Rumor: Verizon iPhone To Debut Right After Christmas

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We report with reservations, because this rumor — while titillating — is clearly absurd. That said, if you don’t hear it from us, you’ll hear it from someone more breathless: Mac Daily News is claiming that the Verizon iPhone is coming to a Verizon outlet near you as soon as December 26th.

Right there, that date is absurd: no cell company in the world is going to launch their prestige phone right fter Christmas. Mac Daily News claims i’s because AT&T’s “final demand” as part of their exclusivity contract was that Verizon couldn’t get the iPhone until after Christmas, so they could squeeze in as many sales as possible… but even that doesn’t make any sense. This is a legal contract, not a negotiation: either AT&T’s exclusive agreement names a date the contract lapses, or it doesn’t. Either way, they have no negotiating position: the iPhone is bigger than AT&T. Who are they to dictate the terms here?

It gets stupider. Supposedly, the Verizon iPhone will be available the day it’s announced, and it’ll be a 4G smartphone. But here’s the problem: Verizon’s just starting to roll out their LTE network, and they’ve made a point of saying they won’t have any LTE smartphones until they work the kinks out of the system, sometime in mid-2011. More to the point, Apple doesn’t have a history of being progressive when it comes to embracing generational advances in communications technology — the first iPhone, for example, was EDGE-only, even though 3G was ubiquitous.

We’re calling it. There’s no way this is true, even if we’d love it to be. God knows that AT&T’s exclusivity on the iPhone 4 lapsing would be the best Christmas gift Santa Jobs could possibly give us.

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