What’s been rumor, speculation and a good way to fill blog space is now…well, still all of the above; but the rumors are beginning to sound more and more like hard fact — that Verizon has bagged the iPhone.
Just days after the iPhone arrived at Apple stores, and one day after on the same day it hit AT&T’s outlets, Bloomberg News says “two people familiar with the plans” claim that Verizon will begin selling iPhones next year in January. The two sources spoke anonymously; not surprisingly, neither Bloomberg News nor anyone else running the story has been able to get an official comment from either Apple or Verizon.
But it’s not an official statement, and really just brings more questions with it: Does this mean we’ll be seeing the Verizon CDMA iPhone (phones with CDMA guts being compatible with Verizon’s network, but not AT&T’s) Apple is rumored to be cooking up? What about a Verizon rollout of the vaunted Long-Term Evolution network — the 4G data network possibly running on the next iPhone — sooner rather than later? Both AT&T and Verizon are building LTE networks, but Verizon has a substantial head-start — could they really be ready for the iPhone next year sometime?
We’ll wait for official comment to clear all this up, but it certainly sounds interesting. Though perhaps not to anyone unhappy with AT&T’s service who’s just signed up for another two years.
[via Bloomberg News, USA Today]
