Verizon iPhone

Coming up on January 11 Verizon has scheduled a large press event in New York City and just about everyone already knows that it will be to announce a CDMA version of the iPhone.  Too many signs are pointing to just such an occurrence.  This will break the monopoly on the device that AT&T has enjoyed here in the United States since the iPhone first launched in 2007.

So, will Apple bring the iPhone to the other two large US cellular carriers (Sprint and T-Mobile)?

Probably not right away.

There have been some unsubstantiated rumors floating around the tech sphere that Verizon wants an semi-exclusivity period with the iPhone in that they and AT&T would be the only carriers.  The rumors state they are willing to either give up a large chunk of revenue or outright pay Apple for this perk.  Verizon has some deep pockets so I can see this happening in the short term.  In the longer term though it behoves Apple to start bringing the device to all US carriers if it wants to stem the Android tide and further marginalize RIM and the Blackberry platform.  Right now there are two phone operating systems that are ahead of Apple in phone usage in the US:  Blackberry and Android.  The metrics company comScore shows that in August of 2010 24.2% of smartphone users were on an iPhone and 19.6% used Android.  Fast forward three months and Android is sitting at 26% with the iPhone at 25%.  In both months Blackberry had the most users but slipped from 37.6% of users in August to 33.5% in November.  If Apple wants to win the race in this fast growing market they need more users.  There will be a large spike by adding Verizon to the mix but a lot of those will probably dedicated iPhone users who are fed up with AT&T and jump ship as well as current Verizon customers who are upgrading their devices.

Here's what I think will happen.

Every year since 2007 a new model iPhone has been released in the summer, typically mid-to-late June.  The CDMA powered iPhone for Verizon looks to go on sale sometime during the first week of February, just a few weeks away.  What happens in June this year?  Will Apple announce the iPhone 5 for only AT&T while Verizon is stuck with a modified CDMA iPhone 4 until next year sometime?  Verizon is ending its early device upgrade program in what looks like a way to keep people on a set device and locked in a set contract.  How happy will all the new Verizon iPhone customers be when in just five months a brand new iPhone that will more than likely be better shows up for AT&T users?  Heck, even if the thing comes out for Verizon also it would still leave a rather large number of ticked off users who will have to wait even longer.

What I think Mr. Jobs has up his sleeve is something a little more crafty.

Verizon gets the modified iPhone 4 in February and gets to have a period of semi-exclusvity shared with AT&T until this summer.  Then there will be the typical Apple press event to talk about the new iPhone and near the end will be another of those Steve Jobs "And One More Thing" moments when behind him on the big screen will be the logos of all four major cellular providers.  It's a no brainer.

Apple gets access to several million new customers and Verizon gets another feather in its cap for the first five or six months.  Then come summer open the doors a little wider and add several million new customers on other carriers and the coup is complete.  Maybe throw in the second generation iPad that is compatible with Verizon as well as AT&T like the original first generation 3G iPad and the installed user base of iOS devices leap frogs ahead of Blackberry and Android users.