Apple CEO Tim Cook has been blunt about Cupertino’s plans for adopting LTE: they’d love to, but they’re waiting on next-gen LTE chipsets that aren’t so power-thirsty they’ll turn your iPhone’s battery pack into a desiccated husk within seconds of flipping the 4G radio on.
Well, Qualcomm may have just announced the next-gen LTE chipset that might finally allow Apple to roll out 4G speeds to iDevices in 2012.
Despite losing its exclusivity to the iPhone back in February when Apple introduced the CDMA iPhone 4 for Verizon, AT&T is still the most dominant iPhone carrier in the United States, enjoying 60% of iPhone 4 subscribers.
A good report by Horace Dediu over at Asymco shows that about every quarter, about 56% of all new iPhones are replacing old models that have been discarded.
That’s interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily paint a good picture for AT&T, which seems to be growing new iPhone customers at a much slower rate than they once did.
Wall Street seemed ready to have an epileptic seizure last month when Apple merely reported an incredible, record-breaking quarter instead of whatever financial fever dream they imagined, so this ought to give them a little spring in their step: the iPhone 4S is now the best-selling smartphone at all three of the top US carriers. Duh.
How well are U.S. carriers selling the iPhone? Verizon Wireless, the second domestic carrier to get the Apple handset, announced it sold 2 million of the smartphones during the third quarter. The company did not reveal how many of the latest iPhone 4S units it sold, however.
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Jeff from iDownloadBlog is one of the lucky few to have not one, but three iPhone 4S’s running on all three US carriers.
The above video demonstrates the speed differences between AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint on the iPhone 4S. As you can tell, Sprint is painfully slow while AT&T and Verizon seem to have very similar speeds.
Apple touts the iPhone 4S as having HSDPA “4G” speeds on AT&T, but many have found that data speeds on AT&T are barely faster than Verizon’s network.
Also, if you can’t activate your 4S today, you’re not alone. AT&T specifically has been falling apart under the crushing weight of the 200,000 pre-orders that were delivered for its network today.
Following months and months of speculation, Apple’s iPhone 4S has finally been launched in the U.S. today, and is now available to through carriers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, as well as a number of U.S. retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and, of course, Apple.
If you’re buying your new CDMA iPhone 4S through Sprint, then you’ll be pleased to know that the device will come unlocked — allowing you to stick in any SIM and use the device on any network. If you’ve ordered a Verizon device, however, it will come locked to Verizon, but you can request to have it unlocked after 60 days.
So Apple didn’t announce that all-new iPhone 5 you were so desperately longing for, but the good news is, you can use your current stock of iPhone 4 cases with your new iPhone 4S, right? Wrong!
While Apple’s new iPhone looks the same as its predecessor, there’s a very subtly difference that may mean some cases won’t fit it.
Apple’s iPhone 4S is available to pre-order today, but if you’re ordering in the U.S., you’ll have to purchase it with a commitment from either AT&T, Sprint or Verizon. Those wanting an unlocked device will have to wait until November, and they won’t get a world phone.
Following Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 4S on Tuesday, Sprint has finally updated its website to notify customers that it will be carrying the iPhone. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S begin on October 7, but pre-orders for the iPhone 4 on Sprint are now being taken.
Verizon Wireless has reportedly offered staff at its call centers ‘unlimited overtime’ this Tuesday — the day Apple is set to announce its fifth-generation iPhone. Although recent reports claim the device will launch a week or two after the event, Verizon is “expecting something big to drop THAT DAY.”
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Verizon Wireless is launching an unlimited voice and data prepaid plan. The plan will compete directly against Sprint and T-Mobile’s prepaid options. AT&T already offers a prepaid plan for $50 called GoPhone.
Verizon’s new $50 plan will include unlimited talk, text and web usage. Starting this Thursday, the plan will be available to eligible Verizon Wireless customers. It looks like iPhone users have one more reason to switch to Verizon.
Following its move to shun T-Mobile and begin selling Verizon devices instead, a screenshot from Radio Shack’s internal system reveals the retailer is set to begin selling the CDMA model of Apple’s iPhone, and its iPad 2, from September 15.
More parts claimed to be for Apple’s next-generation iPhone reveal what many reports have claimed for some time: that Apple’s next iPhone could look identical to the iPhone 4 with only a few changes to its internals.
Recent speculation suggests Apple is currently working on a cheaper model of its iPhone 4 that is set to launch alongside the iPhone 5 in the coming months. Expected to be named the iPhone 4S, the new device could feature a redesigned antenna and home button, according to the latest leaked components.
Since launching the CDMA iPhone for Verizon back in February, Apple has been producing two models of the iPhone 4: one for AT&T, and one for Verizon. A dual-mode iPhone 5 with support for both CDMA and GSM networks seems like a no-brainer next time around, then, and according to at least one iOS app developer, the device is all but confirmed by logs that show a dual-mode device in testing.
Verizon Wireless introduced a brand new data plan late last week that gives customers 300MB of data for just $20 per month. It’s available to customers in the mid-Atlantic region from August 18 to September 30, but is expected to roll-out permanently by this holiday season. For those who aren’t massive data consumers but would like to get a little bit of browsing for their bucks, it seems to be a great deal.
The safe bet is that the iPhone 5 will stick with 3G instead of lightning fast LTE 4G mobile broadband, but not so fast! A new report on Monday says that Apple’s 4G-capable carrier partners are already testing iPhones with LTE capability.
Now that both Verizon and AT&T are in the iPhone game, are you confused about your carrier options? Apple’s working on a new feature that will make things a whole lot easier.
Verizon has followed AT&T’s lead and taken measures to block customers from tethering their iPhone’s data connections illegally. Customers have long been using jailbreak apps to avoid their carrier’s additional monthly fee for tethering, but this method may no longer work if you’re signed up to AT&T or Verizon.
According to a “very reliable source,” iPhone Italia has reported that one of Switzerland’s carriers, Swisscom, will start offering the rumored iPhone 5 on October 5. Also, the Italian site’s source is “100% sure” that the iPhone 5 will also be available in the US on September 5, as Apple would already have to be talking with carriers about distribution for a new device this Fall.
Apple’s second U.S. carrier partner announced iPhone 4 activation numbers suggesting AT&T is still preferred by owners of the tech giant’s iconic handset. Verizon Wireless activated 2.3 million iPhone 4s during June, below the figure AT&T announced yesterday.
Apple may be brewing up a pre-paid iPhone for October. Wednesday, Sprint-owned Virgin Mobile announced starting in October it was dropping ‘unlimited’ data plans for prepaid customers in favor of ‘unlimited with throttling.’
Short of Sprint’s WiMax, Verizon LTE has no actual competition to speak of in the 4G market. AT&T and T-Mobile’s “4G” is really just supercharged HSPA+ 3G technology, after all. So the results of PC Mag’s nationwide mobile bandwidth test shouldn’t be much of a surprise: Verizon LTE just mops the floor with the competition.
That’s not going to last though. Here’s why.