For quite some time now the Verizon iPhone rumor has been going around the blogosphere. As of recently, even Verizon has said that they are not going to carry the iPhone. With that said, the Verizon iPhone rumor mill is at full speed with the latest rumor that a Chinese company has received orders from Apple to make a CDMA iPhone.
Cult of Mac’s Ed Sutherland reports on this:
““Pegatron will also start shipping a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 to Apple in the fourth quarter and is currently using its plants in Shanghai, China to produce the products,” DigiTimes reports, citing unnamed sources. In May, DigiTimes reported the company had been awarded the CDMA contract.”
If this is in fact accurate, it would be a shift in Apple’s product cycle. Personally I don’t see this happening, but for argument’s sake let’s say that it is true. Does this mean that Apple considers the CDMA iPhone to be a separate product in their iOS line of products? Or, does this mean, as Sutherland points out in his piece, that “…an Apple CDMA handset is destined for markets outside of the U.S., such as Japan or China”?
I would have to go with the latter of the two above statements. Apple has different product cycles for outside of the U.S., so it would stand to reason that the CDMA iPhone would launch later this year in the fourth quarter outside of the U.S..
Moreover, for those that are holding out for the iPhone to move to Verizon, myself included, I’ll explain in a moment why I would tell them to take this news with a grain of salt. As I stated earlier, it is highly unlikely that Apple is going to break their product cycle. With that said, I would welcome a Verizon iPhone to the market. After this past Tuesday’s iPhone 4 ordering debacle, it would be great to see the iPhone on another carrier other than AT&T. It would definitely balance the load. Let’s face it, AT&T seems either inept or simply unable to improve on their network.
Photo Credit: CDMA Edition iPhone
Article Via Cult of Mac
