), but the phones are really expensive, the plans are worse, and there's no coverage anywhere else.
I grew up and went to college in Rapid and still have family and friends there. AT&T already has pretty good coverage in Rapid City, and my friends (working at Golden West Telecom) tell me that full 3G will be available within a few months. Don't know about rural areas.
It sounds like they are pretty serious about expanding their network there (which is good for me as an AT&T customer that regularly travels to Rapid City).
Exactly. Same case up in North Dakota. AT&T now owns Altel and has finally rebranded it, making it the second biggest carrier here behind Verizon. But, as far as I know, they're still running Altel's CDMA network. Not sure if they're ever planning on building out a GSM network.
> "In any case, I think the sales on Verizon will be telling"
Somehow I get the feeling that they won't. Armchair observers opining on the internet have never felt the need to rely on data before. They've long since drawn their conclusions and simply shop for justification; freely inventing some if acceptable evidence doesn't present itself.
So no-one's mind is going to be changed, regardless.
If you were bullish and it tanks, then Apple's 'premium' segment is assumed to have already moved to ATT. If you were bearish and it takes off, then it's the usual "marketing" and "cult" arguments again. The very marks of 'tank' versus 'incremental' versus 'wild success' will be subjectively twisted all to high hell. It won't matter if Apple sells 6M or 12M.
Just watch the reactions when the inevitable avalanche of pre-orders and launch-day lines are reported. "macolyte" and "marketing circus" will get bandied about again, along with suggestions that once the early movement is cleared out then the real measuring of Apple's success on Verizon can begin...
So no-one's mind is going to be changed, regardless.
I think people's minds will be changed. Just the most outspoken, like Gruber or Siegler, dominate the conversation and their minds never change.
For example, I thought the iPad would be a modest success and a disappointing product (after seeing the launch). Now, it is obviously a huge success. But more importantly I think it fundamentally changed how we think about computing devices -- in a good way.
of course, I don't have a great pulpit to speak from, nor do I like to blather on about how wrong I was, but nevertheless minds do get changed... even if quietly.
In that case, either they sell a million on day one or they don't (this presumes that we are ever told or can divine a semi-reliable sales estimate). His opinion doesn't enter into it.
I'd say part of the reason he is and remains popular is that he pretty consistently tries to present the data or line of reasoning behind the opinion, and on occasion adjusts to fit the new data...and but says so when it happens.
People moved to AT&T to get the iPhone, but a lot of them think the experience is subpar, and will prefer not to renew their contracts as things stand.
I expect there's a decent chunk of holdouts who'll have a good appetite for the VZW iPhone immediately, and there'll also be a steady stream of people switching from AT&T to Verizon as their contracts expire.
But kenjackson is looking at it from Apple's perspective. Sure a number of people may switch to Verizon from at&t but if they already had iPhone's Apple doesn't see any increase.
If you follow Gruber, he's made the point that Apple doesn't consider this a new device, and that Apple will probably sell it as the exact same device to customers. This is one significant area where it's not, though - if you buy an iPhone on Verizon, you get this feature. If you buy one on AT&T, you don't.
Apple to date has stood pretty firmly against the idea of carrier differentiation. There is nothing about the iPhone on AT&T that reminds you that it is an AT&T device, no preinstalled apps, no logos, nothing.
So that's why the hotspot is a surprise to me. I'm sure that Apple has been pushing for this on AT&T all along, but it seems to be a chip in the carrier fragmentation armor.
They'll just launch the new phone on AT&T (as good will, a concession) and do the Verizon version in time for Christmas, then sync back up during the next refresh cycle.
EDIT: Justification is that off the top of my head Apple has never refreshed a major product in six months, except for speed bumps. Apple had to move quickly by launching the iPhone 4 now and not waiting for summer to launch both versions of iPhone 5, as Android is gaining a lot of steam. This should satisfy impatient buyers who would be very upset if their new purchase would be outdated in just six months. Meanwhile Apple has had no problem refreshing after Christmas (Macworld, new iPad launch impending) because they are obsoleting mostly gifts.
Secondly the staggered iPhone 5 launch would provide Apple good negotiation leverage with AT&T without giving a lot up. This could be good for higher monthly kickbacks or iPad data prices. It also lessens the work load on antenna engineers.
Given this, it's very likely that the Verizon iPhone 5 will have pent up demand by the September music event, will cause a bigger splash in the media, and have it be the top phone on both carriers in time for Christmas. And it won't cheese of Verizon customers who went for the 4 in February.
There's no way this happens. Rumors suggest Apple tested this CDMA iPhone 4 for a year, so you have to assume they've already developed a CDMA iPhone 5.
My guess is iPhone 5 will support both GSM and LTE in one hardware. It will look similar to iPhone 4 and and both CDMA iPhone4 and iPhone5 will be available on Verizon, just like iPhone 3GS is still selling.
Ask Apple, I'd only be speculating at why they didn't redesign their existing product to support it :P
But, since what they did for the Verizon iPhone has no bearing on what will appear in the iPhone 5, I don't really understand the point of your question.
as you can see in the photo above, the newly revised CDMA antenna notch has pushed the volume and mute controls down a hair from GSM version. That means a lot of cases -- Apple's current bumpers included -- won't fit properly on the Verizon version
I'm seriously debating pre-ordering one on February 3rd as I'm an existing Verizon customer. My only hold-up is whether or not they'll release and LTE version in June. Assuming Apple does have the hardware ready by then, what's the likelyhood of Verizon having a substantial LTE presence by then as well?
Does anyone know what their LTE coverage looks like or how soon it'll match their 3G coverage? I'm under the impression LTE is only in major cities at the moment.
I highly recommend (as I do to all interested family, friends, and coworkers) that you wait, just a few months, until Apple has launched the new iPhone.
The worst case is that the iPhone 4 will be half the price of what it is today and you waited a bit (assuming no beneficial upgrades; unlikely) and the best case is that you'll get the new phone, with all of its features benefits, for the same price of today's iPhone 4 (much more likely).
I really hope this year is the year iOS also gets a refresh too. Apple has really let it stagnate and let their hardware do the talking. Windows Phone 7, I think, is a much prettier interface. Android has some killer features, like Navigation. Apple has the apps, which I guess is a perpetual motion machine for them, but iOS feels old. I worry that that won't change, as Mac OS has stayed fairly stationary from a UI perspective since 10.3, despite obvious and continually complained about problems, such as Finder.
I think the thing that turns me off is that Apple don't really want to make a communicator or a dumb terminal, they want to make a small computer. That the notification system has been so broken for so long, and the cloud integration has been non-existant, shows that Apple really aren't all that interested in the "phone" aspect. I think that's a real shame.
Android does it right: "What's your Google Account?" taptaptap "Oh hey, great. Here's all your contacts, all your email, all your calendar appointments. Good thing the Internet exists. Have fun."
No no, they've had feature patches on top of the UI they've already got. If you take my original first-gen iPod Touch and compare it to iOS 4, the differences are largely hardware, plus multitasking.
I would like a rethink of the icon grid, of staticness (like how the Calendar app doesn't actually show the correct date) and the like.
To be honest, I haven't really surveyed the competition recently. I'm currently using the HTC/Droid Incredible and aesthetically, I love it. It's sleek, I love the feel of it in my hands and the durability is great. HTC Sense is also a nice sheen on top of Android, but I hate waiting for updates while HTC battle tests the new versions of Android. I could stick with Android and get a vanilla install on a Motorola, but I haven't seen one that I like the looks of yet. Maybe I should look through the latest offerings from CES as you mentioned, but the original Droid, Droid X and Droid Pro just haven't peeked my interest.
Even though I'm a programmer (web developer), I'm not one to tinker with my phones so rooting and getting exactly what I want out of my Incredible doesn't appeal to me too much.
I suppose I'd be lying if I didn't add that there is a small protion of me that is an Apple Fanboy as well. I know their products are overpriced; I cringe at paying $100 for an extra 16gb of RAM instead of being able to pick up a cheap SD card. I also know that iOS is inferior in ways to Android, but Apple just sells it to me better than Google does somehow.
Realistically I don't have enough reasons to justify the switch, I really don't. But sometimes you know you want something and you just can't reason as to why.
I will, of course, do some more research before I decide to make a purchase. I appreciate you reminding me to check out thew new stuff that came out of CES. Any device(s) in particular you would suggest taking a look at?
Thanks for the feedback. :-) I'm trying to get a sense of which devices various people prefer. I get what you're saying about the "Apple allure" -- although other devices now are very, very close to Apple's design, there's still something compelling about Apple's presentation and overarching design of its products.
As for the new stuff at CES, there were a handful of pretty powerful new devices announced, but the two that really caught my attention were the Motorola Droid Bionic and the Motorola Atrix. All of the feedback on the Bionic has been positive so far, with a lot of it centering on how fast the device feels. The Atrix really stole the show though -- it's a phone that can be docked into a laptop or desktop form factor and used almost like a normal computer for most tasks. Expensive though, but a really cool concept.
Yes, that's the word I was trying to think of and couldn't: "allure". And you're right, Apple definitely has it in droves.
Anyway, thanks for listing off the Bionic and the Atrix. I had heard a bit about the Bionic, but nothing about the Atrix so I'm off to check those out. The Atrix does sound incredibly cool.
In my opinion, this will either slash the current price of Android phones or slow down Android growth considerably.
I just can't help but to think, if I were a non-geek consumer, and it was the same price to walk out of the store with an iPhone over a Droid - I know I'd choose iPhone.
Does the Droid have a silver-bullet marketing point that I'm missing, or is it all over for Android?
"Android has been competing quite favorably with the iPhone in hundreds of other markets that lack carrier exclusivity."
I always thought that Android was a second-class citizen in places where the iPhone had been out for a while with no carrier exclusivity. Do you have data to the contrary?
Android is great. The branded, bloated crap that Verizon sells on their Android-based phones is awful. Apples to apples, the pure Android experience is very comparable to the iPhone. But comparing the products as they are delivered to consumers, the iPhone has a huge advantage in that Apple refused to let the carriers ruin the user experience.
If people wanted an iPhone, they could have just gone to AT&T and bought an iPhone. While this will probably reduce sales of Android phones through Verizon, I certainly don't think it means it is 'all over'. I agree prices may drop on Android phones, and manufacturers may have to step up their game a bit more especially in terms of software.
With Android phones you have a choice of prices, different hardware configurations including physical keyboards, easily replacable batteries, expandable memories (i.e. buy a 32GB card for $50 vs. paying Apple an extra $100) and not least, the freedom to run whatever software you choose. While some nice things like game emulators are available for Android, though, it's true that iOS has a wider range of software for now. Another issues is that many people are turned off by the Apple brand, for one reason or another.
HTC, Samsung and Motorola have some impressive offerings of their own, hardware wise, and I'm sure they'll continue to sell plenty of phones.
If people wanted an iPhone, they could have just gone to AT&T and bought an iPhone.
My sister really wanted an iPhone but she absolutely did not want to switch from VZW (she travels a lot and voice calls are a priority), so she got a Droid. The Droid has been good enough, but she's been asking me about iPhone on Verizon ever since the rumors started; a couple of weeks ago when the rumors started to heat up, she told me she was going to switch. (the fact that her 13-month-old Droid is essentially considered "obsolete" in terms of being able to buy accessories locally helped her decision).
I know anecdotes aren't data but I doubt she's unique in this regard.
I know anecdotes aren't data but I doubt she's unique in this regard.
Yes, my experience is the same. Don't discount the power of free minutes for calling inside your network. If all your friends and family are on Verizon, not only do you worry about your phone bill going up, but the network effect of everyone else saying their bill will go up too is intense.
I've been trying to change networks for years, but my wife has always successfully talked me out of it, not because of my contract (which would go down on T-Mobile) but because hers would go up so much it would be a net loss (she likes to talk to me, which I guess is a good thing :) )
That's a good point, that people may be bound by contracts already, yet looking to buy a new phone. I'm sure I'll buy a new phone or two by the time my two year contract is up with Verizon in 2012. As a mobile developer, though, I was already going to buy an iPhone 5 and a Nexus.
I'm in Australia, where all our carriers are GSM and have the iPhone (in addition to it being sold unlocked directly from Apple), so I don't care about Verizon or CDMA, but I would love to know if the hotspot feature will make it to the standard iPhones, even if AT&T doesn't like it.
Tim Cook's (non)response (via TechCrunch's live blog)...
Will not comment on the roadmap." No promise of a new CDMA iPhone in summer. Tim Cook: We chose CDMA because the LTE chipsets forced some design concepts that we would not make.
When will be able to see an LTE-enabled iPhone? A. We're not commenting on unannounced product.
That would be a significant engineering change (above and beyond CDMA that they have been working on for years, and for which chipsets are mature) and would essentially make it an iPhone 4.5. LTE will certainly come to the iPhone 5, due in just a few months.
I really, REALLY hope Apple prevents Verizon from "verizon-ifying" this phone. They constantly put un-removable bookmarks, bloatware apps, and other bullshit on their phones.
That will be a total deal breaker for me, if they do.
Apple’s own Phil Schiller assured the press that Verizon would not be loading up the device with crapware, too. “We want the experience to be the same for every iPhone user. So there are no special Verizon Apps preinstalled,” Schiller told Ars. “AT&T offers customers some apps via the App Store. I’ll let Verizon comment if they are working on anything for that.”
Now that the iPhone is on the Verizon network, the competition with Android will heat up.
Until now, Apple had to field unnerving questions about the total # of Android units sold vs iPhone units sold. But there was always a very relevant factor holding it back: to get the iPhone in the US, you had to be on AT&T.
Until now.
Now that the iPhone is no longer married to AT&T and will be offered by Verizon as well, millions will flock to get it. Now we can truly answer the question: do more people like the iPhone than Android phones?
I'm not sure about that, I don't know what pricing is like in the US but here (Ireland) Android phones are significantly cheaper. Most people I know who buy an Android phone, do so because it was a cheap phone, not because it's a 'smartphone' (excluding the more technically inclined friends of mine) — while the iPhone and Android are certainly competitors, I don't think people buy Android for the same reason. If I'm making sense...
Okay, it's still not a fair fight, but at least the iPhone is now on the two BIGGEST carriers, which means that it's less handicapped than before :)
Something tells me that if the iPhone was neck-and-neck with the Android phones for a while, now it will outpace them. ONE COMPANY beating a combined set of companies based on brand and quality (rather than lock-in effects). Go Apple!
Personal hotspot support is awesome, but will all this extra bandwidth, I'm surprised Verizon is not one-upping AT&T with over-the-air FaceTime as well.
Damnation, now I'll have to get a Verizon iPhone so I can replace my Mifi (for which I'm paying the same monthly amount for a wifi 5-user EVDO hotspot).
Antenna configuration has more to do with the bands supported than the technology used. It does require a different chipset to support CDMA.
There are CDMA/GSM phones available by implementing both technologies (and Qualcomm does provide hybrid chips). The Droid 2 Global is the best example right now. It supports CDMA 850/1900; GSM 850/900/1800/1900; UMTS 850, 1900, 2100.
"Verizon's CDMA network doesn't support simultaneous voice and data as with the GSM version"
This is probably a deal killer for me. I do this quite frequently. I also remember on the old edge network data activity sometimes sent callers to voicemail, which is unacceptable. Hopefully Verizon does not have that issue as well.
My biggest hope is that competition forces AT&T to be less ridiculous about data pricing for people with multiple devices, tethering, hotspots, etc.
On other CDMA smartphones, I've never seen data activity send callers to voicemail -- the call goes through, the data connection stalls until the call ends.
Not optimal, surely, but nowhere near as bad as sending calls to voicemail without ringing like the old iPhone on EDGE.
I had noticed this on my Verizon phone but didn't realize there was a technical reason. It's pretty annoying to be waiting on hold, and not being able to fribble on the internet in the meantime!
They are hands down the most reliable cell voice provider with the greatest coverage. Their customer support is not great, their prices are too expensive but they are reliable.
I don't have a smart phone and use my cell only for voice so Verizon works great for me. Sometimes I travel in US and my wife's AT&T phone loses coverage while Verizon still has a strong signal. It is almost never the other way around.
Hardware-wise, I believe, Verizon own most towers as well. Often other carriers rent space on a VZ tower.
I'm wouldn't be so sure of Apple's phone pipeline... The iPhone4 is still high spec and without much competition. Why not sell as many as possible then drop the next one at a better time?
They discontinued the iPod Mini when it was the highest selling music player in the world. I don't think they let sales stop them from replacing a product.
It makes one wonder whether they'll stick with the existing once-a-year update schedule. Or, even if they do, maybe the next upgrade will be like the 3G->3GS jump or even less... maybe just double the storage across the line? I don't imagine they'll change the body style significantly for a while yet.
For once, a telecommunications company gives perks to existing customers. For far too long have cell phone and broadband companies pampered new customers with deals rather than existing customers (and rightly so but still frustrating).