No surprise here. Verizon announced today that the iPhone will be available on that network starting early next month.
Prices are the same: $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for 32GB, with a 2 year service contract. No word yet on data pricing. Verizon has 93 million subscribers, so ending the exclusive deal with AT&T gives Apple access to tons more subscribers, many in large cities like New York and San Francisco with notoriously bad AT&T service.
The phone is using Verizon’s widespread CDMA network, as expected, so it won’t work overseas like the AT&T version.
Prediction: They will sell a lot of these. When Apple releases a new model in June, they will sell a lot more.
Further prediction: Android will continue to grow as well. Neither platform will kill the other anytime soon. People who say that this or that move by one platform will mean the death of the other platform should shut up, because they’re stupid.
android rules
The timing of this is weird. We know that Apple is releasing a phone in June because they always do. Most likely that phone will support GSM, HSPA+, LTE, and CDMA. That will allow one SKU and will work on both ATT and Verizon. Why would you buy the iPhone now, get locked in for 2 years and be shut out of the better phone in just a few months?
arbeck,
Because people are stupid. See first post of today (71%!!!).
Apple will be glad to sell off back-stock of iPhone 4 to dumb Verizon users right before they introduce the 4G (well, if they do). It doesn’t make sense from a (smart, rational) consumer’s viewpoint, but… 71%!!! I still can’t believe that.
I think the main reason why I dont care for the iPhone. 99$ to go from 16 GB to 32 GB. A 16 GB microSDHC is like 30$ these days. Most phones come with 4-8 gigs already, so its incredibly cheap and easy to install one. That and you can take it with you when you buy a new phone.
@2 – I’m sure the timing of this is “as soon as we could get it on sale.”
So, an announcement from Apple (for a device that has been out for a half year) gets its own post, but nothing on the many announcements from CES of far more interesting stuff. Why does Apple get this treatment? Why not talk about actually interesting tech news, such as the bananas Atrix 4G that was announced by Motorola, a phone with a dock that turns it into a fully functional Linux laptop? That’s something that’s actually new and different, not the same phone on a different carrier. You might as well just put an ad here.
I am overjoyed my contract is up. I’ve realized I never use any smartphoney features any more except for very occasional amusement. Rather than keep putting thousands a year in fees into wireless providers’ pockets I’m going prepaid high-call-quality phone with texting, a camera for souvenir dick pics if I should be so lucky, and that’s IT.
Whew.
@3 – They’re not selling back-stock of the iPhone 4 to Verizon customers—this is a new phone. Different antennas (CDMA vs GSM), the buttons have actually moved a bit to accommodate the new frame.
@6 – This isn’t a gadget blog. This announcement is of general interest to lots of people, while the CES announcement of thousands of gadgets that may or may not ever actually hit the market, let alone have any impact, is not. There are lots of blogs that will gladly repeat all of those press releases, I chose to repeat this one.
jjb @6,
The big news coming out of CES is that there was no big news to come out of CES, just dozens of would-be iPad and iPhone killers, most of which will never see their units sales rise above six digits. And oh yeah… a bunch of 3DTV sets.
I don’t know about the platform battle. It seems eerily similar to the early days of the PC when Apple went with it’s total control over hardware /OS strategy and the Windows/PC clone eventually took over almost the entire market.
If Android is cheaper to develop for and makes it easier to bring apps to market it seems Google’s got a chance of repeating the same trick.
#8 – good point, with the new 4G coming out, I misplaced the idea of the CDMA (Verizon) model being a new design and all with the 4G being a new design.
Although, you have to think that there WILL be some back stock as the CDMA has probably been in development longer than the 4G (well, maybe not) although this backstock could consist solely of separate components.
Regardless, Apple just wants to sell as much ish as possible, so if an idiot buys the 4 for Verizon before the 4G comes out, they will still be likely to want to upgrade at some point.
so annoyed that verizon kills usage outside of the usa. so annoyed.
I dropped AT&T a few years ago because of their shitty reception where I use it most. Got a Verizon phone, which got much better reception.
Then the iPhone came out. AT&T only. *ug*
So yeah, this interests me. I’ve held off buying an iPhone, even though they seem cool and I know lots of people with them, because I refused to go back to AT&T.
iPhone time for me!
I speak for many:
FUCK YOU ATT&T!!! Verizon HERE I COME!!!
You can always rent a phone when you travel and only give that number to emergency contacts and family.
Verizon will give you (yes, for free – all you need to do is ask) a SIM card that allows their phones to work internationally on GSM networks. Quit yer whining.
@9, @10 – Yes, I’m well aware that this isn’t a gadget blog. So why repeat the iPhone news? Why does Apple get special treatment in this respect? It’s a pretty boring announcement – “a product that has already been available for half a year that everybody knows exists is now available from a new corporate behemoth” – and it isn’t as if everybody isn’t going to learn about it from the endless PR blitz. The odds of someone interested in an iPhone not figuring out that it’s available from Verizon as well as AT&T is basically zero. You’re just helping Apple with their PR work. If you want to be helpful to this audience, you’d talk about things that the might not learn about otherwise. Helping Apple get the word out about a product announcement is pretty worthless. What’s the point?
I note that Goldy even frames this as “everybody at CES vs. Apple” by referring to iPhone or iPad killers. Again, that’s just helping out Apple’s PR job. There were interesting things at CES even without bring Apple into the frame that people might be curious about. I mentioned the Atrix above as a genuinely new idea, that of having your phone actually be a primary computing device, with the assistance of a full blown dock. That’s actually really cool and a new way of looking at computing. What about Firebrand, who were showing off a waterproof tablet that you could actually put under a running faucet to wash off, aimed at the home (and kitchen)? That’s looking at tablets in a different way. The point I’m trying to make is that framing the narrative in terms of Apple is lazy and uninformative, and working as an unpaid arm of Apple’s PR is even lazier and less informative. Apple needs zero help getting the word out, and extending their press releases onto Slog is monumentally unhelpful. As you say, this isn’t a gadget blog, so why give special treatment to one manufacturer’s gadget, especially one that already exists?
@17 – What? No, that’s wrong. The vast majority of CDMA phones don’t have a SIM slot or the ability to work on GSM frequencies. There’s a handful of Blackberries, the Motorola Droid Pro and Droid 2 Global and a couple feature phones, but they’re the exception, not the rule.
iPhone users who plan to stay with AT&T (due to work, contract, etc) will see their network become faster as more and more people run to Verizon and get off At&T’s already over strained network. Trust.
I guess I’ve only owned the “exceptions,” then.
As an Apple shareholder since 2000, I thank you all for your support.
I remember ten or so years ago, when beret wearing faux artistes writing poems about their first menstrual cycle on their Macbooks would turn up their smug noses at my Dell running Windows. I was part of an exploitative multinational conglomerate, while they were part of the Apple “culture”.
Now Apple is bigger than Microsoft, and only getting bigger. You can throw a rock without hitting an Ipod or Ipad. They make their products in a huge factory in communist China.
I love it.
@23,
They should. Dells fucking suck.
WooHoo!!!
I so want one but I don’t want to pay a monthly data fee as I would just use it in WiFi mode.
@25 – That’s called an iPod Touch, you’ve been able to get one of those for a while.
@25 the iPad has a wireless only version. Use that. It runs Skype (no, I am NOT joking).
Short lesson in cell-phone technology:
Verizon/Sprint use a transmission technique called CDMA. Few countries outside of North America have carriers that use a similar system; exceptions are some big carriers in China and India, which may turn out to be Apple’s main CDMA market focus. Its essentially impossible to “roam” internationally outside of North America with a typical off-the-shelf phone from Verizon/Sprint (including the newest iPhone).
AT&T/T-Mobile use a transmission technique named GSM, which is deployed globally in virtually every country (except Japan and Korea which use their own systems). These days, many of their phones can be used anywhere; the catch is that North America uses different frequencies for GSM than the rest of the world, but most newer phones can handle this. GSM phones also have a tiny removable chip called a “SIM card” which identifies the user’s phone-number and account-ID; these can be moved from unlocked phone to phone. People from North America visiting for example Europe can often purchase an inexpensive SIM card for temporary use which comes with a local number and a limited number of minutes.
“For every AT&T Android user there are 15 iPhone users: What will be the ratio at Verizon?”
“Analysts say the Apple and Verizon partnership could seriously hinder the rise of smartphones running Google’s Android software in the United States. Although Android phones have moved past the iPhone recently in terms of market share, that may not last. In countries where the iPhone has been available on multiple networks, it has tended to take most of the market.”