To borrow The Rock’s schtick, the millions — and millions — of people wishing for an Apple iPhone on Verizon will have to wait a little longer. At least that’s the word according to BroadPoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall. According to him, AT&T’s flexibility on iPad data plans has extended the company’s time as the exclusive iPhone carrier in America. He told ComputerWorld:
For that pricing [on the iPad], AT&T was able to negotiate a six-month extension on the iPhone exclusive.
If Marshall is correct, that’s brilliant news for AT&T and crappy news for the rest of the country (I’m exaggerating). The speculation was that Verizon was gunning hard for an LTE iPhone to help kick off the launch of its 4G LTE network in Q4 2010. The buzz on that scenario has been dying. Now kindly excuse me as I go weep on my pillow.
I'm crying with you Ray.
My Verizon contract expires this month and I'm thinking about joining T Mobile, does anyone have any serious issues with T Mobile? Let me know, of course I will be looking into but your opinions could help, thanx.
@Big Blak It depends on where you live and work, but I've been thrilled with T-Mobile's service in LA. It was great in NY and SF too. My favorite feature on T-Mobile is UMA, which let's me use WiFi as phone signal. When traveling internationally, the WiFi minutes let me call American numbers for "free".
Get an Incredible.
@ RAY
We pretty much have the same service level as NY in MA (at least in the city) and wifi is a must for me this time around. I have the Voyager right now and aside from the full qwerty and touch its a piece of junk.
@ SG
I'm leaving the Verizon family bro, I leaning toward T Mobile.
I gotta stick with verizon, but they just seem to be losing me slowly but surely. I have not been impressed with the phones that they have available and I love the actual service, just not their awful phone selection.
@Big Blak smartguy's recommendation is sound. The Incredible is a great phone. That said, T-Mobile has some interesting things coming over the next few months. I already wrote about the myTouch Slide. T-Mo is rumored to be getting the Galaxy S and Nexus Two too.
I am with AT&T and this seems like horrible news. I want the iPhone exclusiveness to end so that AT&T will get some real phones for a change and not make their "best" phone the iPhone. I can only assume the iPhone is the main reason for AT&T not jumping on the Android bandwagon.
@SlickyFats AT&T already has a mediocre Android phone and has several good ones on the way.
analysts had originally predicted a summer 2010 launch of a verizon phone, So Q4 isn't too much of an exaggeration given the 6 month timetable. We could have a verizon iPhone as early as January of 2011.
I too was a little shocked and dismayed when they announced iPad would be on AT&Ts network. That's probably part of the reason I didn't get the 3G version yet.
@BB
If you have to leave and are leaning towards T-Mo, then heavily consider an N900 or any other Nokia smartphone that will run on their network. Otherwise, Nexus 1.
@Ray
Yeah they destroyed all functionality on the Backflip and the new Android phones from Dell (Aero) & HTC (Lancaster) don't have a set date that I know of but AT&T is still far behind everyone else in adopting it.